"People Are Just Afraid of Change" Goes Before The Supreme Court

All eyes are on The Supreme Court this week as arguments against ObamaCare begin today.  For a summary of what will be argued when, check out this post at The Foundry.  Today's 90 minutes of argument are "mostly technical" on the issue of the Anti-Injunction Act.

Tomorrow things will get interesting with two hours of argument on whether the Constitution allows Congress to compel Americans to buy a product (in this case, a "financial instrument.")

The argument on this seems ludicrous to me (emphasis mine):

"The challengers to the reform say that never before has the government forced people to buy a product," Neal Katyal, who defended the legislation in appellate courts while serving as Obama's acting solicitor general, said in an interview with AFP. "We're not forcing you to buy a product. Health care is something all Americans consume, and you don't know when you're going to consume it." Katyal added that "we are not regulating what people buy, we're regulating how people finance it." 

 That seems to be no difference at all, to me.

Neal Katyal also provides yet another example of the liberal attempt to sway the court:

Katyal also framed any decision overturning the law as judicial actvism, bordering on tyranny. "If the Supreme Court struck this down, I think that it wouldn't just be abouthealth care," he said. "It would be the Supreme Court saying: 'Look, we've got the power to really take decisions, move them off of the table of the American people, even in a democracy.'" 

Michael Hammond, writing at Red State, points out that the liberal media has a long-standing practice of attempting to intimidate the court:

The justices are only human. 

And conservatives have fallen down in failing to make a bigger issue over liberal attempts to threaten and intimidate the court -– first, in the New York Times, then in the Washington Post [“Will Conservatives save Obamacare?” by Robert Barnes, the Washington Post, March 18, 2012, page B1] -– and repeatedly by Bob Beckel and others on Fox. 

All of the threats are thinly veiled (“Roberts is protective of the court’s reputation, however, and sensitive to the perception that its decisions are politicized.”), but they are nothing more or less than disguised threats to attack the court if it doesn’t do as liberals want.

There's absolutely no point in falling down the rabbit hole trying to anticipate how the court will vote and I'm not about to try.

What IS clear is what is at stake.  The objections conservatives (and others) have to ObamaCare have been made clear and it is now up to the Court to decide.  My position has always been that this law is a huge over reach of government authority and treads on state's rights, individual liberties, and personal freedom, not to mention the staggering expense and new taxes:

Neal Katyal says the opposition to ObamaCare is just that "people are afraid of change."  I'm afraid the problem is a lot more serious than that.

I'm apprehensive and naturally pessimistic.  I'm the one who never believed Obama would get elected in the first place ("How in the world could people vote for him?  You can't elect a president on the basis on one speech!"  "He's got no record!  He's only been in the Senate for 117 days!").  I am not particularly optimistic about how this will turn out.

As the Supreme Court does not allow live-coverage you will have to wait for audio later in the day.  The Foundry will be posting updates as will others.  Jamie Dupree is inside hearing arguments and will update when he gets out.