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Your comment about Justice Roberts bears more irony than is generally known. Justice Owen Robers was "the switch in time that saved the Nine." The Supreme Court, primarily composed of older Justices appointed before FDR, had by a 5-4 majority struck down the Agricultural Adjustment Act New Deal program as unconstitutional in United States v. Butler in 1936. These rulings were based primarily upon a both a restrictive (literal) reading of powers vested by the Constitution, and a notion of "Freedom of Contract" espoused in Lochner v. New York, which had been decided in 1905. The Lochner line of cases have been described as the judicial expression of laissez faire capitalism.

Since FDR did want to see his "signature policy" get shot down as unconstitutional, threatened to "pack the Court" by expanding the number of Justices. The Constitution does not state how many justices shall comprise the Supreme Court. Given another two or four appointments, he could overturn United States v. Butler and create a Court that was little more than a rubber-stamp for his socialist policies. Instead, in 1937, Justice Roberts switched sides in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, in upholding a minimum wage law.

By switching sides, Roberts accomplished the following:

1. The "Freedom of Contract" line of cases from Lochner v. New York to United States v. Butler, while not explicitly overturned, were now dead letters, narrowly restricted to their facts, and those cases have not since been cited as controlling legal authority;

2. Congress was given carte blanche to do whatever they wanted simply by citing the Commerce Clause as authority for regulatory or resdistributive legislation.

3. And by so doing, FDR had in effect obtained his rubber-stamp Supreme Court.

Among the many liberal dogmas that float around (usually involving the supposed innocence of liberal "martyrs" like the Saccho & Vanzetti, the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss), the dogma regarding Roberts is that he didn't switch under pressure. Instead, he was ready to change his mind based upon reading various "hints" he'd left in his opinions. But the reality is that after West Coast Hotel, Roberts never again sided with the "Four Horsemen, he never again cited Lochner as controlling authority. Roberts switch in West Coast Hotel was the most significant philosophical/political switch by an individual justice in the history of the Supreme Court.

It was probably academic anyway. With retirement/deaths of Justices Van Deventer, Butler, McReynolds and Sutherland, and their replacement by liberals like Frankfurter, Black, Murphy and Jackson, FDR created the rubber stamp socialist Court he wanted. Nothing was going keep that from happening eventually. With three full terms and a bunch of old men, he could simply have waited for nature to take its course.

In fact, Roberts switch was a double boon to FDR. By appearing to have changed his mind of his own volition, Roberts saved the image of an independent judiciary, and save FDR the need to engage in an obviously heavy-handed tactic of packing the Court. But as stated, Roberts switch in effect surrendered the reality of a judiciary that was an independent check and balance on Congress and the Executive.

Since then, the Court has exercised its "independence" by creating a labrynth of "individual rights," found nowhere in the Constitution, and inherently in conflict with each other. The Court then set itself up as the arbiter of those competing rights. In so doing, it has transformed itself into another organ of Statism, to diminish those liberties actually recognized in the Constitution and the Amendments thereto. They are not "rights," but rather "licenses" granted (and revoked) by the State acting through its judiciary.

The parallels to what Chief Justice Roberts has done 70-80 years later are unavoidable.