Walter Williams and Kent Masterson Brown were high profile speakers in support of nullification
An overflowing crowd of supporters showed up to witness the second SC House subcommittee pass legislation for the nullification of Obamacare. Due to the large crowd the Master-at-Arms had to turn people away once they ran out of chairs. An overflow room was set up where the event could be listened to by concerned citizens.
With a limited amount of time for the subcommittee to make a decision there was only enough time for two speakers to speak before representatives. Dr. Walter Williams, a George Mason University professor, and Kent Masterson Brown, a constitutional attorney, were the speakers.
Williams began his speech talking about the moral choice one has to make to go against legislation that is wrong. He gave the example of the Fugitive Slave Act that was enacted by Congress in 1850. The questioned that Williams wanted to be pondered was about the mindset of a juror for a free person that was on trial for assisting a runaway slave in clear violation of the Fugitive Slave Act.
“Clearly, the Fugitive Slave Act was constitutional. It makes the case that moral and decent people cannot rely solely on the courts to establish what’s right and what’s wrong,” said Williams.
Besides morality, Williams spoke of courage. He spoke of the courage the founding fathers had against the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798. Williams thinks that State Governors and legislators ought to summon that courage to stop Congress from exceeding enumerated powers delegated to them by the United States Constitution.
Williams went on to give responses to questions citizens might ask when the topic of nullification comes up. When people fear a war like the one that cost 60,000 lives in the past, due to nullification, Williams believes that it is different this time.
“First, most Americans are against Obamacare. And secondly, I don’t believe you can find many American soldiers who would follow a Presidential order to descend upon a state to round up and shoot down fellow Americans because they refuse to follow a congressional order to buy health insurance,” said Williams.
Williams concluded by reminding the committee of the words of Fredrick Douglas who said, “Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which can be imposed on them. The limits on tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those who they oppress.”
Williams said, “It’s not a question of whether this government healthcare is a good idea or a bad idea. That’s not the question at all. The question is, is it permissible by the US Constitution? That is what we should look at. There’s no authority for it whatsoever.”
Brown was next to speaker before the subcommittee, and he changed the topic from courage and morality to the constitutionality of Obamacare. For seven months he has been examining the 2,700 pages of the Affordable Health Care Act.
“I’m here to tell you, quite frankly, this nation is about to be plunged into absolute chaos with respect to the availability of health insurance and the availability of healthcare,” said Brown. “The reason for it is extraordinarily simple. They’ve taken away from the insurance industry the ability to actually insure, and they have turned it into a system where they absolutely just underwrite everything irrespective of who he is, where they come from, what their conditions are, they subsidize everything. That’s bankruptcy for any and all insurance companies.”
Brown informed the committee members of the preventive care services that include contraception, abortion and sterilization services which reduce other services like mammograms for women between 40 and 49, no coverage for CT Colonography and screening for ovarian cancer to name a few.
“It just illustrates how horrific this statute is, this bill is, and why it is important for the state of South Carolina to stand up and say it is not to be enforced at least in this state by people in this state. What you’re doing is putting yourself on record by saying, ‘We as a state are not going to participate in this.’”
The SC House subcommittee gave a favorable report to H.3101 regarding the South Carolina Freedom of Health care Protection Act, which nullifies aspects of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The committee agreed to pass H.3101 to the full committee as amended.
