So why shouldn’t he just rewrite the Constitution, too?
President Obama on Saturday offered one of his strongest defenses to date of his signature domestic achievement, lambasting Republican critics of his health care law as obstructionists who are playing politics with the well-being and economic security of millions of Americans.
In blunt terms, Mr. Obama used his weekly address to describe health insurance as a “right” and distinguished states that have embraced his law against those that have not. […]
His defense of the law comes less than two months before state-by-state insurance markets, or “exchanges,” start to enroll Americans without employer-based insurance who may buy coverage with the help of government subsidies.
Mr. Obama is attempting to counteract critics who say the law’s mandates amount to an unprecedented intrusion on Americans personal health care decisions and could cause premiums to soar, as it requires insurers to cover more services and people with pre-existing conditions. […]
“So I’m going to keep doing everything in my power to make sure this law works as it’s supposed to,” he said. “Because in the United States of America, health insurance isn’t a privilege — it is your right. And we’re going to keep it that way.”
– Yeah, well you’ll probably notice a lot more “distractions” being thrown out there by an embattled White House thats been told in direct terms to go fuck itself and stay out of Egyptian business.
– That we have a community organizer for president has never been more obvious.
– OT, but isn’t it interesting that we see that the real majority in Cairpo wants the MB disbanded entirely.
– Also the interum government is tearing the international press a new ass, laying out just how they’ve been misrepresenting the conflict and covering up all the violent actions of the MB and its supporters.
– Which, when you think about it is rather ironic. The anti-Morsi group is the Left/Liberal political body, and its complaining bitterly about press bias.
Hey, it’s right there in the 9th and 10th Amendments!
{/snark}
It’s a pity the journalist doesn’t regard it as a useful development to expand his own use of the term strongest [” his strongest defenses”] to describe a very weak demagogic stream of lies and partisan attack having little to nothing to do with the growing perils built into this chaotic and arbitrary APA law. But then, he may not wish to be turned into a rodeo clown just yet.
Slavery returns, in the form of “the right to health insurance” and “the right to health care.”
That’s covered in the Good and Plenty clause, right?
Socialists love to pretend that anything that isn’t a right must be a privilege, and since they’re against privilege (snort) everything must therefore be declared a right.
Health insurance is a service. One pays for a service what you and the service provider agree is appropriate — and if you and he can’t agree, he tells you to go away and you ask somebody else.
Obviously the Unicorn Prince has never been told to go away because people are afraid of being called raaaaacist.
John Doe has a “right” to health insurance. Unlike a right to free speech, this right cannot be granted without someone having to provide insurance to John. Since King Putt would agree that government must use force to guarantee rights, that means someone other than John will be forced to provide payments, benefits, and so on, involuntarily. John’s insurance provider is now a slave to John. King Putt is fine with slavery.
Funny concept of rights, when they by their nature perforce make some of us slaves to others. Everyone has rights, but some rights are more equal than others. I guess.
If it takes the willing effort of third parties, it isn’t a right.
You don’t need a third person to express an opinion. You don’t need a third person to worship your personal Higher Power. You don’t need a third person to defend your life.
You DO need someone else (usually highly skilled and expensively trained) to render health care, unless you’re the type to merely take a slug of whiskey prior to removing your own appendix with a steak knife and super glue.
Which, make sure your will is filled out first.
“Positive Rights” because “Yes He Can” [since no one will stop him].
Obamacare was designed to be a self-gumming tar-baby law because when it fails the only alternative will be single payer government care for all except the chosen few.
[since no one will stop him].
– Its a pretty good bet that at some point someone/thing will act to stop him. With extreme prejudice.
“the right to health insurance”
One thing that progressives just never seem to get through their tiny craniums is that ‘coverage’ does not equal ‘health care’. Even if ObamaCare worked as advertised (which it won’t), all it does is throw ~30 million people (actually closer to 16 million) into the health care system – every single one of them clutching a shiny new “ObamaCare Access Card” in their hand – without adding a single doctor or health care provider. In fact, as written, it actually works to reduce the number of health care providers in the system (i.e. Medicare payment reductions, costly new administrative requirements).
“the right to health care.”
Sorry, President Back-swing, but I and my physician wife would beg to differ. Her services are not subject to government demand. Something tells me that in a few years, black-market health care will be all the rage.
Physicians seeing people in their living rooms/garages, for no other reason than because of the over-regulation, and a minimum staff of three just to deal with the ongoing paperwork, even before you get the nursing school intern to take vital signs…
Use of over-the-counter medication, or improvised injury care provided by other than a licensed professional (even if you improvise it on yourself), will be criminalized under the tax code, meaning you’ll have no presumption of innocence when charged.
Something tells me that in a few years, black-market health care will be all the rage…
I wonder how many chickens, or buckets of rice, or bricks of 22LR ammo will be the going rate for an emergency appendectomy? Setting a broken bone? Reducing a dislocated shoulder? Stitching up a knife wound?
improvised injury care provided by other than a licensed professional (even if you improvise it on yourself)
Who shaves the barber?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_paradox#In_literature
Draft Draft Draft ** NOT FOR PUBLICATION ** Draft Draft Draft
************
Great Tzar*Mighty Leader*Most High King* Beneficent Emperor Barack Hussein Obazma, resplendent in his new suit of clothes, after a prodigious and strenuous period of study, gathering His Powers unto Himself in the greatest rhetorical preparations yet known to man, made today His first and unqualifiedly strongest defense of His signal law, ObazmCare, since it’s recent initial burst upon the scene andpassage*transcription*discoverysalutary bow inThe Chamber of RubberStamps*The House of the Kangaroo Kourt* C’ngress.His Magnificence, our Single Savior, Barack Hussein Obazma, has delivered an account which through reasoning beyond reckoning is found capable of persuading to assent to the validation of said Law, His Majesty’s Own Royal Wife, who too was present by the regal rostrum as He spoke, and who was also enrobed in a dazzlingly novel finery of dress (so dazzling was it, that eyes had to be averted for fear of blinding by the glories to be beheld there). His Royal Eminence Barack Hussein Obazma has hoisted the mass of an hydrogen atom by means of His Eternal Word, so strong was this defense — and for proof of this obvious fact, you need see only Her Royal Consort’s concurrence.
************
It has come to the attention of your humble correspondent that a chronologically Second, and yet more wondrous defense — the Strongest Defense yet heard by mere mortals, exceeding every possibly imaginable expectation engendered by the Primum Dictum — of the Necessary, All Healing, Pan-Agathonic Law, ObazmCare, and has been thundered down from heaven on high by our Munificent, CaringestCareTaker in the happiest history of our joyous attendance to His Will.
Once again our Blessed Ruler, His Unlimited Authority-in-Person-One, Emperor Barack Hussein Obazma I — the first, the only — has determined to condescend to Himself (for what other being would He condescend to?) to speak afresh on the subject of His Unfailing Grace in Legislation, ObazmCare, in order to make known to the unfortunately slow-witted among his happy people what rewards are in store for their future physical well-being at His Hands.
Once again His All-Encompassing Mind has been put to work to craft this Prodigy of Wisdom in explication of the ineluctable Good-to-Come; once again His Majesty presents Himself to His people to intone these fell words in a suit of Clothes made by the minor gods of tailoring themselves; once again His Golden Tongue alone has brought forth an assent under persuasion: an assent in the person of His Own Chamber Minister of The Playing of the Royal Spades, and the Chamber Minister of The Playing of the Royal Spades has made known his agreement with the perfection of His Majesty’s Curative Law by a nod of his head. Thus has His Opulence lifted the mass of a still greater elemental atom of the heavens themselves by means of that marvel of His Force and Power, the frightfully baronial helium atom, comparable to the Sun above. And thus by His Generous Display has outdone even Himself.
************
That’s covered in the Good and Plenty clause, right?
Yes, and if you hadn’t said it, I was going to.
It’s Pat and Stu’s best contribution to public discourse.
sdferr: are you known at NRO as rainesson, first commenter at this Steyn post?
nope.
I think I would have made that ” Cardinal Richelieu HolDerrière” though, had I been. A jest too easy to let go unmade.
I have a right to something better than shitty government-run third world-style failshit American healthcare I think
no, you don’t, which is kind of the point.
You have a right to find it if it exists and to negotiate a mutually agreeable price with the vendor if possible. Just like with any good or service.
But if you don’t go find it, or if the vendor isn’t willing to transact with you at the price you’re willing to pay, you’re stuck with the shitty government-run third world-style failshit healthcare.
fatty fat
Gov. Christie Wants Firearms ID Card for Purchase of All Ammunition
– I’m really looking forward to my right to be given a nice new BMW.
Beach Front Housing for all!
(Those of you who want to skip math are forewarned to avoid the next section:
World totals
7.105 billion people (divided into)
217,490 miles of coastline
32668 people per mile of coastline (just under 2″ each)
It’s at times like these that I like to reflect upon the immortal words of John Turturro, one of America’s Many Actors:
“I am directly below the enemy’s scrotum!”
In seven magical words, it sums up the State of the Nation, the Modern World, and indeed, the inherent Nature of Man. It answers so many of Life’s Great Mysteries, and so concisely. I think we can all take a degree of solace in that.
proggtardia news
Feds Threaten To Arrest Lavabit Founder For Shutting Down His Service
“I am directly below the enemy’s scrotum!”
– Which probably explains why so many have their heads up their asses and a shitty outlook on life.
I think Barky used his thunderous ovation to cover for and insert a major policy change. With “right to buy health insurance” rather than “right to health care”, he signals to those who want health care perfect and free, ‘sorry chums, you have to pay something’. While not TANSTAAFL, for President Foodstamp that’s a sea change.
but when they are “buying” it using taxpayer-funded credits and subsidies it’s still just the nose in the tent for single-payer.
Massive redistribution, forcing the healthy young into involuntary servitude to pay the medical bills of those who need medical procedures more often than the healthiest demographics among us.
But hey, Honey Boo-Boo!
oh noes
CDC Study Ordered by Obama Contradicts White House Anti-gun Narrative
I have come up with a new definition of a Leftist:
Someone who doesn’t understand the difference between the “right to pursue happiness” and the “right to be happy”, and furthermore thinks he deserves the second.
“Ah yes, [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness]… Life? What ‘right’ to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What ‘right’ to life has a man who must die to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of ‘right’? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man’s right is ‘unalienable’? And is it ‘right’? As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost. The third ‘right’?—the ‘pursuit of happiness’? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can ‘pursue happiness’ as long as my brain lives—but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can ensure that I will catch it.” — Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois (Ret.), Starship Troopers, Page 119
A “New Community Organized American Leftist’: one who desires a thing s/he hasn’t earned and doesn’t deserve, and is willing to use extreme Liberal Fascist tactics to secure it.
Speaking of Fascists, there’s a real douche over at David Thompson’s place who thinks that The Bell Curve is proof that a love of liberty is genetic.
“that a love of liberty is genetic.”
methinks it is cultural
proggtardia news
Police Tell Conservative Rally to Quiet Down so Muslim Brotherhood Protesters Can Pray (Video)
There is no such thing as a “right” to the fruits of someone else’s labor.
Since a coastline is longer the finer the measuring stick used to measure it by using a stick of Planck length we should certainly find that each of us can have a very long beachfront though of course it would still look just like the two inches when viewed from a human scale.
This is probably analogous to how the schemes of the Left look so wonderful from a certain viewpoint but when actually implemented they are seen then to be nothing like what was promised.
Life, you have the right to defend your life against it being taken. Liberty, you have the right to act freely as you wish as long as you do not in doing deprive others of their liberty. Pursuit of Happiness, you have the right to own property.
That someone or thing can take your life, liberty, property does not mean you don’t have the right to them. No one can take the right from you which is yours because you are a human. They can however through force, fraud, or other means take the physical thing which is the expression of that right. Thus:
…nothing like what was promised.
– Thus the old saying “Battleship idea’s, rowboat results.”
“Beach Front Housing for all!”
no thanks too many peeps
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the frankfurt school
consent of the governed“dicentra, it seems a peculiar thing to speak of the “invention” of free speech generally as belonging to “white Protestant” and “post-Protestant” males — a proposition at once saying too much in one respect and too little in another, though both respects be crucial to human sociability and politics.
Invention alone is a strange enough concept to place in this context, since the capacity to undertake thinking freely seems to come right along with being human to start (and so such a condition would be “discovered”, I’d believe, rather than be “invented”), and if so for thinking, then so also for speech.
Moreover, to delimit free speech to have arisen generally at such a late date, when free speech was present no one knows how early in human life (many millenia prior to any Protestantism, prior indeed to the formation of the thing to be Protested), too, seems silly on its face. But there, of course, he intends particular political arrangements (this the “too little” aspect of his contentions) which though only achieved in a political-pragmatic sense at that late date, were nevertheless conceived as aims many centuries prior to that time.
Anyway, without exhausting the subject, there’s much left to be covered by his bold proclamation, which pulls up lamely short of the goal line in consequence.
proggtard vs proggtard
#SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen hashtag unleashes bitter intra-feminist racial grievances
” to delimit free speech to have arisen generally at such a late date,”
that dude jesus did “freedom of speech”
“Moreover, to delimit free speech to have arisen generally at such a late date, when free speech was present no one knows how early in human life (many millenia prior to any Protestantism, prior indeed to the formation of the thing to be Protested), too, seems silly on its face”
proggtardia news
Remove sign or leave, GOP chair told
John’s pronouncements have nothing to do with freedom of speech. The logos is a whole different aminal than political rights.
For that moron’s thesis to have any kind of validity, he’d have to demonstrate that every time humans devised a political system wherein freedom of speech was held as sacrosanct, it was Europeans what done it.
Only we’ve got just this one data point, which means exactly zip in scientific terms.
Refer him to Viktor Frankl for a refresher on logos, di. Other than that, dude’s thesis is rubbish.
“freedom of speech was held as sacrosanct, it was Europeans what done it.”
they did. name another that did what?
Baruch Spinoza (24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) — later Benedict de Spinoza — was a Jewish-Dutch philosopher.[1] The breadth and importance of Spinoza’s work was not fully realized until years after his death. By laying the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment[2] and modern biblical criticism,[3] including modern conceptions of the self and, arguably, the universe,[4] he came to be considered one of the great rationalists[3] of 17th-century philosophy. His magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, in which he opposed Descartes’s mind–body dualism, has earned him recognition as one of Western philosophy’s most important thinkers. In the Ethics, “Spinoza wrote the last indisputable Latin masterpiece, and one in which the refined conceptions of medieval philosophy are finally turned against themselves and destroyed entirely.”[5] Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said of all contemporary philosophers, “You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all.”[6]
link
tea party news
Tim Burchett mulls U.S. Senate challenge to Alexander
Just finished Levin’s latest. An intellectual tour de force, as I expected. But therein lies the problem: in a rational world, intellect would be enough. The post-constitutional America is so far gone that it would take years or decades for Levin’s ideas to take hold and reverse the course of the country.
As someone mentioned in an earlier comment or thread, Levin’s amendments would be a good addition to a post-collapse recovering society. I sincerely doubt that the statists will allow any of these amendments to wrest their hands from the levers of power.
Have the book, but I’ve been too brain-dead to read it today.
The ideas he challenges and those he proffers need to be in the water supply. The New Deal poisoned our minds as to what it’s OK for the gubmint to do
forto us.potp @ page 181 havel
Shale gas is Rearden Metal
oh. I thought it was gonna be a helpful stock tip
baking tip. use garlic.
Fixed for our side of the big pond.
Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz: Obama Suspends the Law. What Would Lincoln Say?
*** First, Lincoln’s action was at least arguably constitutional, while Mr. Obama’s is not. The Constitution has a provision for suspending habeas. It has no general provision for executive suspension of laws. English kings used to suspend laws, but the Framers rejected that practice: The president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
Second, Lincoln volunteered an articulate constitutional defense of his action. Mr. Obama seemed annoyed when the New York Times dared to ask him the constitutional question. When the reporter asked whether he had consulted with lawyers about the legality of the mandate’s delay, he declined to answer. ***
As I’ve commented elsewhere, Obazma has worked hard to earn his impeachment, devilishly hard really — and quite independently of any of his nonsensical and racially fraught self-identification.
The only remaining question is: Why won’t anyone simply give it to him?
Why won’t anyone simply give it to him?
Because Republicans are cowards and Democrats are enablers of criminal activity. Remember the Clinton impeachment? The Senate mainly voted along party lines, because (as at least one Dem Senator opined) “he wasn’t guilty enough.” Never mind he was caught red-handed, and ended up having to plea bargain his way out of Club Fed prison.
Predicting the outcome of a vote in the Senate as being effectively the same is neither a great leap of logic, nor of math.
And if the Crying Man won’t push for something that an overwhelming majority of citizens actually want, what makes you think they would institute something that they know a majority of the voting populace (in this case, that is only the 100 members of the Senate, led by the Saintly Pedophile, who have their own futures to watch out for) won’t want to support, even if for the most blatant of political reasons?
Easier to just start accumulating rope and assessing the trees and telephone poles in the area for strength under load.
[…] Protein Wisdom: Obama already legislates from the White House […]
and as far as the claim that “all freedom of speech derives from middle Europe”, it doesn’t take much to research and find something to falsify the assertion.
If a statement cannot be proven wrong (falsifiability), it is meaningless, a tautology. If it has actually been proven wrong, it isn’t “falsifiable”, it is actually false.
And, with that in mind, I would like to mention that ancient Greece revered the right to freely speak one’s mind (even if Socrates was killed for “mocking the gods and corrupting the young” ).
ancient Greece revered the right to freely speak one’s mind
As political entities, this just isn’t so — not even close. And the example you provide is example enough.
If that is your standard (freedom of speech doesn’t exist as long as you can be punished for only speaking aloud about a forbidden subject), then freedom of speech still does not exist today, anywhere on the planet, and it therefore could not have originated anywhere, much less among “white Protestant slaveowners”.
But with minor limitations, it DID exist in places and times having nothing to do with Renaissance Europe. And there were LOTS of people who were offended by Socrates’ verdict, which shows the strength of the sentiment among the citizens that the right to speak on subjects of interest did exist.
And even in the US, there are some things that cannot legally be said, such as things having to do with matters of national security, slander, “inciting words”, etc., but you wouldn’t claim that we didn’t have that right, would you?
If that is your standard (freedom of speech doesn’t exist as long as you can be punished for only speaking aloud about a forbidden subject)
It would help if you didn’t constantly rewrite what I’ve written, for starters. I’ve said nothing about freedom of speech not “existing” there. I’ve said that the Greeks, and in particular the Athenians, do not “revere” freedom of speech, since in their positive law, they banned it. They revered their gods, and saw such reverence as necessary to the existence of their city. But to ban public freedom to speak on any subject means to be aware of its existence — and to hold it unlawful.
So does freedom of speech exist even where certain subjects are taboo/criminally punishable, or not?
If not, then it has never existed, anywhere. If yes, then it existed before the origins claimed by the yahoo in the link mentioned by di upthread. Seems like a binary position to me, and he would be wrong either way.
As I’ve already claimed that freedom of speech is a function of freedom of human thought, so goes back to the origins of human thought, so that should cover the too open-ended claim of the fellow at D. Thompson’s blog.
The crucial distinction seems to lie in the question of the coercive circumstances involved in society and political organization regarding speech, as over against what a man may think or say to his wife, or likewise she to him, as they lie in the marital bed in the dark of night, say, or friends may think and say to one another in private conversation about matters of interest to them, even unto speculation on the existence of the city’s gods or the absurdity of certain aspects of stories told of the gods. Whether these thoughts and sayings are a danger to the city, of which the city cannot fail to take notice without imperiling itself, seems to be the question.
Why then would congress and their staffers need to be exempted from a right by a decree? First the ACA drafted by who knows, passed in the dead of night, ruled a tax, now deemed a “right” by a despot. The rule of law in this once great Nation has become a joke.
sorry there should have be an “is” in front of “now deemed”. Sunday afternoon gin does not facilitate proof reading….
[…] Protein Wisdom commentator GeoffB remarked: […]
Obama must have cut class a lot when they were discussing Contract Law when he was in law school. I’ve had to generate and also sign a lot of contracts and one cannot decide unilaterally to exempt oneself from any part of a contract unless there is a mutual agreement and it is codified an addendum to the document. I’m not anywhere near being a lawyer, but even I know that.
If that is the case, where one party to a contract is unilaterally changing the terms to his reputational (yeah, I know it’s not a word, but I couldn’t think of any other generic term) benefit, a court of competent jurisdiction ought to declare the contract as null and void, since there was clearly not a meeting of the minds to allow a contract to be valid.
Which is why they had to call it a “tax”.
I could be wrong, but I believe Roberts called the ACA a tax in order to boot it back to congress and force them to fix it or nix it. Admittedly, I came to this conclusion after many months of cursing him so I could be reaching here.
I’m loath to defend CJ Roberts leigh, but if there’s any defense at all (and I’m not certain there is), to the extent he intended to force the question to become a so-called “political question”, I think his sense was not to kick it back to Congress directly, but to kick it onto the people, whom he seems to upbraid across the argument of his decision, as having been (and rightly judged to have been) too inattentive to their representation. He seems to be saying: “This is all your fault, you lousy citizens of the USA. Now you’re going to pay for it, or else you’ll have to get off your asses and change the course your government is on.”
It’s shitty and presumptuous of him, but not entirely incorrect.
what type of federal tax is mr. roberts’? does this new tax appear in the constitution?
Yes, that’s where I was going in my remark sdferr. While he did make quite a brow-beating to the lazy voters, it seems to me that the only remedy that is actually constitutional is for the congress to amend (god forbid) or round file the bill. I’ll let those of you who are much more conversant with the USC and its machinations within the congress to correct me. I really learn a lot from reading the discussions here, so no one be shy!
Nope, newrouter, it’s more like he’s at some remove from the actual decision, reasoning along these lines:
“This is bad law (I don’t actually have to say so in my decision). Why is this bad? It’s bad because (besides being perfectly unconstitutional) the people haven’t been paying attention and have allowed leftist demagogues and morons into positions of power to write bad law. If I now remove the problem for them by simply declaring this bad thing unconstitutional and void (treating the people like infants and acting like their daddy), won’t I have created through moral hazard the very sort of buffer that would only cause more of the same?
Yes.
Therefore, as Mencken once put it, “Let them have it, good and hard.” And then hopefully after they suffer for a time, they’ll figure out that the honest solution to the problem is up to themselves. Then things in general will begin to get better. In the meantime, everybody gets hurt. But fuck ’em. I didn’t vote for these assholes. “
” too inattentive to their representation”
in defense of “the lazy voters” health care isn’t in the const. of the us. a fed gov’t that overruns it’s banks doesn’t care about the citizen nor the constitution.
That’s the point, nr. Roberts is saying in his decision that we must be more vigilant about who we chose to allow to represent us.
but who is mr. roberts the power to create a tax out of a penalty? and if these folks are just making it up why should any citizen, save for the violence of the state, give any regard to their opinions?
” Roberts is saying in his decision that we must be more vigilant about who we chose to allow to represent us.”
how that game is played is rigged. so mr roberts is naive or stupid or complicit.
how that game is played is rigged. so mr roberts is naive or stupid or complicit.
Ah, but look at Mark Levin’s proffered Amendments (or some of them anyway). They’re actually addressed to solving the problem of the rigging. And where do they come from? A frustration with the impossibility that Washington will reform itself! And where would Levin’s overall suggestions lead if his ideas take hold? They lead to more active and thoughtful involvement in government by the very people who are being harmed by it, the country class, as Codevilla calls it. Us.
So it’s certain Roberts isn’t naive, or stupid, and probably not even complicit. He would call himself pragmatic, is my guess. He’s working at another level, using what he’s got in hand to work with — namely, bullshit. Which is what the “tax” prestidigitation amounts to. It’s bullshit and he knows it. The question is, did he intentionally use the bullshit in order to upset the applecart? And well, we can only say “Maybe.”
Well, he is being Cassandra. If being a member of congress weren’t so lucrative, not so many dilettantes would seek office in order not to serve, but to enrich themselves. For this reason, term limits are nonsense.
” and probably not even complicit.”
you make a good case. but mr. roberts’ sudden cave on which side he was on lends a certain stigma to the whole affair. for support read the “minority opinion”. mr roberts doesn’t come across as 3-d chess player.
I’ve read the Minority opinon. More carefully than Robert’s opinion, in fact. And far prefer it. I even called for Robert’s impeachment at the time. And I’d be happy to see that come to pass today. But just because I disagree with him doesn’t mean I can’t attempt to figure out some rationale that makes sense of the senseless shit he pulled.
“term limits are nonsense.”
perhaps in isolation they are. but if you apply other brakes to the machine the positive feedback is reduced.(positive feedback cause instability as opposed to negative feedback)
Not to mention whom we chose to appoint our Chief Justice.
SCOTUS has a duty and an obligation not to let stand unconstitutional legislation — unless Roberts was sneakily overturning Marbury.
” — unless Roberts was sneakily overturning Marbury.”
heh. That’s next on the list.
“I can’t attempt to figure out some rationale that makes sense of the senseless shit he pulled”
they be thugs with power and info: ask gen. petraeus, irs scandal, the mo film maker, the lavabits co., gibson guitars, the cankles, et al. the thread is information and power to get “their” way.
Re: Socrates, ancient Greece and “freedom of speech”
It wasn’t the Athenian democracy the had Socrates tried, convicted and put to death.
Voiding all decisions from Marbury forward would be an excellent start.
What distinction are you aiming at Ernst?
That the original democracy had been overthrown by the Spartans after suffering defeat? That an oligarchy had been put in its place? That a tyranny of the 30 (or whatever they were called) took power? That those were then overthrown, and that later a democracy was re-instituted? And that it was this latter that tried Socrates? Or how did it go?
One school of judicial restraint holds that SCOTUS also has a duty to defer to the elected representatives of the people in a “benefit of the doubt” / presumption of constitutionality sort of way.
Which Roberts did.
Rather actively, I might add.
I was thinking that it was the Spartan-backed tyranny that had Socrates executed. But I may very well be misremembering that, sdferr.
No, I don’t think it was the tyrants, but the democrats who didn’t trust Socrates because of his occasional companionship with Critias and another fellow whose name escapes me just now, who were both part of the tyrannical council. It was payback time, as the democrats viewed it (Anytus and Meletus, two of the three who brought charges).
Well, and aside from the two tyrant guys, there was Socrates’ close association with Alcibiades, a dastard if there ever was one from the point of view of Anytus and Meletus.
Charicles was the other guy’s name, I think.
“Which Roberts did.
Rather actively, I might add.”
where can you appeal mr. roberts’ opinion?
I think the 30 Tyrants oligarchy was overthrown by 403 BC after only one year in power, and Socrates was executed in 399 BC four years later (according to Plato).
You have to count backwards, dude. 403 is four years prior to 399.
I did.
It’s heinous, in fact. It’s like the Yankees leading the Red Sox and finding yourself happy about it. It’s just not right.
where can you appeal mr. roberts’ opinion?
In the congress.
In 399 BC Socrates was executed four years after the overthrow of the Pro Spartan anti-democratic thirty tyrants(in 403 BC).
I know you can’t see me winking, but believe me, that’s completely fucked up. What the hell was up with those people back then? Did they think they were Merlin or something?
“where can you appeal mr. roberts’ opinion?
In the congress.”
so congress can tell mr. roberts a 2nd time that it is a penalty not a tax?
Socrates went around telling and showing the people what assholes their experts were with his questions and he discounted the existence of the state’s gods. Doing this in a newly restablished democracy got him ruled as an enemy of the state. When asked what they should do with him he told the Athenians that he should get a stipend and free meals for life to keep doing what he did which was to the benefit of Athens. The Athenians were still willing to exile him and even arranged with his followers for him to be broke out of jail via bribe if he would just agree to leave, but he said he was getting old, his joints hurt, he did not fear death, and that people in other countries would not tolerate anymore than his own city would. Then he drank the Hemlock and said (paraphrasing) ‘thus Athens is cured of me and I of Athens and old age, so when I am gone make an offering to Ascelpius on our behalf in gratitude.”
Never let a monk make your calendar
NR at 8:42 strikes close to the mark. Other than personal aggrandizement (of which I understand the siren song), what is it that makes our elected reps turn 90 or 180 degrees when they get to Washington? I’m hardly a conspiracy theorist (well, lately they seem more likely than not), but everyone has skeletons in the closet, and the amount of info available is truly awesome. Look at how some of the 2010 Teaparty reps have been subverted in a such a short time.
Even Roberts knows that his about face was bullshit. If that wasn’t an obvious example of leverage, how about Petraeus? There is too much power at stake for them to go willingly into that dark night.
Socrates had skills.
ri red
makes you wonder what the biggest baracky boosters in the media have to hide?
Best. Punchline. Ever.
I try, McGehee.