Posted on 06/28/2012 1:11:02 PM PDT by DYngbld
I just got back from the Supreme Court. It was an interesting experience sitting in the Courtroom as the opinion in the Obamacare case was read. And, by now, if you’re like me, you’ve gotten37 million pre-written press releases from every elected official in Virginia and most nationally either celebrating the individual mandate’s survival, or decrying this as the darkest day in the union’s history.
The truth lies, as it usually does with Supreme Court decisions, somewhere in the middle. In my opinion, however, the bulk of the victory lays with those of us on the right.
While we may have lost the battle on the individual mandate itself, we won two arguably bigger, more long-term critical fights – the fight about the breadth of the federal government’s regulatory power under the commerce clause, and the fight about the use of the federal spending power to coerce states into doing the federal government’s bidding. Those are both huge issues for small government conservatives and we won both – even getting a large majority, 7-2, on the spending power issue.
(Excerpt) Read more at bearingdrift.com ...
They have already micro-managing everything via tax for years.
Nothing new.
If only. To our everlasting shame and national injury, that ship sailed some time ago. When the Senate can declare that 2700 pages of legislation of healthcare is an “amendment” to a bill that gives first-time-homeowners a tax break, because it’s revenue-neutral and therefore a matter of “budget reconcilation”, then the Constitution has no more value in this country.
Huge really, especially because of this from the opinion:
Justice Ginsburg questions the necessity of rejecting the Government's commerce power argument, given that §5000A can be upheld under the taxing power. Post, at 37. But the statute reads more naturally as a command to buy insurance than as a tax, and I would uphold it as a command if the Constitution allowed it. It is only because the Commerce Clause does not authorize such a command that it is necessary to reach the taxing power question. And it is only because we have a duty to construe a stat-ute to save it, if fairly possible, that §5000A can be interpreted as a tax. Without deciding the Commerce Clause question, I would find no basis to adopt such a saving construction. The Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance. Section 5000A would therefore be unconstitutional if read as a command. The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance. Section 5000A is therefore constitutional, because it can reasonably be read as a tax.
If one recalls, the government ran with the Commerce Clause argument as their primary authority with the power to levy taxes as their backup. Sadly Justice Ginsburg didn't appreciate CJ Roberts having to slam the door, making it clear that not engaging in commerce is not the same as engaging in commerce; thus making precedent in doing so.
We should never rely on a court to make laws or un-make bad ones, that’s the job of the legislature. In this case Justice Roberts did his job to evaluate the constitutionality, rather than acting as an activist. We hate that, right?
If one were true to their convictions about what powers are given to each branch... yes. Here on FR today... another matter for some. Roberts even provided a pointed statement to that end here:
Our permissive reading of these powers is explained in part by a general reticence to invalidate the acts of the Nation's elected leaders. "Proper respect for a co-ordinate branch of the government" requires that we strike down an Act of Congress only if "the lack of constitutional authority to pass [the] act in question is clearly demonstrated." United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629, 635 (1883). Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation's elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.
Emphasis on this last sentence "It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices."
Alas, there will be some who have decried judicial activism in the past with respect to liberal leaning rulings, who will beclown themselves now because C.J. Roberts did not do so.
Another moron.
Congress has not been coercing people to buy things for years; this angle is new.
Thanks for the ping!
We lost the fight over federal coercion through taxation to force the individual to conform to government-mandated behaviors. Once that fight is lost, it's game over. The rest is just noise.
This whole monstrous scheme will collapse under its own weight all by itself.
Just like communism in Korea, Vietnam.
We don’t have to lift a finger or fire a shot. Everything liberals do violates the laws of human nature. That’s why it always fails.
Right, Vike!
Americans - the true spiritual heirs of liberty, not the grifter class - are horrified and sickened because they were just forced to watch their mother be gang raped.
And to make it even worse, “grief counselors” are trying to explain that it wasn’t so bad... maybe even a good thing... because it means that her husband and brothers and children will love and care for her all the more.
Remember a particular cartoon with Obama and a disheveled Statue of Liberty? After raping her he says he’ll be back - with friends. Looks like one of ‘em is named John Roberts.
What we’re seeing together here is ‘jury nullification’, like what we had with OJ Simpson. It wasn’t a tax when it was up for a vote, it was a tax before the SCOTUS, and it will stop having been a tax when the left says congress should ‘start’ to raise taxes.
“Even if we get a super majority of republicans in the house senate and Romney in, we will have to wait to change the court to fix this.”
I disagree, and I think it can be fixed even without 60 Republicans in the Senate. Using the power of the purse (don’t fund anything connected with Obamacare) and executive power, Obamacare can be brought to its knees. Furthermore, a Republican majority in the Senate just might encourage enough Democrats to oppose Obamacare to provide the 60 votes necessary to kill it outright.
What cannot be fixed so easily is the Supreme Court’s refusal to return to the Constitution and its original framework for a federal government with limited powers. If there are no effective limits on the federal government’s power to tax, then except for the Bill of Rights there are no effective limits on the federal’s government’s power at all. Non-taxpaying majorities can tyrannize the taxpaying minority at will.
Actually that is what I meant to convey.
When we get the Senate, and Romney wins, we can get rid of Obamacare, but what Roberts did will be with us forever if Roe vs Wade is any measure of bad SC rulings.
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.