I read with great interest and some sorrow the attack on The Democrat’s position that Obamacare is un-American; this attack appeared unconvincingly in a letter to the editor titled “Health Care is not unconstitutional.”

In this letter the author used three examples of unconstitutional laws to bolster his opinion that health care is not unconstitutional. Three wrongs do not justify a right; acceptance of four unconstitutional laws by the Supreme Court makes none of those laws constitutional. Court opinions casting any of these laws as constitutional are merely evidence of the failure of the Supreme Court to stick to its duty of interpreting the constitution according to the guidelines laid down by the writers of the constitution.

Courts often make mistakes and the beauty of our court system is that the most powerful court in the land is the local court where a properly informed jury has the right and the duty to judge the law as well as the facts in any case. Judges don’t like to bring this up in their instructions to the jury but that is not the Constitution’s fault. Before a fully informed common law jury any of these laws could be nullified.

It is so that a jury may find any defendant not guilty even if that defendant did in fact commit an offense. This is in perfect keeping with the ninth and 10th amendments which reserve power to the people; it is the people who hold power over the government in this country, at least according to the Constitution.

Laws that force the people to enter into contracts against their will violate the people’s natural, constitutionally protected right to exclusive use of private property.

Laws such as the seat belt law, the liability insurance law, sales and income tax laws, and proposed health care laws should only become law if 100 percent of the people agree to give up this power of exclusive use of private property to some governmental authority.

These types of laws erode the individual right to property which forms, along with the right to liberty and the right to security in person and papers, the foundation of all other rights. Allow any of these rights to be restricted and all other rights move from being inherent rights to being government controlled privileges.

The author of the letter reveals himself to be ignorant of the reasoning behind the Constitution and what it set out to do — protect the already extant, God and nature given rights to liberty, security and property.

 

Marty Ellerbe

Vidalia resident