[grey_whiskers]

*If* some of the rumours are true -- say (for argument, or illustration) that the NY Slimes found dirt on the Roberts adoption, or that he is a closet queer -- then he was subject to blackmail, as the historical allusions are accurate; if, on the other hand, he did it to remain in good standing with the cocktail party circuit, and to uphold the august nature of the court (I think I read he was trying to imitate Taney?) -- then he sold his soul for a "mess of pottage."

In either case, however, the freedom from wanton taxation for NOT doing things, is gone.

Next step for those who worship death -- destructive, ruinous taxes on all those NOT having an abortion. Then on those attending church or synagogue. The principle has been established: you're free to do it, or not. The government is just exercising its taxing power, right?

NO cheers, unfortunately.

[FredZarguna]

In its effects, we don't disagree. As I have written elsewhere many times on FR in the last few weeks, "conservative" "deep thinkers" excusing Roberts' treachery as a Jedi mind-trick or spectacular jiu-jitsu maneuver are engaging in nothing more than sophistry and deserve to be ridiculed and anathematized.

Imitating Taney indeed: The decision in the ACA is the Dred Scott of our time. Its defenders should never be taken seriously again; it is a monstrously dark cloud in the sky of American history with no silver lining -- certainly there is none to be found in the gratuitous obiter dicta of Roberts' opinion, which is not binding on any future decision, on any lower court, nor even -- given the clearly unhinged nature of Roberts' "thought process" -- upon the Chief Justice himself. It is rank with every kind of disease which characterizes the silliest liberal opinions issued by the Court, with penumbras and emanations barely concealed beneath its slimy surface: logical holes, self-contradictions, ignorance or outright deprecation of case law, and defiance of the plain meaning of the Constitution.

Pauli best and most famously described it: "[Das] ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!" It is so pathetically silly, so preposterously ill-argued, so glaringly stupid, so transparently facile and opportunistic, that it is NOT EVEN WRONG.

Nevertheless, I look no further than Roberts' own words -- so full of clueless irony -- in quoting Holmes admonition that laws should be presumed Constitutional, written on the occasion which any true conservative would recognize as a grasping rationalization. This from a man who pioneered the deconstruction of case law, Originalism, and even the common law foundation, and who never found any law Constitutional which limited state power nor failed to approve one which destroyed liberty. That Roberts could even quote such a man in such a context -- both the contemporary context and the original one -- is a very alarming indicator of his future intentions...

I don't believe "conservatives" who quote Holmes are salvageable; and I don't believe we need to look to rumors to understand their motivations.