August 30, 2013

What 'It's the Law-of-the-Land' Means

By Richard Winchester
I've heard proponents of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. ObamaCare, such as Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, declare, "It's the law-of-the-land." What that's supposed to mean is that once the Supreme Court has ruled that an act (or practice) is constitutional, opposition should cease because "it's the law-of-the-land." According to Obamacare's proponents' logic, all citizens must always obey the law. This poses at least two quandaries. If citizens are supposed to obey the law, what are we to make of the German resistance to Hitler and the Nazis between 1933 and 1945? If my reading of German history during that period is correct, virtually everything the Nazis did -- other than the bloodletting on the "Night of the Long Knives" on June 30-July 2, 1934 and the violence against Jews on Kristallnacht on November 8-9, 1938 -- was legal, i.e., was based on law. Hitler and his Nazi henchmen sought to provide a patina of legitimacy, i.e.,...(Read Full Article)