“IF YOU CAN KEEP IT”

As Benjamin Franklin was leaving Independence Hall at the close of the constitutional convention, a woman approached him.  "Well, Doctor, what have we got?" she asked.  "A republic, or a monarchy?"

"A republic," Franklin replied.  "If you can keep it."

And how do we keep it?  With the Constitution, Abraham Lincoln said, for it "is the only safeguard of our liberties."

But an insufficient safeguard, if our leaders ignore it.  Emperor Barack I treats the public treasury as his piggy bank; enforces only the laws he likes and ignore the ones he doesn’t; and asserts the power, without oversight from Congress or the Courts, to kill American citizens suspected of terrorism.  His attorney general dodges lawful subpoenas, protects and promotes vote fraud.

"The judiciary is the safeguard of our liberty and of our property under the Constitution," said Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes.  But for more than half a century, judges have been inventing "rights" not found in the Constitution, ignoring those spelled out in it.

Thomas Jefferson said: "Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press."  But news media "watchdogs" now sleep curled up at the feet of the Democrat Party.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on Obamacare is a vivid reminder that we cannot rely upon others to protect our liberty.

The provision requiring Americans to buy health insurance is unconstitutional, conservatives think.  On the rationale by which Obamacare was sold to the public, the Supreme Court agreed.

"(The Framers) gave Congress the power to regulate commerce, not to compel it," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts.  "Ignoring that distinction would undermine the principle that the Federal Government is a government of limited and enumerated powers."

But Obamacare is constitutional under Congress’ power to tax, he said.

Obamacare can no more be justified under the taxing power than under the Commerce Clause, conservative legal scholars think.  It is a contrivance Justice Roberts used to obtain the result he wanted.

Why would a supposed conservative strain so to uphold Obamacare?  Justice Roberts is a coward who was frightened by the administration’s threats, say many irate conservatives.  Praise from the New York Times matters more to him than fidelity to principle, say others.

Some conservatives think the chief justice did the right thing.  Not legally — we agree with his critics that Justice Roberts tortured the law to make it go where he wanted to take it — but politically.

If the president is re-elected, it wouldn’t have mattered if the Supreme Court had thrown out the health care law.  He’d simply ignore the decision.  (He’s already ignoring the ruling Obamacare is tax.)  The only way to restore constitutional government is to remove Barack Obama from office.  I think that’s why — after siding with the conservatives on every point of law — the chief justice strained so to find Obamacare constitutional.

The ruling spared the president the humiliation of having his signature "achievement" vanish, so it is a victory for him.

It sure isn’t for Democrats in swing states.  Obamacare killed them in the 2010 midterms.  They’d like nothing better than to have the issue go away — which it would have if the Supreme Court had found it unconstitutional.  Now what former Pa. Gov. Ed Rendell called "an albatross around our neck" is back, wrapped more tightly around their necks by the Supreme Court’s ruling that Obamacare is a tax — the largest, most regressive tax ever on the middle class.

"It’s not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices." Justice Roberts said.  Americans know now the only way to get rid of this hugely unpopular law is to vote Mr. Obama and his party out of office.

As those about him were celebrating the success of their attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, who — with great reluctance — had planned it, is reputed to have said: "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant, and fill him with a terrible resolve."

Though only the chief justice knows for sure why he did what he did, the results are: a flood of contributions to the Romney campaign; a reinvigorated Tea Party; an aroused, united GOP.

We’ve learned through bitter experience what Benjamin Franklin intuited.  Only we can keep the republic.  The Supreme Court has made our task easier.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.