The American Spectator: is Matt Sissel Obamacare's Horatius at the bridge?

April 29, 2013 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

The American Spectator has an article today about our lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare on behalf of Matt Sissel. As author David Catron notes, Obamacare, “a law filled with a myriad of new taxes — contains not a single word written in the only legislative body permitted by the Constitution to pass bills for raising revenue.” Only the House is allowed to originate revenue-raising bills. But Obamacare originated in the Senate.

I would add only one caveat to Mr. Catron’s excellent article. While Horatius stood alone against the Etruscans, Matt Sissel is hardly alone in his challenge to Obamacare. In fact, most Americans now oppose Obamacare—and even when it was passed, most people did not support it. That’s one reason why Congress had to ram it through in a procedure that bypassed democratic deliberation. And that’s why ours is only one of many lawsuits still challenging various aspects of Obamacare. I would therefore not liken Sissel to Horatius, but to Captain John Parker, the citizen-soldier who stood for freedom with other ordinary Americans at Lexington (and whose image graces many of PLF’s brochures and pamphlets). We are more fortunate than the Minutemen: we can stand for freedom in courtrooms, with peaceable arguments among our fellow citizens. But like them, we believe that regular Americans together can defend our liberties from any force, no matter how overwhelming, that purports to dictate how we should live our lives.