Fundamental Transformation
And that’s just the problem. We expect too much of the Court, and not enough of ourselves. Maybe the Court does, too. After all, the entire judicial branch is practically a constitutional afterthought, dispensed with in three brief sections. Here’s section one:
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
That’s pretty much it; the other two sections have to do with jurisdiction and treason. But since the Earl Warren era, the Supreme Court has come to be regarded by both sides not as the court of last resort, but (thanks to Marbury v. Madison) the legislature of last resort. The Left learned early that it could achieve via the third branch of government (the “least dangerous,” in Hamilton’s words) what it could not win at the ballot box or via the legislative process. The Right came to it more slowly, but in the end adopted the Left’s argument — and that is why many conservatives are so bitterly disappointed today. They wanted the Court to save them from themselves.
Not gonna happen. Roberts again:
We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders. We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact the challenged provisions.
The Framers created a Federal Government of limited powers, and assigned to this Court the duty of enforcing those limits. The Court does so today. But the Court does not express any opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Care Act. Under the Constitution, that judgment is reserved to the people.
So it’s time to man up and realize we’re in the fight of our lives — and one with no pre-ordained guarantee of victory. We can prattle on about America’s being the “the last, best hope” all we want, but that doesn’t change the fact that a sizable number of our fellow citizens and an entire political party see that as a bad thing and want to change it.
The chief justice just threw up his hands and walked away from the central issue of the presidential campaign — no, not ObamaCare itself, but the relationship of the citizen to the state. There’ll be no deus ex machina this time. It’s up to us now.
SNAP OUT OF IT!!! Obama and #ObamaTax can be DEFEATED! Do you want to be the whiner in “Aliens” or tell BFD OBAMA this on Nov. 6th: Yippee ki yay, M-Fu##er!!!
Damn straight!
Romneycare and Obamacare are the same thing. You couldn’t have picked a worse candidate than Romney to run against President Obama. But I’ll let Mitens speak for himself:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/mitt-romneys-suggested-three-times-in-2009-that-o
Actually, we don’t think that this decision was “our fault” at all. Go read Scalia’s & Kennedy’s dissent. “It is unconstitutional in the whole…” So, now according to those fools on the SC, the gov’t can tax us if we don’t own a weapon or if we do. The bureaucrats can tax us on if we walk or ride in a car. It is a completely illogical & unconstitutional ruling that Roberts blew big time. Besides, ONLY the congress has the legal right to tax us Obamacare was passed as a NON tax bill!
Naturally, this horrible decision is right up there w/ the Dred Scott, Roe vs. Wade & the last 3 decision the SC has made this past week or so.
Actually, it makes the Nazi judicial system of the early 1940s & the Democratic Republic of Korea’s look great.
Of course, we’ve lost our republic & have become a victim of a fascist race-bating prez who refuses to enforce & obey federal laws, an ignorant congress & a SC that steals our freedoms by judicial fiat.
Frankly, methinks that he just wants to suck up to the gutter snipes (all liberal pols & the press-except for the Wash Times & all networks except for Fox News) in DC so they will write about what a “courageous stand” he took.
Our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves & would surely start another American Revolution if they knew about this. That is exactly what we need! Go Tea Party & throw the bums like The Dark Lord Obamron & his dangerous socialist minions out!
Nuff said!
Something in my head and heart tells me Robert’s objective had less to do with Obamacare, the unconstitutional methods used by congress to pass it, the 2 faced argument by the Solicitor General, (day 1 a mandate, day 2 a tax) and the further erosion of our consitutional liberties and further encroachment of Big Bad Govt, and MORE to do with (H)is personal legacy as a Jurist now forever viewed as “statesman=like” by the left for flipping the bird to the right. LIke Obama, this man is ego centric, has a meager paper trail and can speak out of both sides of his mouth in a single sentence.
What kind of legacy is coming up with a ruling that could be the most
illogical and incoherent in Supreme Court history?
Roberts basically said that it is unconstitutional to compel an individual
to buy health insurance but it is constitutional to fine (tax) someone who
doesn’t buy health insurance. In other words, it is unconstitutional for
the Feds to force someone to buy health insurance but it is CONSTITUTIONAL
FOR THE FEDS TO FORCE SOMEONE TO BUY HEALTH INSURANCE! Now is that clear
for everyone?
Roberts wants this as his legacy? No matter where you fall on the political
spectrum this ruling by Roberts was idiotic. Abbott and Costello’s Who’s
on First routine makes more sense than Roberts does with this court opinion.
Frankly if I were the Chief Justice I would be embarrassed to show my face
in public.
I yearn for the quieter, gentler days of Harriet Miers.
From the Federalist Number 55:
“I am unable to conceive that the people of America in their present temper, or under any circumstances which can speedily happen, will chose, and every second year repeat the choice of sixty-five or a hundred men who would be disposed to form and pursue a scheme of tyranny or treachery. I am unable to conceive that the State legislatures, which must feel so many motives to watch, and which possess so many means of counteracting the federal legislature, would fail either to detect or defeat a conspiracy of the latter against the liberties of their common constituents.”
Yet here we are. My neighbors are all over the moon, thinking this means other people will have to pay for them. When I point out that when legislators create an environment where no profit can be made by insurers, soon there won’t be any insurers at all. This causes their eyes to glaze over since they have zero economic sense and seem to believe medical insurance is like a public utility.
This is where the democrats are deceptively driving our country.
No, what the people want is single-payer healthcare. They just think that Obamacare is a rather kludgy way to get there, but on the way insurers get curbed-stomped and that is considered a good thing……
Single payer leads inexorably to single provider. At that point I will relish in the schadenfreude.
The operative word in that quote is “speedily.” It’s taken over 200 years to get to this point, and for the first 100 or so years, he was absolutely right (aside from the matter of slavery, which was a vice afflicting the colonies even before the Revolution).
Alas, it hasn’t been 60-100 men for many, many years.
435 (don’t flog me too hard if I’m off by a few) plus 100 is way too damn many people pandering away in relative personal obscurity and thereby hiding all their nefarious dealings among the herd.
“Nefarious?”, you say?
No congressman leaves office poorer than he came in. Given their salaries, that should not be possible, yet it is. Lying quickly becomes a way of life, until Charley Rangel can pee on congress’ doorstep and laugh in their faces when they call him on it, because they’re all just as bad.
This system, without modification, has become way too unwieldy.
Constitutional Convention 2013!
Bring your guns.
Give the States and the People back their rights. All of them.
Shut down leviathan.
I thought this ruling placed Obamacare into the hands of the voters in November.
What happens if Syria is invaded by the global government, I mean NATO, and the followers of Muhammad go ape sh** here murdering for the god of the Kaabba. Will there be a vote in November?
There will either be a vote or a bloodbath in November. Mind you, considering the state of the nation, the two are not mutually exclusive.
Well the odor has certainly cleansed my nostrils.
Daddy isn’t going to help. He didn’t even show up. He went out drinking with the guys who beat us up.
The Supreme Court action, together with an earlier court decision this summer giving the EPA unbridled power to cut innocent CO2 emissions, surely means that government has gone wild, and won’t be tamed unless we vote out the Democrats and can Obama fer sure.
No, it is the job of the Supreme Court to PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION. Roberts failed to do his job, it appears he failed deliberately.
Can a SCJ be impeached for dereliction of duty?
Just who is it among the jackals in DC who would impeach him? We have lost control of our government.
Roberts has done more to protect the constitution than anyone in decades. Nine people can not protect the constitution. It takes a nation of adults taking adult responsibility. We the People have been given a republic… if we can keep it.
Roberts has just whacked everyone on the side of the head. Wake up. You lost your republic years ago, but you can still get it back.
Roberts just handed Romney a landslide with huge coat tails.
Afterward, are we going to blow it?
And let Obama pick the next Supreme Court Justice and Chief Justice? No thanks. Save it for after we win.
Then, can we hang him?
Please?
I look at the bill, and I look at the hype, and I have to ask: What are you people on about?
This isn’t new. It’s not even unusual. It’s how MOST of our taxes work. You have to pay…unless you qualify for an exemption, discount or loophole that says you don’t. In this case the loophole is having your own or work-funded health care, which most people do.
You have to pay income tax…unless you have sufficient tax write offs. Import tax…unless you count as a charity (not too sure if that one’s still in force, to be honest). It’s a tax with an escape clause, just like all the rest.
You pay a tax when you engage in the activity of making income, you pay a tax when you engage in the activity of buying gasoline, you do not pay a tax when you have not engaged in any activity. NOT buying health insurance is not an activity or a purchase.
But you are involved in an activity: living. And in the modern world, that will all but certainly include some kind of medical treatment at some point in your life. If you can’t or won’t pay for that, this will.
That is one of the greatest leaps in logic I have ever seen. Now we are to be taxed for living? Getting treatment for an illness is not the same as living. In order to live, you must eat. Should I be taxed to pay for your groceries if you can’t or won’t pay for them?
You already are. Where do you think welfare systems are funded from?
Think about income tax deductions: it’s the same thing, essentially.
You’re taxed for not having kids, not owning a mortgage, not putting solar panels on your house, etc. The difference here is that the Obamatax is regressive — instead of being on income, it’s a head tax.
I don’t like the outcome of the ruling, but can see the logic.
(It also means that, as a tax, we can use reconciliation to get rid of it, instead of having to navigate a filibuster.)
“You already are. Where do you think welfare systems are funded from?”
Another non sequitur… do you really believe you are making a cogent argument?
Actually Kevin makes a lot of sense. We, the working ARE taxed to pay for the welfare expenses of those who will not work. It is a form of indentured servitude that has been deemed legal. That’s how far we have fallen.
To add to the above, you pay for all sorts of things you may not personally engage in, such as for the upkeep of roads, bridges, public parks, the public library. Due to laws that forbid hospitals from refusing vital health care to patients who visit their emergency departments, for example, many get care for which they never pay. This has helped to generate this sort of legislation (Obamacare). Add to that the assumption by a growing number of people that health care is a “right” & you have the perfect recipe for what has culminated in the nature of decision such as the one we saw Roberts make yesterday.
Bottom line? Elections do matter & it is up to us to do the hard work of seeing to it we get the gov’t we desire. Instead we get the gov’t we deserve, as it’s obvious the level of apathy out there has brought us to where we are today.
I keep trying to explain to folks that a penalty of X dollars for not engaging in an activity, is mathematically equivalent to raising everybody’s taxes by X dollars and then granting a tax credit of X dollars for engaging in that activity.
For example: Consider the energy tax credit for insulating your home. A tax credit of $500 for insulating YOUR home is a penalty on those who don’t insulate their homes. Because if the Government gets less tax out of you, they gotta get more tax out of other folks to keep it revenue neutral.
Unless they just let the deficit increase. In which case the national debt goes up and future generations have to pay it.
Tax deductions and tax credits are NOT free money. They are *subsidies*; those who don’t qualify for those tax breaks pay more tax so that those do qualify pay less. In effect, homeowners who don’t insulate their homes are subsidizing those who do.
Want more examples?
If you do NOT buy an electric car, you will pay $7,500 more in taxes than if you do. (That’s the amount of the tax credit you can get if you do buy an electric car. So you can look at that as a $7,500 penalty on you for refusing to buy an electric car.)
If you do NOT marry your Significant Other, you will pay more in taxes than if you did marry her and filed a joint return.
The Government can’t impose a penalty on you for refusing to marry your girlfriend. But they can grant a lower tax rate if you do get married and file a joint return. Every year you refuse to get married, you’re paying more in taxes. That’s a penalty on you for not taking the action of getting married.
Thanks for the post but I have to say I am glad you are having trouble getting people to understand your claim. Your claim is an important meme of Liberal academic thinking.
In the plain world if I get a tax credit and my neighbor doesn’t then they don’t. If they insulate their house then they will. To argue if I get a tax credit we have harmed (taxed) my neighbor permits any saving act for my neighbor. It is like the idea that money is fungible to obscure the real transactions. It creates false victims. It obscures real and effective actions.
One could argue that tax credits prevents tax rates from being lowered. That is a rational argument. Indeed they do. But is the solution for this problem to eliminate a tax credit, or is the solution to lower tax rates?
If tax credits are in effect anything other than tax credits, they are a temporary lowering of the individual’s tax rates when we look at tax rates as how much you paid in taxes on your income. That is, they have the same effect.
The problem with the Roberts decision lies elsewhere. Prior to the Roberts decision the Court was fairly settled that the exercise of the Commerce Clause extends its authority to industries, not individuals.
Congress had pretty much avoided extending its authority to all individuals to implement an initiative invoking individual fees. What the Roberts decision did was to give to the Left a notice of likely Constitutionality when and if they use this kind of exaction on individuals in the future.
Roberts “gave” a strategy to the Left if and when the Left has the political power to exercise it they will. Perhaps the Left can transfer existing, and create additional, “fees” to implement their various environmental nostrums.
Is this farfetched or otherwise unlikely? Right now the left has been content with granting tax credits for some things – solar panels, windmills etc.; and has rejected said strategy for some things – flush toilets and light bulbs by outright outlawing them.
These are both two strategies for them to advance their agenda and control. For example, the tax credits for solar panels or insulated windows. Why a tax credit. Why doesn’t any expense I have improving my home come off of my taxable income – including solar panels and the like?
But what about solutions between credits and illegal? What about recycling services a citizen is required to subscribe to. So according to Roberts’ reasoning a citizen performs their civic duty if they subscribe to the service or not, and we merely charge a “fee” if they don’t. That fee will be graduated to their income level and will periodically increase for everyone.
This whole area and strategy is one the Congress generally avoided. They no longer have to.
If I drive thru your community and fail to observe the speed limit, an action for which I am arrested and fined, am I now a “taxpayer” when I pay the penalty (fine)? And if so, may I legitimately attend town council meetings and demand certain actions on their part on the basis that I am a recognized “taxpayer” in the municipality? Guess so.
Yes, It’s time to introduce the enemy.
1) The whole Democrat Party
2) Rino Republicans like Romney, Boehner, McConnell.
3) Corporate America, those who want to offload there Health care coverage to the Government.
4) The Media.
So, everyone but you?
1) The whole Democrat Party
2) Rino Republicans like Romney, Boehner, McConnell.
3) Corporate America, those who want to offload there Health care coverage to the Government.
4) The Media.
5) Academia
6) Kevin R. Cross
Progessive, socialist, communist, facist are all convenient names for something that has existed at least as long as mankind has been around. The founding fathers decribed their methods and warned us of them long before the terms were invented. And to much of the world through history it has been the norm to be at the mercy of these people. So we must define the enemy carefully and without modern jargon. These are people who see only a win-lose outcome as possible. For them to win you must lose. It is the God, (win-win), or man argument. It is the argument for or against private property. It is one person trying to get what another person has and whether or not you can stop them through an established system. It is freedom or subjugation. To win against people who want unlimited power we must first define them and why they want what they want, the kind of power that is a dark disease to those who must slave under it. We must fight the tyrants.
Byron, I’m not sure you realise this, but from a lot of the people on the opposite side, they would say YOU are the tyrant.
I’m not trying to belittle you, or them – I believe you are honest in your words, and so are they. But on their side, they look at people who would deny them the power of government to use for the good of others and say things like “heartless”, “selfish”, “uncaring”. They look at this as a victory for the poor and the weak over those already powerful – as an expansion of freedom for those previously denied it by poverty and a system designed to keep them so.
They would say YOU are the enemy. And they would be just as wrong as you are.
You speak of not wanting a win-lose situation, then make it clear that you really mean “us vs. them”. Or in other words, win-lose. But they are Americans, as you are an American, as I am an American. In a win-lose aergument, the only outcome is everyone loses.
Win-lose, us-them will never get us anywhere. Trying to understand where the other guy is coming from just might.
Kevin, okay here’s an example: Kadafi had something like 45 billion dollars in his various bank accounts. Mubarak 14 billion, Castro is said to be worth around 1 billion dollars. The people of these countries have a low standard of living. Europe and America however, invented the modern world. Cars, planes, lightbulbs, telephones, printing presses, computers, washer-dryers, modern medicine, rockets to the moon, and about a bizillion other things including our form of government. It was freedom and capitalizm that brought about this ability to create things of value and have extra money left over for social programs. “Tyrant” is not a relative term.
Kevin you use two statements that represent the core of the ideological differences between your side and ours:
1. “…they look at people who would deny them the power of government to use for the good of others and say things like “heartless”, “selfish”, “uncaring”. ”
Surely with your intelligence you’re aware that the Founding Fathers would fight to the death against this narrative. The country was founded in direct opposition to the tyranny – both historical and theoretical – of this idea.
If freezing residents on your block would like to keep warm, the Constitution prevents them from voting to burn your house down for “the good of others”.
We all wish to do good, but are protected by the Constitution from being forced to do so.
2. “…They look at this as a victory for the poor and the weak over those already powerful – as an expansion of freedom for those previously denied it by poverty and a system designed to keep them so.
Ah…class warfare straight from Trotsky. Specifically, what system is it that is ‘designed’ to ‘keep them’ in poverty in this country? How does it work? Who would benefit from such a system, since prosperity only breeds more prosperity?
I’ve been both wealthy and poor. I seem to have missed this conspiracy along the way, unless it’s just another artificial liberal narrative intended to keep the gullible on the plantation.
“They look at this as a victory for the poor and the weak over those already powerful – as an expansion of freedom for those previously denied it by poverty and a system designed to keep them so.”
And one name that describes such a “system” empirically is Communism, despite its [telltale, impossible] Utopian verbiage! Check out Communist North Korea, especially compared to South Korea…and America, where its Constitutional Capitalism has made every American richer than George Washington was in many very significant ways, and where its “poor” are rich compared to N. Korea and the rest of the underdeveloped world.
Constitutional Capitalism’s wealth is not a fixed pie where “inequality” means “unfairness”, oppression, lack of upward mobility and fixed poverty, unless we consider the chronic state of Progressive-Democrat run Inner City Ghettos. In contrast, the “fairness” of Socialist-Communist redistribution always means progressively less wealth creation, less wealth = lower standards of living, and eventually only “equal” impoverishment and slavery.
That’s what is truly unfair, uncaring, and callous as already well-proven in the real world.
Kevin, you need to start thinking rationally and empirically, instead of retreating into the verbiage of “perception is reality” delusionalism and thus subjectivism, as your argument as to the primacy and “moral equivalence” of mere feelings allows you to do; and which makes you think or propose that I am like you, which I most certainly am not! Though we are both Americans, I don’t think like you do at all.
Most basically, you need to “understand” yourself – your thinking process and your acceptance and use of high sounding but essentially only self-serving, self-congratulatory words and memes, by which you can obviously also be
manipulated. Dealing with the real world by making your words actually refer to it is much more interesting and gratifying. To do that you need to think
using your own inherent powers of reason, applied to empirical reality, and instead of relying on and simply repeating the noises of your above comforting Marxist groupthink.
Well said!!
Kevin R. Cross: “they [so-called liberals] look at people who would deny them the power of government to use for the good of others and say things like ‘heartless’, ‘selfish’, ‘uncaring’.” [and are therefore tyrants]
You assume, in Marxist fashion, that the people comprising government are not themselves greedy, self-serving, heartless and uncaring. We know from experience in the 20th Century that every government which gained unbridled power over their people turned into tyranny, waging war against their neighbors and against their own people.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Lord Acton
“He who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him; it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life. For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom – i.e. make me a slave. To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation, and reason bids me look on him as an enemy to my preservation who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it… He that in the state of society would take away the freedom belonging to those of that society or commonwealth must be supposed to design to take away from them everything else, and so be looked on as in a state of war.” John Locke
“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others… We are different from all the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we’re doing… Power is not a means, it is an end… The object of power is power… Always there will be the intoxication of power… We are the Priests of Power… The real power; the power we have to fight for night and day is not power over things but over men… Power is power over human beings, over the body; but above all over the mind.” George Orwell – 1984
Kevin R. Cross: “They [so-called liberals] look at this as a victory for the poor and the weak over those already powerful – as an expansion of freedom for those previously denied it by poverty and a system designed to keep them so.”
This assumes, in Marxist fashion, that the poor and the weak (the so-called proletariat class) are held back by a corrupted form of government in collusion with a corrupted form of economics. That would be true in the case of Medieval Feudalism or a Fascist economy, but it is not true under a system of truly free enterprise where there is naturally little poverty since each man, if he is free, is naturally entitled to keep the fruit of his own labor, and therefore possesses a powerful incentive for labor and creativity. An unnatural state of serfdom and poverty occurs when Marxist government – a small group of people – forcefully robs and then “collectivizes” the fruit of other people’s labor – in violation of Natural Law. The temptation to pig out on collectivized property and to use it for bribing people and buying votes is an irresistible force in Marxist government. Serfdom and poverty are inevitable in a collectivist society because the people comprising Marxist (collectivist – excessively taxing) government are greedy for fruit of other men’s labor – and because the work ethic of the laboring middle class is destroyed as they eventually become exhausted and demoralized by the burden of excessive taxation of their labor on behalf of the proletariat and Marxist ruling classes. The work ethic of the non-disabled so-called proletariat class is also destroyed because they are no longer required to labor for property – the Marxist ruling class supplies them with the fruit of middle class labor. In the end a nation where the natural work ethic of its people is destroyed is a nation on the road to serfdom and poverty. Marxist Socialism is not the cure for poverty – it is one of the chief causes of poverty in the modern world – an organized crime against humanity.
Marxists believe that a private employer “appropriates” a worker’s labor which “alienates them from, their fundamental nature.” That may be true under a Fascist system of Crony Capitalism where self-serving government-connected employers take advantage of workers, but under true Free Enterprise a worker is paid by a non-government-connected employer in free exchange for his labor which anchors both to their fundamental nature. A multiplicity of employers naturally find themselves competing for good workers via higher payments and other benefits, and employers also naturally compete for customers by improving their products and services, thus the natural competition of real Free Enterprise is the self-limiting force which provides real justice to all three – the worker, the customer and the employer. Marxists believe that “Equality in ownership and control of the means of production is a necessary prerequisite for freedom,” when in fact, as twentieth Century has shown, and as F. A. Hayek noted: “Equality before the law and material equality are…in conflict with each other… A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.” The truth which Hayek wrote highlights an Orwellian contradiction: Government concentration in ownership and control of the means of production is a necessary prerequisite for totalitarian government power which results in unequal rights, inequality before law, and the destruction of freedom.
The proletariat [lazy, tax-eating, non-disabled government-dependents] will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital [property] from the bourgeoisie [laboring, tax-paying middle class and entrepreneurs], to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state [self-serving Marxist Government]… Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property… You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible… And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois [middle class] individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at… We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the [non] working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.” ” Karl Marx
Wow, you guys really are full of assumptions and preconceptions.
When did I say I agreed with the current left wing “position”? I don’t. I also don’t agree with yours. I’m a member of the very large group of Americans who see this whole us vs. them “ideological struggle” as a struggle between two sets of mutually opposing stupidity.
First, the left aren’t marxists. Marxism is dead – discredited, unworkable, and based on what are now viewed as insane premises. Except for a fringe group of idiots, which no one but you take seriously, the left has no more interest in communism of any stripe than you do. So, stop with the Marx quotes – it just makes you sound paranoid.
(On the other hand, the left makes a lot of idiot noise about the right, too. I don’t believe you’re trying to bring about Lassez-Faire capitalism either – that was almost as big a disaster as communism was.)
However: JPeden, the system we have does, in fact work to keep the rich rich and the poor poor. The power of superior schooling and training cannot be denied, nor can it be denied that the poor, in most places in our nation, have no access to it. Nepotism is a mildly acceptable thing in modern business – who you know has weight. And gaining a line of credit to attempt to improve your situation is much easier if you already have a reasonable amount of money.
None of these form an insurmountable barrier. A man born poor may become rich – but he must be either lucky or exceptional. Which is really the same thing, since we all know the luck favours the prepared mind. And the fact is, most people are not exceptional.
However, to remain rich, a person need merely be average.
Of course, poor and rich are not absolutes. there is a whole great spectrum. But the basic rules remain – wherever on the economic scale you started, you are likely to remain.
I don’t actually have much of a problem with that. Inequality is an aspect of the capitalist system, and the capitalist system is the only one that we have gotten to work effectively the vast majority of the time. However, the ACA (and other measures aimed at relief for the poor) is designed to ensure that the poor have a reasonable quality of life. This, I cannot see the argument against – in our nation, the richest that has ever been and far richer than any other, we cannot afford to give a helping hand? This makes no sense.
Do not adjust your screen – You have just entered THE TWILIGHT ZONE.
Years ago I traced for some friends the career of Octavius, who after beating Antonio, returned all powers to the Senate and called himself “Princeps” or “First Citizen” of Rome. Within certainly 15 years Octavious centered the directive powers in the hands of the central Roman gov., i.e. in the hands of Octavius himself. At the end of this “evolution” (actually “revolution” against the Republic) Octavius called himself “Augustus (the Sublime) Caesar”. The First Citizen had changed into an Imperial regulator as the Emperor (which originally meant general of an army). Once the Republic metamorphized into the Empire, it never returned. At some point things became just too late (as Cicero discovered no later than the moment of his being murdered on the orders of metamorphizing “First Citizen”).
I agree with Walsh that conservatives must fight the good fight, hopefully winning. But as the example of the “fundamental transformation” of the Roman Republic into a Empire indicates, at a certain point the mutation is past. Obama is creating for himself an “imperial” presidency and the means for doing so are “executive orders”. He ordered war in Lybia, he embrasses the Brotherhood, he exercuses literally the dictating right (= dictatorial commands) to order all citizens of the US of A to purchase health coverage, even against the citizen’s will. Obama now has that obtained from the SC the right to order, now generalized, i.e., he can on theory apply universlly with universally binding dictates to purchase anything. At that point I begin to fail to detect the differnce between Octavius->Augustus and Obama->Imperial President.
I relate this sad story of “revoultion” in Roman history as an illustration that things can become too late. I do not say that this state is now present. I do say that, if Obama is elected again and free in his second term to “regulate” unlimitedly with executive orders, I will change my permanent stay in Germany into a new citizenship.
So, if what you and Roberts is saying is true, that it’s not the job of the Supreme Court to protect us from Congress, then Congress tomorrow could pass a law bringing back slavery and the court wouldn’t say anything about it. After all, Congress passed it, so even if slavery is unconstitutional then it has to stand because the court is not in the business of protecting the American people from Congress, right? The Obamacare law, as written HAD a mandate, NOT a tax. So even though the mandate was judged to be unconstitutional, it still passed because Roberts didn’t want to overturn a Congressional law. I don’t know whether to laugh at that sort of logic or cry.
The Supreme Court got this terribly wrong and if they’re not here to defend our rights under the Constitution, then what good are they? We may as well just ignore whatever they say and just move on. Perhaps Andrew Jackson had it right. When the Supreme Court went against Jackson in a case involving the Cherokee indians, Jackson just ignored the ruling claiming that the Supreme Court had no way of enforcing it. Ouch. So when they decide that something like the mandate is unconstitutional but that you’re still going to have to take it no matter what, I’m not sure the American people will swallow that very well. Well, the final judgement will come in November, and I’m ready to cast MY vote to strike this all down by voting for Romney.
Not quite. We still have the rest of Constitution just a whole lot of new power in the taxing clauses, so slavery is still out. However Congress can now do the next best thing and impose servitude one law at a time. The only limit is the ballot box. Someday in the future the democrats will get another super majority and anything could happen.
Congress and the President can impose a penalty and force the citizen to engage in almost any activity under this new taxing power.
And Pied P you are full of crap. National defense, NSA etc were NEVER in the private sector. You want to move a huge part of the private sector to the government on the pretext of helping the poor and downtrodden. Do you even understand that the poor are covered under Medicaid? The old are covered under Medicare. Urgent cases are always handled WITHOUT REGARD TO THE ABILITY TO PAY. We can cover the uninsured without destroying the system or changing the relationship between the people and the government and for a fraction of what Obamacare will cost. We conservatives and libertarians care about LIBERTY and not bumper sticker slogans.
Slavery is still out?
What do you call stealing the labor of others for your own use?
It’s called the income tax. Keeping in mind that its ratification has long ago been proven to be a lie (some states which “ratified” it didn’t even have a legislative session during the ratification period. The governors just had the secretary of state write a letter to Washington saying they had. See? they had plenty of scumbags back then, too), once that money has been spent for things against my will, what else is it but slavery? I will not even bring up the arbitrary rules we are now forced to live under, promulgated by every niggling clerk in government. Slaves only had to please one master, not millions.
Tax Freedom Day tells you when your governmental chains are slipped to work for yourself. Even though they leave tons of taxes out of it, you work between a third and a half of your life for whatever Congress, your Legislature, and any little pissant bureaucrat in power decides it wants to fund.
Pray tell, exactly what percentage actually constitutes “slavery” in your mind?
Oh sure. Let’s all do as the party hacks tell us every 4 years, and get behind their current big spending, kleptocrat POTUS pick….I mean he’s wearing the right color jersey right? Beliefs schlemiefs…he’ll be great if we just get *this* one elected. Yeah, we’ve pulled the football away at the last minute a few times…sorry about that. Never happen again – and this time we mean it!
Too late R’s. This may very well be your last chance, and I don’t like your odds with Romney. Romney’s going to strike down Obamacare? Ha! He can’t even go into a debate with Obama without some very uncomfortable facts being brought up about his own forays into communist medicine.
Y’all can get caught up in this…go huddle and get each other psyched up for the game. Have fun. I’m waiting for the financial collapse and the shooting to start. That’s when we might have a chance again. Good luck with Willard Rino Party. He’s a perfect candidate for the crappy party you are.
Chief Justice John Roberts, explaining his Supreme Court decision on ObamaCare:
“Barack Obama is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”
We’ve had the Boston Tea Party moment…which was ignored — including by some ‘royalists’ on ‘our’ side. We have Paines, Adams and Reveres aplenty, but who will be our Washington? Certainly not the Arnold currently running nor those in the current leadership. As pointed out above, our Republic may have already passed into Empire.
It may look like Roberts stabbed the Constitution in the back, it may sound like Roberts stabbed the Constitution in the back, it may may even feel like Roberts stabbed the Constitution in the back, but don’t let that fool you, he really did stab the Constitution in the back.
The Misanthropic Right
==========================
Listening to and reading the anti-Obamacare arguments here on this forum and elsewhere, I am reminded of a pack of rabid hyenas viciously growling over a morsel of meat. Why extending basic health services to deprived fellow citizens is a cause for this verbal savagery I can’t fathom. There’s got to be something else behind it.
Does anyone really believe that legalizing Obamacare signals the “loss of our liberties”? That sounds so retarded. That’s the approach and thinking of a high school Freshman trying to impress himself and his teachers. It’s positively juvenile.
The fact is that for decades, basic health care has been denied to a large portion of our citizenry in one way or another. No job? No health insurance. Pre-existing condition? Sorry, uninsurable. Divorced? Too bad. You’re not welcome here. Just diagnosed with cancer? Ok, starting next week, you’re being dropped from your health plan…….and so on.
As far as I’m concerned, you had your chance and you blew it. Why this uncivilized approach to health care was allowed to exist for decades and decades in the US, as I said, I can’t figure out.
If someone would kindly explain to me why Obamacare should be done away with (forget “unconsitutionaltiy” or loss of personal liberties and so on….I don’t buy those arguments) I’ll gladly vote Republican in November. If you can’t come up with a real reason, I’m going to vote for Obama again.
Not only that, I’m going to militantly fight your kind tooth and nail, personally, verbally, in the media, on blogs etc. in my attempt to rid our country of this snarling, reptilian monstrosity that the anti-Obama camp has become.
This isn’t about helping the uninsured. This is about taking healthcare from the public sector and centralizing it in the government. There are over 1500 places in the ACA “to be determined by the Secretary of HHS”. ONE UNELECTED PERSON will determine how our government-run healthcare will be distributed. That’s dangerous.
The Armed Forces, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, etc etc have all been taken “from the public sector” and centralized. These are services that are essential and can only be provided by a not-for-profit government.
My argument is that “basic health services” falls into the same category.
The “private sector” is and has been unable to provide these health services to tens upon tens of millions of US citizens. That means it isn’t working. Therefore, the govt. has to step in.
It’s not “dangerous” (how is it dangerous?)…. it’s the logical outcome of a broken for-profit health system. You can’t deny basic health services to millions simply because it’s “unprofitable” to do so. If you do, then not only are you uncivilized, you’re positively menacing and malevolent.
“You can’t deny basic health services to millions simply because it’s “unprofitable” to do so. If you do, then not only are you uncivilized, you’re positively menacing and malevolent.
YOU are positively menacing and malevolent for thinking that it is okay to command people to provide basic health services for others, which is simply slavery by another name.
“The Armed Forces, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, etc etc have all been taken “from the public sector” and centralized. These are services that are essential and can only be provided by a not-for-profit government.”
What??? The government formed the armed services as part of what the original Constitution said was the basic job of our government. There was never a civil CIA or NSA. What???
“My argument is that “basic health services” falls into the same category.
The “private sector” is and has been unable to provide these health services to tens upon tens of millions of US citizens. That means it isn’t working. Therefore, the govt. has to step in.”
Are you for real? I mean really…this is your argument in favor of the ACA.. Are you really this dense or just desperately trying to prove to us you are dense. This is the most outrageous statement I have heard regarding our health care sytem in some time if not ever…
“It’s not “dangerous” (how is it dangerous?)…. it’s the logical outcome of a broken for-profit health system. You can’t deny basic health services to millions simply because it’s “unprofitable” to do so. If you do, then not only are you uncivilized, you’re positively menacing and malevolent.”
Dude move to Cuba. Please. In fact I will pay for your airfare and one bag.
Perhaps this will help you understand.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/a_surgeon_cuts_to_the_heart_of_the_obamacare_nightmare.html
Rabid hyenas? Go ahead demonize, that is what you on the left do best. If you are not with us on the left, you are evil and want to starve children and ruin the planet. No civil discourse there… Obamacare has fundamentally changed the structure of Congress and how it taxes. In fact Congress is no longer needed at all. Scotus re-wrote the healthcare mandate to make it a tax rather that a matter of commerce which was un-constitutional. The House and Senate are out of it. I am surprised that you Liberals can’t see the danger here?! Obama can now decide to tax whatever he sees fit to obtain his goal. Take for instance the Chevy Volt. He could with this new ruling, tax all other cars to force Americans into buying what he wants them to buy. I will remind you…..someday, soon Conservatives will be in power, pandora’s box is wide open. If this ruling is not a loss of freedom, and a screwing of the Constitution, I don’t know what is. Your koolaid won’t save you from the hyenas from your own party, (you know, the ones you elected who don’t have to share in the crappy healthcare your going to get) Have fun, bend over,and pony up, the tax man cometh!
“Not only that, I’m going to militantly fight your kind tooth and nail, personally, verbally, in the media, on blogs etc. in my attempt to rid our country of this snarling, reptilian monstrosity that the anti-Obama camp has become.”
You just need to understand, punk; there’s plenty on our side of the ditch that would be only too happy to rid the Country of lefty idiots like you.
I’d like to see someone (perhaps it will be you?) to explain to me the logic of the demanding of someone else’s time, skill, resources & expertise without the worry of having to pay for it because you will have other people paying for it. Why beat around the bush here? Go to your nearest neighbor, plead poverty & ask them to pay this month’s electric bill for you. This can go for just about anything else your little heart desires.
Yes, there are truly needy people out there who need access to health care like the rest of us do. In life-threatening situations, all are guaranteed by law, to get the necessary care.
Bottom line? There is a better way to skin this cat than allowing gov’t to overtake the whole thing. Pare down Medicaid & Medicare to those who really need access to these programs. Enact laws that allow full portability for insurance coverage across all the states. Allow a long laundry list of different plans designed for individuals, not groups. The trouble is all this gov’t intrusion in what should be a private sector enterprise has helped to ratchet up prices & rationing at the same time. The belief that a gov’t-sponsored single-payer system is going to bring costs down while expanding the scope of access to care is simply not realistic. The money won’t be there. Ever. Perhaps we will need to learn that bitter lesson the hard way; after all, it’s what Europe & Canada are learning right now as we speak.
Hahaha.. thats funny.
Conservatives, Conservative Independents, Libertarians and Blue Dog Democrats have been, ‘fighting’ your ilk with facts, lucid reasoning and little/no ad hominem.
Not the proven to fail emotionally-laden nonsense and juvenile vitriol you and like-minded folks espouse.
BTW, WHEN the U.S. has to resort to ‘health lotteries’ like Canada’s if Obamacare stays on the books – I don’t believe an, ‘I told you so’ will reach your synapses.
Nonetheless the best of luck in lessening your burden on pie-in-the-sky nonsense and adopting a more PROVEN to be successful, deductive reasoning in your day-to-day.
An outstanding article. This needs to be the theme of this election.
Oh, no’s! Pied Piper called us “Rabid Hyenas!” Oh, the pain, the pain! Because of this, we must, immediately, change our stance on government run health care! Or else he’ll call us mean names! (Sniff, sob, moan!)
/Sarc. off.
OOOh, and “Menacing!” And “Malevolent!” This “Piper” sure plays a melodramatic tune, there, doesn’t he? Gosh, if we don’t behave ourselves, he might even call us “Mean Sprited!” The horror, the horror!
/More Sarc.
Putting a government bureacracy in charge of health care—which will, of course, make government in charge of dispensing life and death—why, what could possibly go wrong with that? Look how swell government health care works in Great Britain! And Canada!
There’s no danger, here!
/And yet more sarc. It’s what I do best!
As I recall, the original Pied Piper was an evil creep who stole children away from their parents, playing pretty music and pretending to be their friend.
I think #18 is that sort of Pied Piper. I think if we listen to that sort of pretty BS, we’re going to end up in a place we don’t like at all.
Gee, Mr. Piper, where are you trying to lead us? Somehow, I don’t think it’s to peace, love, unicorns and free health care for all.
Men do not make history. History makes men.
History stared you in the face Juctice Roberts, and you flinched.
You were found wanting.
Shame on you for not having the humility, and the wisdom, to step aside and let a better man take up the challenge.
Sheesh. For whatever it’s worth…Justice, NOT Juctice.
Next move: Pass a law requiring all members of the Unorganized Militia, in other words, all of us, to own a functional firearm. If you refuse, you pay a penalty to fund those low income militia members in their purchase of a firearm.
Precedents can be used like jujitsu. Make ‘em eat their words! I mean, this is doable! Let’s get the GOA on this ASAP.
The Pied Piper: http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2011/01/the-truth-behind-the-legend-of-the-pied-piper/. Kidnapping children or stealing money from healthy people to pay for unhealthy ones by force of law are criminal activities under natural law. The penalty for these crimes has always been severe.
Ceteris, exactly!
” It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”
You know, I’m getting a little sick and tired of hearing this argument from Roberts. If that’s the case, then tomorrow Congress could bring back slavery and the Supreme Court wouldn’t do anything to protect the public from it. Slavery is clearly unconstitutional, so any law bringing back slavery via the Congress should be stated as such. Yet, according to Roberts, it’s not really his business to get involved with what Congress is doing and to protect the public from unconstitutional laws passed by Congress.
Obamacare’s mandate was clearly unconstitutional and was stated as such by Roberts. And since the law passed by Congress only mentioned a mandate and NOT a “tax,” then it should have been declared unconstitutional on its merits, not because Roberts decided to re-write the law. The Supreme Court is there to decide whether or not laws are constitutional and these decisions have a huge bearing on the public’s welfare. When people elect representatives they don’t know what these people will actually pass as law. So if they do pass a law that is so harmful to the public, the last recourse for the public usually is the Supreme Court. So if Roberts said, “If you don’t like it, vote in the next election and change the law yourself,” then I wonder how far that logic would have gone in 1861 with the issue of slavery? Oh, that’s right, it ended up in a civil war.
Here is what Roberts is saying. It is not the job of the Supreme Court to protect Americans from the Congress – then he goes on and tells Congress what they can and cannot do. So there is a Congress and there is a Supreme Court and their dealings are the only thing that matters. There aren’t really any citizens – or they don’t count. And some think this is a Conservative?
Think it might be time to admit that the libbies don’t corner the market on the lust for power they all enjoy up there behind the Beltway?
All that aside though; as I have stated elsewhere, Roberts was between the proverbial rock & a hard place. I believe the outcome of this decision will ultimately be a better one than that of a decision backing the court’s dissenters. I think Roberts acknowledges that, to say the very least.
“So if they do pass a law that is so harmful to the public, the last recourse for the public usually is the Supreme Court.”
No, their recourse is to repeal the law in the next Congress.
The decision is a fait accompli. All the more reason for Romney to win and he should advertize this. Romney is more Conservative than Bush was. Remember with Bush Harriet Myers came before Alito.
The next President will appoint likely 2 or maybe even 3 Justices. Romney just has to promise now they will like Thomas and Scalia.
Movement Conservatives, of all people, tend to ignore the political fight as they claim it to unprincipled when actually they are too doctrinal.
Very few things are more important than who will be at the helm when 3 Justices are appointed to a a Court with three youngish and straight arrow conservatives already serving.
The fight in the Congress over these appointments will be teeth bared smash face Democratic opposition. This will require political power and discipline and will to fight.
In 2010 the Tea Party succeeded in getting 60 people elected to the House and Senate. Since then Movement Conservatives, who say they support them, have used the movement to get a doctrinal Conservative the Republican nomination.
Their strategy has failed. Romney who is indeed conservative is not a Movement Conservative. And it shouldn’t matter. And the Tea Party should get us another 100 people in the House and Senate.
Win the political fight and we will win. Lose the political fight and it will be doctrinal scwabbles.
Pied Piper:
Please provide me/PJMedia the information pertaining to your, ‘..tens of millions..’ who are denied health insurance.
That’s pure fiction.
The largest demographic of people NOT possessing health insurance, tweeners-20 something’s is overwhelmingly due to their NOT wanting to purchase said health insurance.
Fact: The # of those with ‘pre-existing conditions denied health insurance’ is less than 1% of the U.S. population. Is that horrible.. Yes.
Are those with pre-existing conditions turned away from hospitals, clinics etc., – No.
So your ‘answer’ or ‘need’ is to allow an entity, that is presently ~$16,000,000,000,000 in debt, has proven ONLY to worsen EVERY system they entangle themselves with or create and FORCE you and I to pay for the mere fact of breathing?
I’m in my mid-30′s. I’ve had health insurance my entire life. Due to CHOICE.
If you can’t see this as a frightening government overreach wheres they truly could care less about those ‘turned away’ – I’ve got some beachfront property in Kansas to show you.. reeaal cheap.
Russia, India to Hold First Launch of BrahMos Submarine-Based Missile 28.06.2012
http://rusnavy.com/news/navy/index.php?ELEMENT_ID=15453
Don’t think for one minute that Romney et al are going to do anything at all about Obamacare. No, it will be just like abortion: they will use it to raise money on, to rouse support, to get people motivated, but in the end they will do nothing about it because it is in their best interests to simply keep using it as an issue. What did Reagan, Bush I, or Bush II do about abortion? Not a darn thing. It was much more profitable to them to pretend to care and do zero. The Dems I can tolerate, they are at least honest about it. Most “conservative” politicians are simply mendacious.
Homeland Security gives UC-Berkeley an ‘armored counterattack truck’ June 29, 2012
http://washingtonexaminer.com/homeland-security-gives-uc-berkeley-an-armored-counterattack-truck/article/2501042?custom_click=rss
Where does the Roberts Decision Take Us?
In a nutshell here are all the essentials of the Roberts decision. The Mandate exaction is a tax and not a penalty. Congress has the right to impose it as part of their taxing powers.
Here is the obscure part. Is he claiming (because I think he is not) that if it were a penalty it would not be permissible under Congress’s taxing power?
He has said, I think it obvious, that individual penalties cannot be constitutional under the Commerce Clause. That much is clear. He then said this tax can be imposed under Congress’s taxing powers. He did not say that all penalties are unconstitutional under Congress’s taxing power the way he said that all individual penalties are unconstitutional under the Commerce Claus.
Roberts word games we made necessary only because individual penalties are not within Congress’s legitimate Commerce Clause powers so it needed it not to be a penalty to get it valid under taxing power. That is not the same as saying that had it been a penalty Congress has no right to impose it under its taxing authority.
Word to the wise. Don’t think he did.
I want to expand on my comment where Roberts decision takes us if anyone can stand it.
It had been fairly settled law that the Commerce Clause does not give Congress the right to regulate individuals at least to the extent that to do so would require some real heavy constitutional thinking and justification. Courts tend to work that way.
A case from the Depression era shows this principle. A chicken farmer grew corn to feed his chickens. For doing so he was arrested under a law that permitted the Federal Government to regulate corn markets under the Congress’s Commerce Claus.
The government claim was that since the farmer grew his own corn for feed, he did not buy corn in the market for feed. And by not buying corn in the market for feed he affected, and participated in, interstate Commerce and he could be arrested.
The Courts threw this out either at the time or somewhat later. Their reasoning as I understand it was not an absolute proof that he was not engaged in interstate commerce – he did affect the local corn market – but that the Commerce Claus does not regulate individuals qua citizens – the Government case was not strong enough to show this individual’s actions was clear enough to regulate it as an interstate commerce participant.
So the understanding fit in with the focus of the Commerce Claus as allowing Congress to regulate interstate industries – not individuals.
So what has this to do with the Roberts decision? It was never clear in the Roberts decision why if the exaction were a penalty in fact and not a fee or tax that that in and of itself removes the action from participating in interstate commerce. It is rather the “individualness” of the transaction of exaction that removes it from a valid interstate commerce Congressional regulation.
The Commerce Clause regulates industries not individuals. So it is not that it is an individual penalty that removes it from Commerce Claus regulation, it is that it is individual.
But Congress has wider individual regulatory power as part of its taxing powers under the Constitution. By making the exaction look more like a fee than a penalty might ease this transition, but doesn’t get to the heart of it.
It is the general prohibition accepted re individual regulation that moved it from what would be objectionable under the Constitution’s Commerce Claus, to the Taxing powers.
In this regard let us be very careful here. Roberts did not say that were an exaction a penalty it would be unconstitutional under Congressional taxing powers. He did say that an individual penalty would be unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause. He did not say that an individual penalizing tax would be unconstitutional under Congressional taxing authority.
Likely because it isn’t.
“no pre-ordained guarantee of victory.”
Pre-ordained? Maybe not, but it has been widely observed that the bulk of mankind is more than willing to trade freedom for “security”, which appears to me an accurate observation.
The bulk of mankind is also stupid enough to believe that there can be such a thing as a free lunch.
Freedom does not appear to be the default state for the mass of men.