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The Spectacle Blog
Via David Frum, I see that Hugh Hewitt is previewing a conservative defense of Romneycare in an interview with Kathryn Jean Lopez in NRO:
LOPEZ: Is it unfair to consider it the precursor to Obamacare?
HEWITT: Yes, but that is a powerful narrative for Team Obama to spin and their friends in the MSM have picked it up. Among the many huge differences: The Massachusetts plan was constitutional and Obamacare isn’t. The Massachusetts plan was a negotiated compromise between two branches and two parties while Obamacare was a one-party jam down. Obamacare raised taxes and cut benefits massively and Massachusetts care did neither. The list goes on and on.
I’ve explained before why I don’t think the federalism argument settles the matter. One problem is that it will force conservatives to defend at least state-level individual mandates and it will remind voters that the federal individual mandate has a Republican pedigree. Hewitt shows this to be the case in this interview:
LOPEZ: Why did the Heritage Foundation and Governor Romney consider an individual mandate conservative or otherwise acceptable?
HEWITT: Because “mandates” at the state level have never been unacceptable and still aren’t unacceptable except to a handful of libertarian purists. We accept the mandate that children must be educated, if not in public schools then in private schools or at home. We accept vaccine mandates. We accept car-insurance mandates. We accept smog-emission mandates. States have the “police power” that the Constitution withheld from the federal government.
At present, my guess is more conservatives agree with Quin than Hewitt. But if Romney were actually the nominee, many would suppress their anti-mandate arguments for the good of the Republican ticket. I reviewed Hewitt’s book-length exercise in Romney apologetics, A Mormon in the White House?, the last time around.
View all comments (14) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/06/02/hugh-hewitt-defends-romney-aga
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Casey Abell| 6.2.11 @ 12:53PM
"But if Romney were actually the nominee, many would suppress their anti-mandate arguments for the good of the Republican ticket."
Couldn't agree more. Especially because health care will trail forty-two billion light-years behind the economy as the number one issue next year.
Romney has seventy-or-so approval ratings among Republicans and decent appeal among independents and even some Democrats. If the economy continues to sputter - a more and more likely scenario - he would pose a very formidable challenge to Obama.
But there's many a slip between cup and convention. Romney remains a weak frontrunner who could get upset by a blindside primary challenge. Right now, though, nobody in the actual field of candidates looks like a rising star.
Westie| 6.2.11 @ 5:10PM
Palin, Bachmann and possibly Cain are the only Stars in this Campaign, Obama and Mitt are already failed has beens...time to get cheeky with the new Leadership from outside the Deadazz Soviet Parties!
Casey Abell| 6.3.11 @ 10:25AM
Except Palin isn't running (at last check - who knows if another reality show is coming) and the others are political asterisks.
If somebody starts knocking off Romney in real live primaries, I'll use the "star" word.
Teflon93| 6.2.11 @ 1:56PM
"Slavery was a bad idea but should have been left up to the States"---do you disagree, Mitt? How about you, Hugh?
The notion of states as legal laboratories only goes so far. The whole point is that socialized medicine should NEVER be implemented in a free country---once the government controls your health, it controls YOU.
Romney doesn't get it. Neither does Hewitt. Nor most of NR Online.
Anyone who doesn't is no conservative.
Mike| 6.2.11 @ 4:37PM
Teflon93:
Please explain the philosophical axoim why mandates at the State level are wrong for America.
Teflon93| 6.2.11 @ 5:47PM
The philosophy is pretty simple:
1. Mandates erode individual liberty and expand bureaucracy, empowering the State to erode still more liberty;
2. One owns nothing if not one's own body---certainly this underpins the anti-slavery amendments;
3. No citizen can be said to have explicitly empowered state governments to determine their course of medical care when the legislators explicitly denied doing any such thing (although in practice this is precisely what happens in socialized medicine;
4. The State exists for the citizen and not the citizen for the State.
Dai Alanye | 6.3.11 @ 9:14AM
Massachusetts is the laboratory, and the experiment has failed.
Thank you, Mitt--now please drop the idea.
Tim the Enchanter| 6.2.11 @ 2:50PM
"Hugh Hewitt Defends Romney--Again". Why is this news? In other headlines, grass is still green, and water is still wet.
Mike| 6.2.11 @ 4:39PM
Hugh Says:
"ecause "mandates" at the state level have never been unacceptable and still aren't unacceptable except to a handful of libertarian purists. We accept the mandate that children must be educated, if not in public schools then in private schools or at home. We accept vaccine mandates. We accept car-insurance mandates. We accept smog-emission mandates. States have the "police power" that the Constitution withheld from the federal government."
And what can Libertarian purists say about this?
Cite the Constitutional principle of philosophical axiom that disproves Mr. Hewitt.
Teflon93| 6.2.11 @ 5:53PM
Sure. To avoid repeating the above, here are a couple of more errors in what Hewitt says:
1. What a people "accepts" does not determine what is right and what is wrong. The people of Beijing accept Communist tyranny.
2. The "police power" does not empower the states to become totalitarian regimes. For example, should a state elect to forbid any political party beyond the Democrats and any non-Democrat to run for office, would that be permissible? Of course not---for that state's people would no longer be free. This is precisely the logic of Jim Crow.
3. The Constitution did not withold this power from the federal government---the people never GRANTED this power to the federal government. The Tenth Amendment does not imply the people to be the slaves of the various states. You'd think Hewitt would know this.
But don't take my word for it--read The Federalist Papers and The Debate on the Constitution to see just how far afield from the Founders' own vision Hewitt and Romney are roaming.
Teflon93| 6.2.11 @ 5:58PM
More here, including some discussion of the objections to the RomneyCare mandate on "illegal takings" grounds:
http://www.fed-soc.org/publica.....detail.asp
Spicy Joker| 6.3.11 @ 1:46AM
Hewitt should've titled his book "A Moron in the White House."
Nick| 6.3.11 @ 1:51AM
I like Hugh Hewitt, a lot. He's a smart guy with a smart radio show.
But, when it comes to Mr. Romney, he has blinders on.
Using car insurance to make the case for RomneyCare is as bad as when liberals use it to defend the mandate in O'BamaCare.
RomneyCare is the equivalent of requiring people, who don't own motor vehicles, to buy car insurance anyway. They would say, "But, I don't own a car."
RomneyCare supporters would say, "Too bad. You benefit from automobiles and must use them sometimes, so, you must contribute for the good of society."
It may not violate the U.S. Constitution, but, it violates the moral law. It is re-distribution of wealth.
Dangerous Dan| 6.3.11 @ 7:51PM
I have been taken back by the attacks on Romney & Hewitt. Is it now OK for conservatives to knife in the back there own if they have a disagreement with them ?
Did George Soros put us up to this or did we turn on our own all by ourselves ? I thought only Leftist pull those kind of stunts.