You can’t make this up: Obamacare exempts certain American Indians from the “choice” Americans will face as of January of buying health insurance or paying Chief Justice Roberts’s special tax. But apparently this is a far narrower category of people than those recognized as “Indian” under various state laws:

The problem is so new that the federal government is still seeking to establish how many people might be affected, although Indian health advocacy groups estimate it could be up to 480,000.

In California alone, about 21,000 people who currently receive free health care through Indian clinics are not recognized as Native American by the federal government and would have to pay the penalty, according to the nonprofit California Rural Indian Health Board.

So people who’ve considered themselves American Indian all their lives and have been treated as such by their states–including for health care purposes–suddenly won’t be considered Indian as far as Obamacare is concerned. 

Wow–Indian law is complicated and constitutionally problematic enough without having further regulatory overlays bollix up the works even more. But that’s what happens when government encoraches more and more into civil society. As I wrote in January in an article on, of all things, the contraceptive mandate:

But there’s an even bigger issue here. This is just the latest example of the difficulties in turning health care—or increasing parts of our economy more broadly—over to the government. As my colleague Roger Pilon has written, when health care (or anything) is socialized or treated as a public utility, we’re forced to fight for every “carve-out” of liberty…

The more government controls—whether health care, education, or even marriage—the greater the battles over conflicting values. With certain things, such as national defense, basic infrastructure, clean air and water and other “public goods,” we largely agree, at least inside reasonable margins. But we have vast disagreements about social programs, economic regulation and so much else that government now dominates at the expense of individual liberty.

Obamacare delenda est.

One of the most important lessons one learns from traveling abroad is to be culturally sensitive. A self-professed sophisticate like myself would never want to be considered to be the prototypical “Ugly American.”

Yet as I’m visiting the Persian Gulf kingdom of Qatar I’ve been thinking about who gets to decide on culture.

Most of us believe that certain practices are beyond the bounds of tolerance. Consider the Indian practice of suttee—the burning of widows—which Britain banned. Set aside whether the British government should have shown up with soldiers, guns, and warships and claimed the Indian subcontinent as its own; once there, surely it was right to forbid murder.

In a story that may be apocryphal but should be true even if not, an Indian complained to a British colonial official that it was tradition to burn widows on their deceased husbands’ funeral pyres. The official replied, according to the story, that it was British tradition to execute those who burned widows on their deceased husbands’ funeral pyres.

Of course, nothing like suttee is going on in Qatar. Indeed, as Muslim societies go, it is a pretty liberal place. Observance of conservative Islamic tenets is routine but often not deeply held. Some younger Qatar citizens (and TV cameramen!) look a lot like their Western counterparts. I wasn’t the only person on my flight to arrive wearing shorts. Hotels that cater to Westerners serve alcohol and provide Western television stations. Men and women use the gym together.

Still, visitors are warned to be sensitive, especially of dress. People should be modest in all circumstances. Shorts are tolerated, but should hit the knee. Shoulders should be covered.

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The IRS scandal has appropriately tarred the Obama administration. But IRS abuse is not new: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Richard Nixon all shamelessly used the tax authorities against their political enemies.

Thus, the problem is nonpartisan. More important, to paraphrase Rahm Emanuel, this scandal will be wasted if we don’t use it to advance the cause of liberty. The real issue is the expansive, expensive bureaucratic state, which threatens any system of limited government, rule of law, and individual liberty.

As I wrote in my recent article on American Spectator online:

the broader the government’s authority, the greater its need for revenue, the wider its enforcement power, the more expansive the bureaucracy’s discretion, the increasingly important the battle for political control, and the more bitter the partisan fight, the more likely government officials will abuse their positions, violate rules, laws, and the Constitution, and sacrifice people’s liberties.

One response to the scandal would be tax reform. But failing to address the broader underlying causes of the scandal would set the stage for a repeat performance in some form a few years hence. At the very least the latest IRS abuses should derail the Obama administration’s efforts to ever-expand the federal government.

The response should not be merely defensive. Americans should insist on abolishing the IRS as we know it. Ending tax-based social engineering would help. Moreover, government–and especially the national government–should do less.

Americans must decide if they want to live in a truly free society. Government increasingly attempts to run our lives at our expense. And now, we see yet again, public officials use their power to reward friends and punish enemies. Firing a couple of mid-level IRS employees isn’t enough. People must insist on real change in Washington.