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.
A lot of these problems are the result of uninformed Republican primary voters too busy making money to do the political homework required.
I totally misunderstood. I thought you were just one of those guys who sit around idly talking about revolution on the internet all day, but have never actually done any shooting.
How many politicians have you killed since your revolution began? Who's next?
The snow ball has a better chance. This will never, ever be undone. That is why the decision is so devastating. Oh ppl will think they can do something by voting in anger . . . but the deed is done.
Bushbots are no less part of a cult of personality than are the Obamabots.
Same cult - different messiah.
you missed an oops - you got Miers name wrong too.
Actually, can’t use reconciliation on the individual mandate because it doesn’t meet other tests. Trust me, reconciliation on this goes nowhere.
That is because you have lost your powers of discernment, if you ever had any. My mission is to seek and spread the truth and to battle falsehood. Case in point: your claim that Romney is "the most liberal governor in history". Everyone here knows that this is just not so. You're mad at me because I am one of the few people left on this site who calls lies told against Romney what they are.
Voltaire
Over and over and over again, I have reminded people I know of the need for them to take care of themselves and to reduce as much as possible dependence on government. Arrange your life so as to minimize any harm that liberal politicians will try to visit upon you.
And, for God's sake, quit voting for liberals. It encourages them!
A few weeks ago when Governor Walker won the recall election in Wisconsin a lot of conservatives mocked the “Wisconsin crying man” who said repeated something to the effect “democracy died tonight” “America as we knew it is dead” and he blubbered without shame on national TV.
Unfortunately, we have a lot of Wisconsin crying men (WCM’s) on the conservative side. It would not surprise me to find that some who mocked the guy a few weeks ago are now saying the exact same thing from the opposite side. I think those who feel they need to vent those feelings should watch the video of that guy blubbering in front of the camera. Then they may better appreciate what it really looks like.
Your insight that it may be part of the grieving process is useful. I think at some point most of them will realize how pointless the hand wringing is and buck up for the future political and legal fights that lie ahead.
I’m gravely disappointed with the decision and feeling down about it, but this is not the end of it all. We don’t need to sugar coat the decision or pretend that it will all be easy, but giving in to despair is not a particularly American trait. We would do well to resist it.
And that is the crux. If Myth is elected and ObamaCare repealed, the Roberts Court has still enshrined sweeping new powers to tax. It has not limited the Commerce Clause nor the Necessary and Proper Clause. And it has said that it is not the Courts role to defend the Constitution from the tyranny of the majority.
Not such a bad thing really, unless Democrats were to ever again hold a majority...
I think it is time for us to remember that G W Bush gave us this pseudo-conservative John Roberts, and G W Bush failures as President gave us Obama. Thank you, Mr G W Bush. Too bad you are not/were not a conservative.
Is that all you have Jim?
Seriously?
After 14 years; thousands upon thousands of articles posted, page views, and comments; and hundreds of thousands of dollars donated, all you have to say now for Free Republic is nothing?
Are you predicting that a Pres. Romney would repeal a bill repealing Obamacare?
THANK YOU ! ! ! !
I have been telling everyone that who cares to listen. It does not matter if ObamaCare is repealed in the Congress or Romney now.
Roberts gave Congress vast new powers that will never be curtailed.
Roberts did more harm to us this week than almost anyone has in decades.
Correct - GWB is the reason we have Obama in the first place. As mad as that makes some people - a radical like obama would never have been thought possible but for the absolute disaster of GWB’s second term.
Now we are living in GWB’s third term, but on steroids.
There is also a strong possibility that things will not proceed as you fear. Perhaps something good will come out of this. You just never can know for sure.
The Supreme Court’s gutting of the Constitution in the Obamacare case was the bad fruit of the GW Bush administration, no doubt about it. But it was also the first-fruits of Romney Republicanism.
You can rest assured that if we had less than 60 votes to repeal, it would, for the purposes of that vote, not be considered a tax.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.