Posted on 06/30/2012 10:23:54 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act, I have noticed a curious phenomenon in which some conservative commentators seem to be so desperate to find a silver lining to the ruling that they have abandoned all logic. Consider George Will, who wrote a column in the aftermath of the ruling that actually puts forward the argument that we conservatives should take the fact that Roberts didn’t rely upon the commerce clause as evidence that there might be some constitutional limitation on the federal government after all. That would be a wonderful aspect of this ruling, if they had overturned the law! Instead, what we have is a monstrous precedent set in which the court re-writes a law in order to make it constitutional by imputing into the act a tax that had not existed in fact. This is an unmitigated disaster. I have heard a few who have noted hopefully that this ruling will energize the conservative base, and while that’s probably the case, I’m not certain I am so concerned about the political fall-out as I am about the long-run constitutional implications. You see, the political situation may permit us to repair the law, but it doesn’t permit us to immediately repair the damage done to the body of case law upon which future courts will rely as precedents in their own rulings.
The other thing I have read is the bizarre notion put forward by the National Review that what Roberts did was more conservative because he exercised judicial restraint in not striking down the law. Balderdash! Once you realize the legal contortions through which Roberts arrived at this ruling, it makes no sense whatever to claim he hadn’t acted as an activist. The convoluted logic by which he found a tax in a law that plainly states it does not contain one is an onerous breech of any notion of strict construction. I cannot conceive of any intellectually rigorous examination of this ruling by which this can be seen as a positive by anybody who is in favor of strict construction. When it came to the Anti-Injunction section of the ruling, it was held not to have been a tax, but just a few pages later, as Roberts performed mental gymnastics, he declared it was a tax after all.
On Thursday evening, Mark Levin summarized the matter better than anybody I’ve heard speak to this matter, in part because he understands the legalities in question, his Landmark Legal Foundation having been a participant in this case, but also because he knew Justice Roberts years ago when they both worked in the Reagan administration. Levin’s critique of the decision mirrors most of my own, and indeed, there was one aspect I hadn’t considered until Levin led me to it. That premise led me to yet another that I don’t believe Levin has yet realized in full. What one must understand is that this ruling is an unmitigated disaster, and no search for some alleged silver lining can repair it.
What Justice Roberts actually did was to expand the definition of what constitutes a permissible tax . Congress is permitted to levy only certain forms of tax, and this one doesn’t fit the definition of any of them. In dispensing with that issue, Roberts held that it didn’t matter, and that words don’t matter, and that plain-written legislative language doesn’t matter. He also ignored the context of the law, and the intent of Congress. One version of this bill had an actual tax, but Congress could not pass it in that form, so Congress altered it to contain no tax. What John Roberts did was to ignore the actual text of the legislation, and to say that the labels didn’t matter: If it looks like a tax, it is one. The problem with this is that it does nothing to restrain Congress from levying new taxes, and ignores the definitions of what sort of taxes Congress may enact. This is a wholesale extension of Congressional taxing authority because what Roberts ruled with respect to the particular form of the tax, insofar as the question of whether Congress had met the constitutional limits on whether it could impose it was effectively: “Close enough.”
That is offered to us as evidence of John Roberts’ alleged strict construction? Close enough? What this means, effectively, is that if Congress enacts some tax that it has questionable constitutional authority to levy, smiling John will be there to tell us it’s “close enough,” with every leftist monster on the court standing behind him to uphold it.
Ladies and gentlemen, there exists no silver lining to this ruling. All of the crackpot, delusional happy-talk from some conservatives in media is designed to make you feel better. You’ve just lost both arms and legs in a brutal assault, but they tell you, you should consider this a happy opportunity to enjoy the comforts of a new wheelchair and mouth-controlled joystick. You’ve just lost your family to a violent home-invasion, but, they tell you, you should view this as a chance to start over. The intention here is to keep you calm. The intention now is to serve a political end, while your country is dying around you. Your most sacred law, the US Constitution, has been crumpled and tossed into the ash-bin of history, and you are told you should do a happy-dance to the calming sounds of “Oh Happy Days.”
I’d like you to inventory the whole of the conservatives to whom you listen, or whose columns and opinions you read, and I want you to take care to note which of them are imploring you to consider some silver lining. They are lying. They have good intentions, many of them, and they have contorted themselves into a formless spaghetti of reasoning in order to find some good in this awful plate of refuse you’ve been handed. Don’t surrender your minds by sprinkling Parmesan on it and wolfing it down. Are there some limited political opportunities as a result of this decision? Yes, but they require the fulfillment of a whole laundry-list of “if-then” statements.
IF Mitt Romney is elected, and IF he doesn’t sell us out, and IF we hold the House, and IF we recapture the Senate(and at least 60 votes) and IF the moderates in either house don’t screw us, and IF Boehner and McConnell have the guts to do in repealing what the villains Reid and Pelosi did in passing the ACA, and IF they can deliver a bill to President Romney’s desk, and IF John Roberts and the other liberals on the court can be replaced, and IF Mitt Romney can replace them with actual strict constructionists, THEN you might have a chance to undo this damage. IF any of these don’t happen, your constitution is effectively dead as a restraint on government.
The danger of self-imposed delusions is that you come to believe them, like a pathological liar. It is by this form of self-delusion that we’ve permitted our country to lose its roots in reverence for the Constitution. We cannot defeat the statists by pretending this isn’t the disaster that it is, if we can defeat them at all. I believe some talking heads know this, but do not want to yield to what will come in the wake of such a monstrosity. They’re hanging on, stubbornly telling us that the stench of smoke reaching our nostrils is merely an air freshener of a novel scent. Rather than screaming “Fire,” and warning conservative Americans that the house is ablaze, the barn is wiped out, the surviving farm animals running loose in a frantic bid to stay ahead of the flames licking at their heels, many are now telling you that it’s all okay. It will be fine.
The French Revolution wheeled out the guillotine to deracinate this kind of logic and here we have it back.
The man is the kind of person that King Lear's fool made a mockery of.
No matter who wins, the Republicans WILL negotiate Obamacare to please their voters who WANT some of those goodies. (many on FR admit as much) No telling how many Republican voters want their reps to “keep the good stuff”.
They want to “replace” Obamacare with their own constituents wants and needs.
AND they don't want bad press.
So, in a few months the same freepers will be arguing for Republicans to “be careful, don't alienate voters, give them some sensible health-care legislation”.
The republican elites are telling us to calm down, take a deep breath, our man Justice Roberts have given us a great victory.
Does that inspire you to fight?
It all reminds me of the famously disputed meaning of the word “is”. In modern law anything can mean anything. It’s easy, just ask John Roberts or John Edwards. We mistake these robed tyrants for deep thinkers, some of them, anyway, or cumulatively, depending on our political outlook, all of them. But they turn out to be sophists, spinners of words from “is” to the “the”.
Therein YOU provide the answer to all this sick apathy, compliance and cooperation going on with this increasing and advancing tyranny being perpetrated upon a once free society.
Romney ain’t no PATTON, and no contrast to the ONE, but at most the fox guarding the hen house, himself the incubator of all things Obama; the assault on even the religious liberty issue, as well as upon capitalism and all other issues, both foreign and domestic imploding from this very state of mind.
These two guys are empty but are mysteriously gaining in power.
You’re absolutely right. If Romney somehow gets in the WH, he, the RINO’s and Democrats will impose this program with only one major change - the name. Romney will insist that he get the credit and the naming rights.
But, I don’t worry much about that because I believe that Romney will lose. And then, conservatives can reunite around the idea that the federal government should get out of the health care system completely.
Like I said before, it can only be construed as defeatist by those who are trusting in those things to save the republic.
I’m not.
Romney will keep the name ACA...he will just tell the people he IMPROVED ON THE LAW.
Republicans cannot defeat the 1st Black Presidents legacy, and they WILL NOT want to.
And some here will cheer....”what class!”
No it is the ultimate in pessimistic thinking and you'd better hope I'm wrong.
If Roberts decides to retire this summer, who do you think gets to appoint his replacement?
And if Obama gets to appoint his replacement, which ex first lady do you think will get the nomination?
Do you think that McConnell would mount a filibuster against HRC?
No I am NOT hoping he doesn't return in October. But I am predicting it.
Thank you!
Yep.
And without a common understanding of the simple meaning of words, the basis for law is destroyed.
And the inevitable result of abandoning that basis is chaos, tyranny, and destruction.
The Soviet Union is a perfect example of how that works.
Did the One Who breathed a soul into your body, etc., command you to vote for a relentless killer of the babies He lovingly forms, to support Adam accessing Bruce by the back door and calling it "marriage," to vote for a relentless persecutor of each and every pro-life church via Romneycare????
I am a Catholic. In that Church, we have poorly catechized types who worship themselves rather than the one and only God and do what they damn well please while blaspheming that it is somehow God's will. I hear that other quite Godly churches are similarly afflicted. If you can pimp for Romney, then what you "believe is right" and what God knows is right seem to have very widely diverged. Or do you have some direct message from God (not the alleged one you conjure up conveniently consistent with your own desires) that the rest of us have not seen?
Not despairing does not require support for the enemies of God's babies.
Enumerated powers? Gone.
Separation of powers? Gone. And with it any notion of judicial restraint.
Due process? On life support.
Accountability? Gone.
Had the CJ deliberately set out to destroy what was left of the Constitution I can hardly imagine him doing a better job.
Which brings me to another question: What happened?
Remember how there was going to be the release of the Obamacare decision on Tuesday morning, and then we were told the decision would be released Thursday?
Obviously, the CJ changed his opinion at the last minute, and then spent the next day and half hastily writing the majority opinion.
So, what caused the CJ to change is vote at the 11th hour? I think the people of this country are owed an explanation.
I'm waiting for one.
Does this mean that the current outpouring of "Mitt, Mitt HE'S our man..if you don't agree then you're a lying, scumbag Obama supporter and should fry in hell" posts on FR can continue to flood the site?
It looks like that even if Mitt could win, it won't make a bit of difference in the long run so how about it? Is this to officially become an addition to the Romney campaign websites?
You'll get no argument from me there!
If you can't appreciate the pure beauty of the violin after hearing this, something's wrong with your ears.
Or you can get raw with these strings.
How about this gamechanger from America's Got Talent (which they SHOULD have won).
Either way, the violin is sweet yet lethal.
Do it!
What are you really saying?
Even Paul Revere would have to agree...after this week, life is good in the Kingdom. So stay positive, have a little cake and make a toast to the French...but always keep in mind, in America, our rulers do it better.
“Does this mean that the current outpouring of “Mitt, Mitt HE’S our man..if you don’t agree then you’re a lying, scumbag Obama supporter and should fry in hell” posts on FR can continue to flood the site?”
I quit posting on Romney threads as there was no control imposed on the Romney people’s language so it was unproductive and waste of time.
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