Chief Justice John Roberts gives Obama and Democrats a Trojan Horse

The Washington Times Communities ^ | June 29th, 2012 | Amanda Read

[SincerelyAmanda]

After wounding socialism, why didn’t Roberts go for the glory and slay Obamacare while he could? Chief Justice stepped aside to let We the People do the honors.

[FredZarguna]

Read the decision. Read the dissent.

The Conservatives on the Court absolutely agree that Roberts' rewrote the law. They give their reasoning. It's devastating to Roberts' illogical opinion, and to his defenders.

If you still won't read the whole opinion, here is a summary of the dissent's disection of the tax argument: http://washingtonexaminer.com/dissent-scolds-scotus-for-vast-judicial-overreaching/article/2500927

[philman_36]

As you eventually discovered, Roberts' statement -- I won't dignify it by calling it reasoning -- eventually gets around to insinuating that the tax is an "Income Tax."
I didn't "eventually" discover anything. I was trying last night to get your understanding of what was going on.

If you knew it was an income tax then why did you say this...
@Because Roberts' opinion also holds that even though the "tax" is not the kind of tax permitted in the first article of the Constitution, and even though the "tax" is also not a tax on incomes covered by Amendment XVI, it is a valid tax (of what kind he does not say) and the existing case law already permits it.

It seems that you're the one coming to an eventual discovery, not me.

[philman_36]

Read the decision. Read the dissent.
Golly, gee, I hadn't thought of that.
I've been posting snippets of the decision without having read it. How was I ever able to do that?! /sarcasm

[FredZarguna]

Please do actually read what I wrote.

He does not say it's an income tax directly. He suggests it's an income tax by saying people with a certain income have to pay it if they don't buy Healthcare. But he doesn't ever actually say what kind of tax it is: only that it's "permitted."

Read the dissent.

Neither you, nor Roberts, nor this blog-pimp have any leg to stand on.

[FredZarguna]

You are posting snippets... wow, very talented.

That doesn't suggest you've actually read them, and indeed, it's quite clear that you either haven't read them, or don't understand what you posted.

The crux of the issue isn't whether the Bill contained taxes; it does. The crux of the issue is whether the individual mandate is justified on the basis of Congress' taxing power.

It isn't.

The actual conservatives on the Court tore you, the blog-pimp, and Roberts a new one.

Stop posting "snippets," and read what Scalia et al think of your ridiculous position. It's crap. The individual mandate is not a tax in ANY SENSE EVER FOUND BY THE USSC.

[FredZarguna]

You are posting snippets... wow, very talented.

That doesn't suggest you've actually read them, and indeed, it's quite clear that you either haven't read them, or don't understand what you posted.

The crux of the issue isn't whether the Bill contained taxes; it does. The crux of the issue is whether the individual mandate is justified on the basis of Congress' taxing power.

It isn't.

The actual conservatives on the Court tore you, the blog-pimp, and Roberts a new one.

Stop posting "snippets," and read what Scalia et al think of your ridiculous position. It's crap. The individual mandate is not a tax in ANY SENSE EVER FOUND BY THE USSC.

[philman_36]

Please do actually read what I wrote.
I did. I even posted what you wrote and you basically wrote that you didn't know what kind of tax it was because Roberts didn't say what kind of tax it was when he actually did.

He does not say it's an income tax directly. He suggests it's an income tax by saying people with a certain income have to pay it if they don't buy Healthcare.
Good Lord, man, can't you read?! He upheld the Government’s contention that it was a tax!

Congress thought it could enact such a command under the Commerce Clause, and the Government primarily defended the law on that basis. But, for the reasons explained above, the Commerce Clause does not give Congress that power. Under our precedent, it is therefore necessary to ask whether the Government’s alternative reading of the statute—that it only imposes a tax on those without insurance—is a reasonable one. Snip... The Government asks us to interpret the mandate as imposing a tax, if it would otherwise violate the Constitution. Granting the Act the full measure of deference owed to federal statutes, it can be so read, for the reasons set forth below.

But he doesn't ever actually say what kind of tax it is: only that it's "permitted."

The Affordable Care Act is constitutional in part and unconstitutional in part. The individual mandate cannot be upheld as an exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. That Clause authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, not to order individuals to engage in it. In this case, however, it is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance. Such legislation is within Congress’s power to tax.

Sounds like he's directly calling it an income tax to me.

[philman_36]

That doesn't suggest you've actually read them, and indeed, it's quite clear that you either haven't read them, or don't understand what you posted.
Do you come to that conclusion only because I don't support your interpretation of the ruling?
Isn't what you wrote really just some petty way of trying to insult my intelligence because we disagree?

Sounds like it to me.

Have a nice day.

[FredZarguna]

Clearly, in your pile of virtual clippings you don't have anything from the conservative dissent, and clearly you don't want to talk about that, because the conservative Justices absolutely savage your opinion.

As for the rest: I'll let FReepers judge your intelligence based on your own posts.

[philman_36]

One last thing...
You keep saying "read the dissent". While reading the dissent gives an understanding of how the case could have gone it doesn't change how the case did go.

I would say argue the decision, not the dissent. The dissent isn't "the law of the land". We're stuck with what we've got now until, or if, this decision is ever overturned.

[philman_36]

I'll let FReepers judge your intelligence based on your own posts.
Other than you and a couple of others there don't seem to be too many FReepers directly weighing in on my intelligence either way.
Doesn't that tell us both something?

As for me, I'll wait and see.
Good day, sir.

[PapaBear3625]

Because Roberts' opinion also holds that even though the "tax" is not the kind of tax permitted in the first article of the Constitution, and even though the "tax" is also not a tax on incomes covered by Amendment XVI, it is a valid tax (of what kind he does not say) and the existing case law already permits it.

An important point. The Constitution is quite specific on what kinds of taxes Congress is allowed to impose:

Article I, Section 2 Clause 3: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers,

Article I, Section. 8. Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Amendment XVI (Income tax amendment)

This tax is none of the above.

They COULD have made it legal, by raising taxes in the amount of the "penalty", and then giving back the same amount as a credit to those who had purchased qualified health insurance. But they didn't structure it that way.

[FredZarguna]

I would say argue the decision, not the dissent.

Derp? That is what we are doing, arguing the decision. In which case the best arguments against your position have already been advanced by Scalia, Thomas et al.

If you are saying "argue the consequences" of the decision, again, derp? The conservatives on the Court have told you what the consequences are going to be. And they aren't good. They are as bad and far reaching as any decision since Dred Scott.

[867V309]

The dissent isn't "the law of the land". We're stuck with what we've got now until, or if, this decision is ever overturned.

Right you are, because your boy Roberts failed to do his job.

[FredZarguna]

I agree.

However, Roberts suggests but does not flatly write that the tax is an "Income Tax." I believe he deliberately does not attempt to justify that conclusion because the Nonsense Coefficient of his ruling is already near criticality.

[Cyropaedia]

How can anyone considering themselves a rightie, view a dingbat, like Amanda Read, to be a greater constitutional authority than Scalia, Alito, and Thomas, regarding the expansion of the government's authority to tax personal inactivity...?

It's like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men,

"You want the truth?? You can't handle the truth!!".

[philman_36]

Thanks for sharing your opinion.

[867V309]

Roberts is not a “Machiavellian genius.” Roberts is a moral degenerate lifetime Washington D.C. politico, who is well known in the beltway to be borderline obsessed with his image. In other words, Chief Justice John Roberts emotionally operates on the same level as the average twelve year old girl, and just sold out not just the Republic, the Constitution and the entire American populace, but really the entire planet, because now that the United States is no more, the forces of evil will run absolutely rampant over the rest of the planet. And Roberts did it so that a bunch of coke-snorting sodomites and psychopaths in Georgetown will pretend to like him – for about five minutes.

Roberts just ratified the “right” for the government to tax people on their existence. Either you purchase a service commodity, thus paying a tax which is collected by the insurance company itself, or you will pay a tax to the IRS directly. Insurance is, for all intents and purposes, an innovation of the last fifty years, meaning that almost no one carried any insurance of any kind, and insurance was itself in some places ILLEGAL (and now we know why, because if allowed to cover anything other than large disasters, insurance will, by mathematical definition, destroy any market that it comes into contract with and end in fascism.)

All of this ObamaCare mandate is a pure function of being a living human being. My required car insurance is a corollary to my totally optional decision to own and drive a car. The requirement that I carry “full coverage” insurance instead of the minimum liability-only insurance is a corollary to the fact that I freely choose to lease my car, and thus there are additional conditions that I must meet. Income tax was tied to the fact that I chose to work and generate income – not on my existence itself. Property tax is a corollary to my decision to buy real estate. The gasoline tax is a corollary to my free decision to drive a car, and a car that runs on gasoline. Yes, I think that income and property taxes in particular are intrinsically morally dubious, but that is not the debate before us. The debate before us is whether the Federal government, or ANY government can ever, ever licitly tax human beings on the very fact that they EXIST.

Ann Barnhardt

[philman_36]

Insurance is, for all intents and purposes, an innovation of the last fifty years...
I usually like what she has to say, but that's just ignorant.

You can go back to @ The Code of Hammurabi to see the first instance of insurance.

Another example most people have heard of is @ Lloyd's of London.

From those beginnings in a coffee house in 1688, Lloyd’s has been a pioneer in insurance and has grown over 300 years to become the world’s leading market for specialist insurance.

Sorry, Ann, you're just wrong on that part.

[Randy Larsen]

Very interesting read, especially if CJ Roberts opinion is included!

Thank You Amanda.