Twenty-six states, led by my own Florida, have challenged the constitutionality of Obamacare. The court challenge has now risen to the Supreme Court level, and we learned last week that the Supreme Court has decided to hear the case. Although I consider the entire law to be unconstitutional, the Court may focus on the fact that it forces people to buy health insurance. If that provision is allowed to stand, it will be the first time that the federal government has mandated that people buy a product; they no longer will have a choice. How would we feel if the federal government mandated we buy only decaffeinated coffee, for instance, because it has concluded, in its wisdom, that everyone would benefit from drinking it?

Far-fetched? Not if the precedent is set via Obamacare. That’s why so many states have become party to this lawsuit. We can even use a common medical term to describe this court challenge:

While I pray—and I mean that literally—that the Court overturns this awful law, the fact that we have to await the verdict of nine people to decide the fate of the union is sad in itself. The Constitution set up three equal branches of government, designed to check and balance each other. Yet we seem happy to allow just one branch to determine the appropriateness of a law. Every time the Supreme Court makes a pronouncement, we accept it as the final word. That means a very divided 5-4 vote can set the course for the direction of the entire nation.

What if the Supreme Court backs Obamacare? What is to be done? Constitutionally, it can be treated the same as the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857, which concluded that no black person, free or slave, was a citizen of the United States. At that time, the Republican Party stood against the decision and worked to undo it. I hope the current manifestation of the Republican Party would do the same today.

I’ve been going through American history with my adult class at my church on Sundays. We’re up to the Constitution. I’m not rushing through anything; I want them to understand the importance of the rule of law and how Christians should be leaders in respecting that dictum. It’s always enlightening to show just how little the national level of our government in our federal system has the authority to do. There’s even one provision in the Constitution that requires Congress to meet at least once a year. That’s hardly a problem now—our biggest issue is getting the representatives to go home and leave us alone for a while.

But the reason why Congress meets almost continuously is that it has taken on far more than it is supposed to. If we were to go back to the limits placed on Congress in the Constitution, it wouldn’t have to be in continual session. You see, we keep adding things that really aren’t there:

We’re supposed to be a government of checks and balances, but the definition of that phrase seems to have changed over time:

When Social Security was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court back in the 1930s, the Court opened the door for almost unlimited legislating and spending. Those of us who question the constitutionality of Social Security are not fringe elements; we are standing on the bedrock of constitutional interpretation that used to dominate Court decisions prior to the New Deal. Since that time, we’ve had a pretty raw deal in many ways. Social Security is not at all secure:

Bottom line: the government has stepped so far over its boundaries, it is hardly recognizable anymore. I doubt if any of the Founding Fathers—even those who believed in a bigger-style government—would be pleased with what has happened:

It’s time for a diet.

We held our Constitution Day commemoration yesterday at Southeastern. Each year I’m responsible for bringing in a special speaker to draw the students’ attention not only to the historic event itself, but to the principles underlying the U.S. Constitution and how they should be carried out in our nation.

We were privileged to have with us this year Dr. Michael Farris, who is, in my view, one of the best, if not the best, constitutional lawyers and scholars to be found anywhere. As founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association and Patrick Henry College, he has been in the forefront of alternative education for over thirty years. Through his efforts, parents who desire to homeschool their children can now do so without penalty in all fifty states. Students at Patrick Henry College, where I used to teach, have shown themselves to be of the highest quality anywhere in the country. Mike has developed an exceptionally strong moot court program; students enter those competitions and win the highest awards. I recall when I was at PHC that a moot court team there went to Oxford and beat the Oxford team.

His chapel message was “The Battle for the Bible and the Bill of Rights,” showing how the development of the English Bible led to our concepts of self-government and liberty of conscience, the latter enshrined in the First Amendment. Then he held court, so to speak, in a Q&A session for over an hour, offering Southeastern students and other visitors from the community his analysis of various constitutional controversies raging today and revealing how if we would only retain the original meaning of the words in the Constitution, most of our most harrowing problems would be solved.

I was particularly pleased that the local homeschooling community was well represented at these sessions. In fact, approximately half the audience for the Q&A was comprised of homeschooling parents and their children. I want them to know that Southeastern is a place where they are appreciated and welcomed. I’m hoping that some of those sharp homeschoolers will one day decide to be in the ranks of our history and government majors.

Time to tread lightly. I don’t intend this post to be a diatribe against government welfare. Rather, I want to approach the subject Biblically, constitutionally, and practically. There’s an accusation floating around in the political arena that politically conservative Christians/Republicans-at-large [take your pick of descriptors] are uncaring individuals who don’t want to help those in poverty. Nothing could be further from the truth.

From the Biblical angle, what can be said about our responsibility toward the poor? There is no question that God expects us to help those who are truly poor through no fault of their own. But a couple of caveats must be added: first, a distinction must be made between those in poverty who deserve to be helped and those who do not [the book of Proverbs is replete with examples]; second, none of the admonitions to help the poor are directed to civil government, but instead focus on individuals. No matter how hard you may look in Scripture, you will find no Biblical mandate for redistribution of wealth by civil government dictate.

God wants help for the poor to be a real help, not a fake solution that creates further problems. His goal is to work on the character of both the persons in poverty and the persons who come to their aid. He wants giving to be a highly personal type that engenders true compassion on the one side and a desire to be raised out of poverty on the other. No government system that depersonalizes aid can ever achieve those goals.

Then there’s the constitutional issue. Where did the Founders give authority to turn the federal government into the great provider for the citizenry? Even as you cannot find a Biblical command for the government to be that provider, neither can you find a constitutional provision that grants such a power. Of course we do it all the time. Money to help the poor and/or the infirm and the aged has become the largest portion of the federal budget. Those who say we need to spend less on defense and put it toward the poor don’t realize that the percentage of our budget that goes to defense, even during the War on Terror, has continually decreased.

What did the Founders believe about welfare? They relegated it back to private individuals, churches, other organizations apart from the government, and, as a last resort, to the local government. The only government that should ever be involved is the one closest to the need, so that it can be clearly analyzed to ensure that the need is genuine indeed. That goes back to the Biblical concept of distinguishing between those who should and should not be helped.

I’ve covered—in a cursory manner, to be sure—the Biblical and constitutional perspectives. It still remains to comment on the practical side. We’ve had a lot of time now to see how the federal welfare system has worked. Unbiased studies show it has not worked well at all. Those studies reveal a few key problems with the system: people develop an entitlement mentality that leads to resentment when they don’t receive what they believe they are “owed”; many are trapped in the welfare-recipient mode from one generation to the next; and there is no personal accountability or connection between the recipients and the nameless, faceless bureaucracy that hands out the checks.

That’s why both Republicans and Democrats, back in the mid-1990s, supported a welfare reform bill that sought to end welfare as a lifestyle. If we continue on the welfare-mentality path, we will become just like the European nations that are literally going up in flames right now. We have overspent and are on the verge of a financial meltdown. Cutting back is absolutely essential, and it can be done in such a way that we don’t throw people out on the streets or have them die from lack of support. And it’s really amazing what individuals can do if they are forced to take responsibility for their own well-being. If they don’t have to, they won’t. If they must, they can become quite entrepreneurial.

The conservative Christian/Republican model for helping the poor is to have a safety net at the local level along with empowering individuals, churches, and other organizations to step to the plate. The church as a whole must share some blame here when it concludes that since the government is “taking care of the poor,” the church doesn’t have to bother with it anymore.

The conservative Christian/Republican model also frees up the market to create prosperity and opportunity for all. The goal is to enable those who have become dependent on the government to enter the market themselves and succeed. One of the prerequisites for accomplishing this is to remove the impediments the government places on those who wish to start their own businesses or other creative endeavors. Some people think it is a cliché to declare that a rising tide lifts all boats, but it goes beyond any cliché—it is a reality.

For those who say that this approach will still leave many poor, I can only comment that there will be poor people in every society regardless of the economic system.When Mary, the friend of Jesus, anointed him with a costly oil, Judas Iscariot [someone with rather bad judgment, wouldn't you say?] objected that the expensive perfume should have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor. Interestingly, Jesus disagreed, and noted that there always would be poor people around to be helped. He didn’t have any naive notion that poverty would ever be eradicated on this earth. Only those who have unlimited faith in the power of government to solve all problems fantasize about that. Yet it certainly is a fantasy.

History has shown that the highest standard of living for the greatest number of people comes only from a society devoted to liberty. In such a society some do well, while others don’t. If someone is left behind because of fraud or other misdeeds, the government then has a proper role in prosecuting those who commit those misdeeds and compensating those who were unfairly hurt. But most failure stems from personal character flaws and/or mistakes in judgment. If people learn from their mistakes, they can try again and do better the next time.

History has also shown something else, if one is open to learning from history: the socialist worldview always—and I emphasize the word “always”—leads to economic collapse for the entire society in the end. Why follow that path when it so clearly violates the Biblical mandate, our constitutional authority, and the lessons learned from practice?

I spoke last evening at the Winter Haven, Florida, 9/12 Project meeting. For those who are unfamiliar with the organization, it began after the 2008 elections with the expressed purpose of educating citizens on the kinds of principles and values that formed the bedrock of our nation and our government. This organization is performing a valuable public service, and I heartily endorse its goals. They are the same goals I have maintained throughout my twenty-two years of teaching at universities. We are an ignorant people, by and large, and it’s time we once again grasped the essence of the republic that was created over two hundred years ago.

I had spoken to this 9/12 group two times previously. The first time I gave an overview of progressivism and how it has led us astray from constitutionalism; the second time was an examination of the principles that made Ronald Reagan’s presidency successful. Last night I focused on the Clinton impeachment of more than a decade ago, and what we should learn from that sad episode. Drawing from the book I wrote back in 2001, Mission: Impeachable–The House Managers and the Historic Impeachment of President Clinton, I concentrated on the reasons the House Managers gave for prosecuting the president at that time. In the face of public opinion polls that showed 67% of the electorate didn’t want Clinton removed from office, and in the teeth of a Republican-dominated Senate that had no stomach for this endeavor, these House Managers risked the wrath of both to make the case for removal.

Why did they do it?

I interviewed all thirteen of those House Managers and found a fairly consistent rationale. They were concerned primarily about the importance of upholding the rule of law in our society. What does that mean? Simply that no one, not even a president, can set himself up as above the law. Everyone must be held accountable for their actions.

Intertwined with that concern were two others: constitutionality [the need for checks and balances in the government] and the character issue, given how Clinton disgraced the high office he held. Many of those congressmen I interviewed were up front with their Christian convictions, which provided the strength to go forward and do what was right even when the public opposed them.

My conclusion in the book is that the Managers acted on principle and deserve to be honored for their attempt. As one of them stated, we need to put principle above expediency, honor above incumbency. The application for our day, a decade later, is obvious.

I thank the 9/12 group for giving me the opportunity to share. I trust I helped fulfill the goals of the organization. May they continue to thrive and attract others to the cause.

So the debt deal is history, in the sense that we don’t have to wade through the daily trauma of ups and downs. It’s not a solution, by any means. In fact, the “cuts” in the deal are only just cuts for the rate of future spending. They don’t actually cut back on what is current. This means, unless more drastic action is taken, we are still plunging deeper into debt over the next few years.

I’m not as disturbed by this as many of my conservative colleagues. I guess it’s because I never expected much to begin with. Even in the euphoria of the gains made in the last election, I remember writing on this blog that the real change agenda would not begin now; it would have to wait for 2012. The best we could hope for was to stop any huge new measures like Obamacare. I said then that the Republicans’ main task over the next two years would be to stop as many terrible policy choices as possible. They did make an honest attempt at that this time despite the media’s theme:

Stopgap measures like this debt/budget deal will be worse than useless unless more fundamental changes are made. I have a proposal that no one will accept, but I’ll make it anyway. How about returning to what the Constitution authorizes the federal government to do? That would save a lot of money immediately. There are numerous cabinet departments that have no validity constitutionally. Consider the budgets of the following:

• Department of Labor: 12.8 billion
• Department of Agriculture: 23.9 billion
• Department of Energy: 29.5 billion
• Department of Housing and Urban Development: 41.7 billion
• Department of Education: 77.4 billion
• Department of Transportation: 128 billion

Grand total: $313 billion. That’s for just one year. Carry that out over the next decade and see what savings would occur. And that doesn’t count the Big Daddy of them all—Health and Human Services, which comes in at 892 billion, dwarfing all the others combined.

Yes, I know, most of that is Medicare and Medicaid, and no one wants to talk about changing those. Yet they are just as unconstitutional as all the others noted above. I haven’t even mentioned Social Security, another system about to go bankrupt. The problem with these entitlements, as they are incorrectly called, is that we’ve made promises to people. Those promises must be kept, even though the programs are patently opposed to the Constitution. We need an intelligent plan to phase out of them while ensuring that no one who is dependent on them is harmed. But where is the political will to move forward on such a plan?

Will the courageous public servants please step forward?

I’ve called this blog Pondering Principles because I’m dedicated to laying a principled foundation for whatever subject I scrutinize. I also want to see principles—Biblical principles—become the basis for all public policy. Those of us oriented toward principles have a natural aversion to compromise; we have a tendency to see all compromise as a step backward. I would like to argue that is not the case.

Let’s start historically and work our way to present-day issues.

At the Constitutional Convention, a major disagreement erupted between states with lesser populations and those with greater. The less-populated states desired representation in the Congress to be based on equality; they wanted an equal vote for all states. Their concern was they would be outvoted on everything if population became the cornerstone of representation. Larger states naturally felt the opposite: since they had the most people, they should have a greater say in legislation. Who was correct? I think both had valid points. Their concerns were genuine and needed to be addressed. The convention came up with a compromise that divided the Congress into two houses, one based on population, the other on equality.

That is an example of an excellent compromise because it didn’t sacrifice principle on either side. Without that compromise, there would have been no Constitution. The nation might have split into three or four warring factions, with all the misery that would have been connected with such a division.

Then there’s the example of New York state during the governorship of John Jay at the turn of the nineteenth century. Jay, an evangelical Christian, had often worked for the abolition of slavery in his state. Now, as governor, he had the opportunity to sign into law a gradual emancipation bill. This bill did not free all slaves immediately; rather, it laid out a plan that would eventually eliminate slavery in the next generation. As someone who believed slavery was contrary to God’s purposes, should Jay have signed such a bill? He had no hesitation in doing so. Why? Because it set slavery on the course of extinction in New York. Long before the Civil War decided that issue nationally, New York had resolved it gradually.

Was Jay disobeying God in signing that bill? I believe just the opposite. His was a principled position. The compromise of gradual abolition achieved the long-term goal of his principle—getting rid of slavery once and for all. The new law made a step in the right direction. Therefore, I consider his action to have been consistent with his principles. Not to have signed it meant the perpetuation of the slavery institution, not its demise.

Now let’s bring this up to date. Let me offer two more examples.

First, let’s look at the issue of abortion. I firmly believe that the taking of an innocent human life is immoral. It is opposed to God’s moral law. My principled position is that all abortions should be outlawed. What if, as a legislator, I were faced with a decision on a particular bill that would eliminate 95% of all abortions in America? Should I vote for it? If I were president, should I sign it into law?

There are some who would say no. Why? They consider it a compromise of principle. Any law that doesn’t eliminate all abortions is less than what God requires. Consequently, support for a proposed law that would take care of “only” 95% of them would be a sin.

Again, I disagree—vehemently. If I have the opportunity to save 95% [or even 10% or 50%] of all babies who would otherwise have their lives snuffed out arbitrarily, I must take that opportunity. I would be advancing the principle in which I believe. By supporting such a measure, I am moving my society closer to God’s purposes. If we take an all-or-nothing approach, I believe we are deceiving ourselves in believing we are standing on principle. I would call it stubborn foolishness instead.

How about the current debt debate? I am opposed to raising the debt ceiling. I am opposed to raising taxes in any way that will harm those who provide jobs for others. I wholeheartedly seek spending cuts. Now, do I hold out for everything I want or is there a way to advance what I believe is principled even while compromising temporarily?

My Tea Party credentials are impeccable, by the way. I just want to say that up front before I continue.

One thing that all principled conservatives have to recognize is that in politics you don’t always get everything you want immediately. Last November’s election was wonderful, but those who believe as I do only control one house of Congress and the president has veto power. Consequently, I cannot reasonably expect to get it all right now, no matter how much I desire that.

So I push for as much as possible. If an agreement is reached, for instance, that raises the debt ceiling, yet also includes “real” spending cuts, a cap on future spending, no increase in taxes, and at least a vote on a balanced budget amendment, why would I not support this? Enacting a law like this would lead us further on the path toward a principled and sane tax-and-spend framework.

Here’s how I summarize it: a compromised principle leads to unrighteousness, but a principled compromise is a step closer to the principle’s ideal.

I wish I could convince everyone of the wisdom of this perspective, but I’ll settle for whoever has ears to hear.