Justice Roberts: Genius!

Wonder how long it will take for the Left to catch on to the big picture...
http://pettyfog.blogspot.com/2012/06/ge ... berts.html
heh...

 

Does anyone have a good link to an article that explains Roberts' opinion? The few articles I saw are just a bunch of poorly written mumbo jumbo discussing the reaction to the decision

 

Mo, like you I cant easily find a comprehensive short digest on it. Not that I've looked too hard.. too much bs (on both sides) I dont agree with.
But here's what the Georgetown Law Prof who wrote the baseline case says:
Randy Barnett says Roberts’ tax power argument is “lame” but “easily fixed”
Then please come back to read my blather

Dont you mean that Interstate Commerce is not an acceptable use of power to enforce the mandate? May look like a quibble but there's a difference.

Wrong. Obama and cie knew all along it was a tax. Otherwise they wouldnt have brought it up in court arguments in the first place. When do you ever see a judgement panel entering argument FOR the defense? Certainly not in an appeals court.
We can go into the dependency creating effect of the tax to force single payer at another time.

I dont think you have even read about it, Don. And way to invoke the distraction of teachers pay. MANY already make more than they should for what they do. There, I said it.

Notice that Leftists always point to what it SAYS it will provide and distract you from HOW it will do that. It's easy to invoke 'Pre-existing' and lots of the other problems with the current system but they never point to the fact it creates dependencies on Government in the fashion of Medicare and Soc Security which no one in their right mind will try to take away?
I wonder if these people can EVER be honest? Let me bring up what Palin said about 'Death Panels', for example. Care to comment on that Don? How about you go on record, I will .. There WILL be 'Death Panels' limiting the care and expense expended on the aged and infirm. There are now in our current system, and the UK's NHS has that and an ongoing series of scandals relating to that. And there will be in whatever we end up with. The difference should be in where the decisions are made.

Oh, looky... Don invoking the 'I'm leaving' retort. Where did you first hear that.. answer: the second Wednesday of Nov 2004. Who said it? Guess! But, like Don, I say go on ahead! Except I WANTED the NE Blue, Chicago Duchy and West Coast states to Secede.

Trouble is I dont know Rush said that.. I would think I'd run across it. Maybe Don read that on Media Matters or some other Soros outlet.

Universal Health Care is something else than what this case was REALLY about.. it was about:

- Senate taking a House Bill {all bills on/with taxes MUST start in House, for good reason} about Military Benefits and compensation, gutting it, adding 2700 pages of incomprehensible unreadable draconian crap and penalties.. that NO ONE can read.. {Pelosi: We'll have to pass it before we find what's in it"}
- The unbridled abuse of Commerce Clause to bludgeon states into doing whatever the Fed decrees.

- Government saying one thing and acting on another. sorta like any tin horn authoritarian government who believes the electorate is stupid, does . I believe there's already a thread on that, here.

- AGAIN.. I am amazed that even some Law Profs who you have to lump into 'Constitutionalist' camp DONT get this decision.

Background: USSC is loath to 'make' law out of decisions. Every time that happens there are consequences after that continue to be thorny.
Dred Scott
Many FDR era decisions
Roe v Wade
Kelo vs New London.. which BTW was so egregious a land grab, typical lame brain Lefties blamed the conservative side of the Court for it.

But here's what my favorite 'hot chick' Law Prof' at UW-Madison has to say on it:
I'm just another lawprof, but I think the Commerce Clause decision matters a lot. Yes, Congress can work around its limit by tapping the taxing power, but it's not politically easy to tax.
- She links to Paul Mirengoff at PowerlineBlog who doesnt think it matters much. What can I say.. he's a Liverpool fan!
I dont think the anti-commerce effect is absolute but it DOES chink away at it.

 

Deleted after I re-read Fog's ramble.

 

He didn't want to call it a tax, but I believe that was their third argument, the first being that it constitutional under commerce and I forget their second argument. Petty is right here.

Now, pardon me as I go wash myself after saying that.

 

Maybe I should have hi-lited it. It wasnt a ramble, it was straight-away an opinion. the reason many dont like how I write is that they dont like my idea of common sense. It bothers their sense of fairness.
Note how many words Don just typed in rebuttal of what I said was a problem with the current system.. IOW he rebutted my agreement with his earlier point.
- Speaking of.. I said before and will say it again.. I quit listening to Rush for about 5 years in the late nineties after he compared NYC for profit hospital bottom lines with county hosptitals, so if you dont think I get it, I do.
Apparently it does not matter HOW you fix a problem, just that it's fixed. To hell with the economics of it.. or the powers conferred on central authority by the fix.
And once more.. I attempt to stay ON-Track, Don responds "Hey, Look.. Over there". And brings up the Fast and Furious Scandal even if he didnt want to.. almost like a straight-man.
I aint biting. Just NEVER use our Atty General as a reference for anything but laughter and example of abuse of powers.
Now stay on track and stop opening up herring cans!

"Those who give up liberty in exchange for security end up with neither."
Winston Churchill
Rebut THAT Don.

 

Ah, but you did bite....and it turned into a ramble. No need to defend your writing, that pretty much always happens when you two get together in political discussions. But then I reckon that's the sport in it for you both.

 

Okay.. suppose I address Don's near on topic comment on 'Death Panel':

Which is sorta disingenuous:
That is precisely the source of the NHS 'consigned to the death bed' scandals. Operating under the central NHS guidelines, the referred physician determines, after listening to patient and family caregivers, whether or not to extend palliative treatment or engage treatment for the complaint.
Being overworked and underpaid, it's way easy to just sign off him off to hospice and move on to the next case. One thing to hear the family/patient. Another SUBJECTIVE to act on their arguments.
And 'what Bush did' is besides the point. We're talking about the 'magic fix' here.

 

There is no magic fix. You assume a physician will be overworked and underpaid and his determination will take the path of least resistance. Even if we grant that your presumption is correct (and I think it's more likely the exception than the rule), I see that as more preferable to insurance company employees, predisposed to their employers bottom line (read, keeping their job), condemning patients to the same fate. You quoted Palin saying as much and that we'll have death panels (in some form or fashion) regardless of what solution we come up with. I agree with her on that. Now I have to go wash myself.

 

Don, mea culpa! I jumped before I looked.

But.. whether State or Fed, you have to address motive and purpose. You've previously intimated some preference for state rights. The reason for that is it leaves open the ability to fight or flee and still remain 'American'. Which was also touched on here. Under Autonomous Fed, the only recourse is to emigrate.
Related irony: Slate: Do Canadians Ever Threaten to Move to the US?

Matt, I want to bring up a very basic precept: The supposition by Liberals and the Left {and apparently Don} that administration by central bureaucracy is preferable to adminstration by corporate entity:

- Who do you think will be providing this administration? My thoughts are they will be roughly the same as now in the private sector. Perhaps you can make a case disproving that and provide cases where employee altruism shines through.
- What is the mechanism for the check and balances needed to prevent or remedy corruption on their part? As of the moment it is somewhat a 'free market' mechanism where there are two forces: enrollee feedback and corporate competition.
Do you assume the press will shine the lights? Or do you subscribe to Maoist 'self-criticism' circles?

But the basic point being that the government is able to control and manage every aspect of its citizen's lives, on threat of withdrawing those entitlements and services from individual or entity.

Here's an excerpt from the opinion covering my main point:
http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/HC%20PDF.pdf

This is where the silly 'broccoli' argument came in - Broccoli is good for you, it is healthy thus you must eat Broccoli.
Before you say 'That couldn't happen'.. I suggest you look at Corn Ethanol and the crony capitalism that exists in THAT Commerce Clause EPA mandate.

 

There isn't enough room on this board to go into all of that. In short, I believe the government will act in their interests and the private sector will act in their's most of the time. I believe their interests will be aligned much more often than mine will be aligned with either of them. As a result, I accept that I have very little control and don't trust either of them. I realize both sides have checks and balances but I also believe both are equally corrupt and able to maneuver around those for the most part. I also believe that the government exists, today, to serve the private sector. I don't think the framers had that in mind to this extent when we started out on this path, but it's been an evolutionary process to that point and it was reached long ago. I'm not a total cynic though, I do believe there is a human element present in both sides and at times that element will cause them to act w/o regard to profit or elect-ability.

In the example given, if forced to choose who I trust more between an insurance company where I'm a nameless, faceless source of revenue vs having an assigned physician who provides my care face-to-face who can intervene on my behalf with govt provided healthcare/insurance, I side with the government. Obviously there are benefits and consequences with anything. Obviously one example may yield a different result than another. But you brought up death panels, something with which I have intimate experience, and w/o going into any more detail than that on a public message board, and based on my personal experience, that's my answer. I'm just as likely to answer private sector on another example. And that's the point, I don't think it's all one way or the other. Just like I don't think we should view ourselves through a political lens.