Posted on 07/01/2012 7:29:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
I would caution my fellow conservatives on the frustration they may be enticed to express at Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. It is unwarranted, and it is unwise.
The reason I state such is that it is my firm belief that the Roberts' decision on the Obamacare mandate will without question bring about ultimate doom to the government control of healthcare, and through the best means possible--not judicial activism--but through the democratic process.
In boxing terminology no one has pulled a "rope-a-dope" this effective since Muhammad Ali himself. In doing so, it is clear that John Roberts duped the liberal wing of the Supreme Court into agreeing with him on calling out President Obama as legislatively dishonest, while assisting the conservative wing of the court into dismantling punitive measures against the states, and greatly limiting the ability of the legislature to use the powers of the commerce clause of the constitution to quietly take over people's lives.
Yes, conservative friends there are many silver linings in Thursday's odd verdict but let me assert merely four here:
1. Obamacare has been outed--by the authoritative voice of the nation's highest court-as a fraud. Yes the administration pitched it as a "penalty," as something that would not carry with it the burdensome label and politically repulsive thought of a tax. But Chief Justice Roberts seduced the four Obama supporters on the bench into agreeing that President Obama had in fact lied to the nation all through his 2008 campaign. Promising tax-cuts for 95% of the nation (a promise wrapped in a lie all its own), he has instead raised taxes--primarily on middle class families to the tune of $1.7 trillion dollars for the next decade. (And THAT'S just the starting point!) A tax, and nothing but a tax, is the only way the mandate funding could be understood in order for President Obama's only domestic initiative to survive. So a tax it is...
2. The commerce clause has been severely restricted. Roberts sided with the conservative wing of the court in asserting rightly that the Congress can't wander into a grey area of regulation, by attempting to force behavior of the population through manipulation of the commerce clause. The court rightly examined and asserted that the legislature has no right to legislate what people choose not to do. Punishments can not be levied on inaction. And if they attempt to do so, they must come in the form of a tax that the nation has recourse to change and remove through the electoral process.
3. The true cost to America's middle class was unveiled. Hiking taxes by close to $5 billion, with an additional $5 billion in medicare cuts, didn't close the loophole, no matter how much President Obama attempted to argue that it would. In reality the middle class families of America--already under assault by a horrible economy with limited prospects of improvement--will be forced to fork over another $1.7 trillion in forward looking deficits. Yes the families who earn $60-$90,000 per year will be the ones who make too much to qualify for the low income freebies, and not be making enough to be able to afford plans that they can buy in to. It will be these families who will be punitively crunched with this penalizing tax called Obamacare, and the Roberts' decision has removed the veil to allow this to be seen.
4. Perhaps the most important thing of all, the Roberts' decision will likely hand Governor Mitt Romney a 40 state victory in the upcoming elections. The Tea Party has been reignited. Grassroots groups have reawakened. And the roar of 2010 will be a distant memory when the voters take Governor Romney's advice and change Obamacare by removing President Obama.
To be very candid, I was more worried about the political outcomes of the case, had the justices thrown out the law all together in essence neutralizing one of the most glaring differences between the two sets of solutions being offered in this election cycle.
Instead we've been given an HD-retina-screen level upgrade in seeing the differences starkly and in greater contrast.
Re-elect President Obama and it will be the full implementation of the biggest small-business-killer ever invented by the Congress--Obamacare. Choose another path and you will set a course for the complete repeal of Obamacare, and the beginning of a new day for small business owners across the nation.
The choice is simple.
And John Roberts was the secret weapon that made it all happen, by outthinking everybody, and staying true to the Constitution.
Overall, not a bad outcome!
I could not agree more.
“Only 51 Senators are needed to offload this thing. We conservatives need to first concentrate on regaining the Senate”
The only unintended consequence Of Roberts’ too smart by half legal opinion to manipulate the passage of Obamacare is that he may have given Republican Senate candidates a boost in taking a majority of the Senate. By upholding it under the taxing provisions of the Constitution rather than the Commerce provision, a Republican Senate can at least repeal the mandate and possibly the whole monstrosity by a
simple 51 majority rather than filibuster proof 60 majority
I heard Hume on Fox today saying that declaring it a tax makes it subject to a repeal thru the budget reconciliation process requiring only a simple majority whereas upholding it under the Commerce provision would not subject to the budget conciliation process and require 60 votes.
Roberts’ decision stinks but at least the making lemonade from lemons principle may apply if this motivates the base to get out to gain a Senate majority to kill this thing.
Exactly, this gives constructionists NO help in limiting the misuse of the commerce clause.
Worse yet, it establishes precedent that ANY wording in a law can be, at the convenience of a justice, rewritten to be called a "tax" despite specific assertions to the contrary by ALL involved parties.
Dear Kevin McCullough,
Please go kill yourself and so relieve us all from your idiocy.
Signed,
America
bttt
Great article. I hope he’s right.
The title is true, the rest of the analysis is bogus.
With John Roberts exposed as a RINO, Romney gets to parade as a conservative while Roberts can block any true conservative initiatives.
Unless we get both the house and senate, nothing will change. Even with the house and senate, nothing changes if we follow Romneys lead, or let McConnell run the senate again.
“You’re right, Justice Roberts set precedent, but he did so by ignoring precedent. As is evident from this decision and about every liberal decision of the past 75 years, only conservatives care about precedent.”
That needs a little editing. Conservatives care about sensible, rational, and honestly, thoroughly reviewed precedent-setting. Precedence comes in as many forms as actions—good, bad, right, wrong, and everything in between. Roe, like so many bad decisions before and after it, was bad, dishonest, and irrational. And Conservatives are rightly wary of any decision based in whole or in part on previous bad calls.
You're absolutely correct. The left doesn't care about the meaning of the Constitution. The left has no reverence for the Constitution and the values it embodies. The left worships the state, and through the state, themselves. The left wants a "living" Constitution so it has no fixed meaning and can mean anything they want it to mean whenever it is convenient and expedient for their plans. All the left cares about is expanding the state in order to create their catastrophically flawed utopian schemes and visions. In other words, the left wants a tyranny of good intentions, and they have been working on it in earnest since the 1930's. And now, thanks to fellow traveler JR, we have it. He just handed them the keys to their kingdom, and unchecked despotism to the rest of us.
Can’t wait to see which side Roberts comes down on the gay marriage issue! I guess we have a good idea how that is going to end!
I agree, and knowing that it can be REPEALED with a simple majority in the Senate makes this very possible. It is now up to US to make sure that we end election night, 2012 with a Republican President, and that he has a majority in BOTH the House and the Senate.
Sure, that's a tall order, but it's do-able using the main weapon that the Supremes' decision gave us. Obamacare is a TAX, and is one of the largest tax increases on middle income taxpayers in years. Wealthy people have always been able to afford health insurance. It is the middle income folks who have been squeezed by government meddling in health insurance.
Contrary to popular opinion, Obamacare is not "free", and armed with the information we have now, that we didn't have when the legislation was 'deemed' passed, we can show our fellow citizens just how much Obamacare will cost them, and their children after them.
I don’t think Roberts is going to rule on that issue. He will announce his retirement in September.
It won't even take that long.
EPA just got handed a stop sign. Think about it; "inactivity" cannot be regulated.
The Sackett case comes to mind; EPA can't just come barging in and start issuing demands out of the blue. They can only regulate activity.
Once people start figuring this out, the litigation will fly.
Roe kicked precedent in the teeth. Note that Planned Parenthood v. Casey upheld Roe essentially on the grounds of precedent. Sandra Day O'Connor wrote the majority opinion. Roe itself thumbed its nose at precedent, and so deserved no weight of precedent. Conservatives are such fools.
Last week's decisions pushed me over the edge. I now am in favor of full-on secession. I want out of this sick country.
Yeah, right. Nevertheless, I'm going to try to pretend that this article isn't purely delusional, just for a few minutes, so that I don't go insane and blow up my own house out of despair.
The trouble is, I’m not sure Roberts did misinterpret the Constitution. Once the Sixteenth Amendment was in place, the possibility of Congress levying even a confiscatory tax on incomes and waiving it for persons engaging in some behavior has been Constitutional. The “penalty” was always a regressive income tax on those who are not in certain groups (notably people with HHS-compliant health insurance, the very poor, Amishmen and Muslims): it’s a percentage of AGI, but with a minimum tax (depending on the year from $95 to $695) and a maximum tax (the cost of an HHS approve “Bronze” health-insurance policy).
Neither the lies of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid cabal in denying that it is a tax, nor the fact that no one before them noticed this effect of the Sixteenth Amendment changes the facts.
I think, however, that a challenge to the provision that Amishmen, Muslims, etc. are exempt on religious grounds is now in order. There is abundant precedent that unlike military service, in which a requirement of bearing arms would prevent the free exercise of pacifist creeds (hence the notion of conscientious objector status and the disproportionate number of Quaker and Buddhist corpsmen during times of military conscription) religious objections to the purpose of a tax do not exempt one from paying it.
Also, the IPAB (a.k.a. “Death Panel”) provision should be challenged on two grounds: it is a Constitutionally impermissible attempt to bind future Congresses, and it creates governmental interference in the patient-physician relationship, which, according to the precedent established in Roe v. Wade is protected from governmental interference by the “generalized right to privacy”.
(Remember that was the court’s reasoning in Roe v. Wade — the basis for the decision had nothing to do with abortion per se. I wonder how the left would react to that dilemma: overturn Roe or invalidate all government attempts to take over health care.)
Great! So the court overturned it? No? Oh.
The author may think Obamacare's been outed as a fraud, but what the American voter sees is that it's been deemed constitutional.
It’s only a silver lining if we win in November.
Otherwise, it’s a disaster.
On what basis do you make that assumption?
The trouble is, I’m not sure Roberts did misinterpret the Constitution.
_____________________________________________________________
Please read the dissent after which you will be absolutely sure that Roberts “misinterpreted” the Constitution.
You will learn the difference between a “tax” and a “penalty”, and why this is a “penalty” and cannot be construed as a tax by any reasonable means.
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