The Case for John Roberts

The Weekly Standard ^ | 6:00 AM, Jun 29, 2012 | JAY COST

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Many conservatives are feeling betrayed by the chief justice's vote to uphold Obamacare. But there's a counterintuitive case to be made that John Roberts's decision is largely a victory for conservatives.

Every time I visit Washington, D.C., I am struck by a single, terrible thought: It is not just that conservatives are losing the various battles over big government, but they have been losing the war for generations. The most conservatives are ever able to do is tinker at the margins – and celebrating small victories like lowering marginal tax rates is a sign of just how low our sights are set.

Why has this happened? After all, this was a country founded in direct opposition to unlimited governmental power. How have we arrived at a point when the feds can do just about anything they want?

It is because, at critical moments in the nation’s history, the advocates of limited government were on the losing side of the political equation, and the opposition was very effective at consolidating its victory. Not only did big government advocates implement policy changes, they also brought about huge structural innovations to the way the government functions.

The progressives of the early 1900s managed this with the 16^th Amendment, legalizing the income tax and opening up whole avenues of power that had been previously off limits. The political genius of that move must be admired: The left got its hands on the government for a relatively short period of time, but it sure made hay while the sun was out. We’re still paying the price today -- quite literally. Similarly, the New Deal took advantage of a national emergency to ram through ......

[Texas Songwriter]

Once romney is elected there should be a huge push to demand Roberts resignation.

[Jim from C-Town]

Horse Shit He could have just voted with the minority and struck down Obamacare. That would have stopped the abuse of the commerce clause.

What he did was so incredibly irrational that to attempt to save his reputation is down right foolish.

I finally heard someone call for Roberts resignation today and I believe that Romney should call for it as well. every true patriot should do all they can to drive him from the bench before he does even more damage to our country. He has done untold amounts to it already!

[Texas Songwriter]

Roberts says he did it to preserve the integrity of the court. That is extraconstitutional. That is political. That is a violation to his sworn oath of office. He should resign immediately and skulk away in shame and dishonor.

[Texas Songwriter]

It was a strange thing for Roberts to do, because he's always been known as a strong federalist

Roberts is a liberal. The Arizona case and the Roberts Tax/medical law case proves. This is not a conservative court. This is a liberal activist court run by a liberal justice. We need to get used to that idea. He is not a conservative.

[Still Thinking]

Shame and dishonor?? How about conviction for treason for intentionally violating the Constitution on such a grand scale?

[doc1019]

To each his own, I will wait, with patient anticipation. Either I’m terribly wrong or I’m terribly right. Time will tell.

[RckyRaCoCo]

A body-bag has a silver-lining too.

Guess there are still folks trying to find a pearl in a turd.

[Texas Songwriter]

OK. You raised me two. Your hand wins.

[Revolting cat!]

I'm beginning to suspect that Justice Roberts, the humanitarian that he is, was motivated by a concern for the livelyhoods of the countless commentators and pundits we have nowadays in our fair land, as well as for the excess spare time of all the Internet commentators, such as those starting on this very forum numerous idiotic vanities each consisting of three sentence barely legible passing thoughts.

So you're mad as hell and won't take it any more? Well, start another vanity!

[Jim from C-Town]

Well Hugh Hewitt knows him very well and he was on Levin's show Thursday and was blasting Roberts with both barrels.

Hewitt shared an office with Roberts at Justice during the Reagan Administration. He said he just straight up WRONG with his ruling.

I'll take Hewitt and Levin on Constitutional law way more than John Roberts who has had little to no experience with it outside of DC and a very short span on the bench prior to his appointment to the SCOTUS. The reason why he is on the bench is because we have to sly everyone of our appointments through the process or they will get the Bork treatment. Yet we can not even get absolute hacks like Kagan, Ginsburg and Sotomeyor to even be scrutinized by the Republican members of the Senate!

[DesertRhino]

Personally, im beginning to wonder if those Roberts being gay rumors might be true. He would have been wide open to blackmail. Remember he was in the GHW Bush administration. Hillary would have had his FBI file.
This would also explain his Pro Bono work to help overturn the Colorado law excluding gays from protected minority status. It would help explain him upholding the DC gay marriage law.

He might turn out to have been blackmailed.

[Pox]

Absurd rationalization. He simply did not do his job. He is a coward and a traitor.

[Meet the New Boss]

This article is delusional foolishness.

ROBERTS DID NOT CONVINCE A SINGLE LIBERAL JUSTICE TO SUPPORT HIS COMMERCE CLAUSE LIMITATION.

The liberals took what he offered in upholding ObamaCare as a tax, and then spit in his face on his Commerce Clause analysis.

If Obama can appoint one more liberal justice in place of a conservative, then the Commerce Clause limitation is a dead letter, and we will have a fully-fledged central government with unlimited power.

If Roberts REALLY wanted to do the most he could to preserve the Constitution, he should have joined the four conservative justices and in a 5-4 binding precedent, struck down ObamaCare as exceeding constitutional authority.

The liberals might still later on when they get a 5-4 majority simply overturn the precedent, but they would at least have to do it as a naked political power grab flouting the principle of settled precedent instead of pretending to split hairs as will be the case now.

[mkjessup]

The ugly fact is, this decision and betrayal by Roberts not only has upheld the abominable 0bamaCare legislation, it has empowered the executive branch and the effect will be to embolden the institutional fascists who infest both the 'Rat and Republican parties. They are always after more power, and have just received a major truck load of it, thanks to the Roberts Court.

Rush Limbaugh spoke of what 0bamaCare is about, and it is NOT about 'health care', it is about CONTROL of the behavior of our population, and by seizing hold of 'health care', that insures that the federal leviathan will now reach further into our lives, violating our freedoms and liberties in even more insidious ways than we've seen to this point.

Everyone is saying "oh wait, come November we're gonna throw those bums out" or variations on that theme, but nobody seems to be considering exactly what our federal-imperial masters in Washington may attempt between now and the general election, assuming that we still have one.

The beast (meaning the federal government) has just been fed a huge meal of power, authority and license to do damn near anything it wants to do, the Judiciary has abdicated it's role as a Constitutional tripwire, as a restraining muzzle on unbridled federal power, and you can best believe that the Executive and Legislative Branches are going to take advantage of it, and exploit any and all opportunities to exert, extend and increase their power over the lives of their subjects (I say 'subjects' because that is what we have been transformed into with this ruling by the SCOTUS, we are no longer 'citizens' of the United States, we are indeed subjects, living under the benevolence or (more likely) the malevolence of those in control of the federal apparatus in Washington.

Now there is a side of me that would like very much to believe that at the last minute, Roberts was 'given the message' to change his vote "or else" with the 'or else' being an implied trip to Ft. Marcy Park, or to enjoy coffee and donuts with Ron Brown somewhere in the hereafter. IF that occurred, I would be more than disappointed that Roberts didn't tell the bastards to kiss his ass and do their worst, that he would vote as he believed was proper. Unless some sort of SCOTUS mole should begin feeding hidden internal information to the public, we'll never know.

There are eerie parallels so far as the ultimate effect on the 'subjects' (former citizens) in these United States, and the infamous 1933 'Enabling Act' in Germany, in that the authority of the executive branch of government was expanded exponentially due to the political malpractice of government officials who should have known better, but chose the easy path of political expediency for the sake of avoiding confrontation or actually upholding the laws as defined in the respective Constitutions.

Our descent into even deeper and darker fascist waters has just been accelerated.

[Jim from C-Town]

He didn't leave a fork in the road. He dropped a turd in the pool and he expects YOU to eat it, along with the other 300 Million who DO NOT work for the Federal Government like he does. He doesn't give a crap about the Constitution HE SAID AO IN HIS OPINION and in many places.

He should be IMPEACHED. plain and simple! He is a lawyer, let him chase ambulances for a living. At least he will only screw people over one at a time!

[DesertRhino]

The “or else” might have been exposing his past in the closet. He could have been told he was the next Herman Cain, Newt, McGreevy, Ryan, etc,,,

[funfan]

I think someone got to him and coerced him into changing his vote as the whole ruling stinks and is absurd.

[FredZarguna]

Sigh.

Yet another boy abused by John Roberts comes forward.

"Yes, he did disgusting things to me in the shower at the Supreme Court building. But his soap-lathering was so masterful, and he's helped so many other little boys, he surely must have had some real super-secret purpose for what he did."

The only road to recovery goes through admitting you have a problem.