The Supremes just handed down their decision on Obamacare, and it says we’re screwed.
Supreme Court upholds Obumblecare
Posted by Yorkshire on 27 June 2012, 10:54 pm
Filed under Alinsky Rules 4 Radicals, Barack Obama, Congress, Debt and deficit spending, Defecate Spending, Democratic Party, Disdain for the Courts, European socialism, First Amendment, It's for our own good!, New Tax, Personal Responsibility, Politics of Our Destruction, Religious Discrimination, Supreme Court, Things that piss me off, Utter stupidity, Welfare State
Tagged 2012 elections, debt crisis, deficit spending, federal meddling, health care, national debt, US Constitution
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C. Edmund Wright’s article today at The American Thinker examines the battered-wife reactions of elite conservative pundits to Chief Judas John Bader-Robert’s insane decision to uphold ObamaCare as a tax. (see my comment 6/28 @13:32, emphasis added)
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/justice_roberts_pleads_lie_to_me.html#ixzz1zBscxCcR
Here’s another excerpt from Wright’s linked article: (emphasis added)
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/justice_roberts_pleads_lie_to_me.html#ixzz1zC0OrKXT
Perry said earlier in this thread that the taxing provision was written into the actual bill. Perhaps he can do what he perpetually demands of us and can cite just that for us.
Well, Koolo, I guess that makes Perry a liar then don’t it. Just like all the rest of Obama’s bootlicking bitches.
The PPACA assigns the IRS the duty to collect imposed fines, therefore the penalty falls under the category of a tax.
Here are the relevant portions of Chief Justice Robert’s writing on this point. And btw, I recommend that everyone read this, especially ropelight, who needs to settle himself down and think about Chief Justice Roberts’ reasoning was regarding his ruling.
When the President tells us that no one who makes under $250,000 will be subject to a tax increase and then turns around and conceals tax increases in legislation passed in the dark of night on Christmas Eve before Congressional representatives have a chance to read it and find out what’s in it, the obvious conclusions apply.
Barack Obama is a liar and his enablers in the Democrat Party are accomplices to fraud. If we had an Attorney General who wasn’t himself a criminal the Obama Administration would be subject to prosecution under the RICO statutes.
You still haven’t provided a cite.
And, if this is accurate as Justice Roberts did not beat around the bush on, why did Obama himself and his acolytes, including the head lawyer arguing before the SCOTUS, claim this “penalty” was NOT a tax?
I’m 63, handicapped with a missing leg, and retired. I feel like the poster child for the death panels now.
Koolo, if I may respond to your question, had Obama’s lawyers acknowledged the PPACA included taxes then SCOTUS would have no choice but to dismiss the legislation because the Anti-Injunction Act of 1867 prohibits the court from rendering a decision on a disputed tax issue prior to the collection of the tax and a demand the tax be refunded.
Since the onerous tax provisions of ObamaCare are set for 2014, the SC would have had no choice but to focus entirely on the Commerce Clause or wait till after ObamaCare’s 2014 taxes had been collected and objections filed before they could rule on Constitutionality.
So, the crooked bastards conspired to have it both ways. Obama’s Solicitor General argued ObamaCare’s financial penalties were not taxes so the case could proceed, and then Judas Roberts turned around and found that although the Commerce Clause did not provide authority for ObamaCare that nevertheless it was allowed under the government’s power to tax.
Catch 22. Roberts conspired with left-wingers on the Court to initially sidestep the Anti-Injunction Act in order to hear the case under the false premises of the Commerce Clause so he could uphold ObamaCare under the government’s taxing authority which the Anti-Injunction Act would have expressly forbidden had it been acknowledged at the outset that ObamaCare included taxes.
The government can’t make you buy broccoli, but they can tax you if you don’t as long as they deny it’s a tax until after the SC hears oral arguments. Then Judas Roberts can pull the ol’ switcheroo and tax the living daylights out of anyone who won’t bow down and worship at the shrine of Obama’s totalitarian power grab.
Thanks, rope. No wonder Perry is hiding under his desk on this question. He’s as duplicitous as our president and his cohorts.
If you try to claim you never heard Obama assert that the Mandate was NOT a tax, I will state quite bluntly that you are a LIAR.
Koolo wrote:
Actually, they did. The government’s brief stated that even if the individual mandate was unconstitutional under the commerce clause, it should be held as a tax and be therefore constitutional under the taxing authority. See pages 31 and 32 of the Chief Justice’s opinion.
Perry is quite happy to see Obamacare passed on the basis of lies, one, that it wasn’t a tax when it was convenient politically, and, two, that it was a tax when it was convenient legally. Perry is too chicken to admit it, but he is happy to embrace lying as a stategy to get what he wants
Judas Roberts made this decision because he was getting pressure from libs that his court was too “Extreme”. Now Judas needn”t worry about being popular again on the Georgetown coctail party circuit.
WW wrote:
Sorry, but Koolo was correct: it is not referred to as a tax in the text of the legislation. The Chief Justice noted that, “We have similarly held that exactions not labeled taxes nonetheless were authorized by Congress’s power to tax,”¹ but he noted, more than once, that the text of the legislation does not refer to it as a tax at any point; this was a major argument in the dissent.
_____________________
¹ – Page 34
Regardless of whether the mandate is or is not a tax, Chief Justice Roberts recognized that it functions as a tax, therefore does not come under the jurisdiction of the Commerce Clause. He rightly considered it to be his duty to apply a constitutionally acceptable interpretation in order to uphold a law passed by Congress, because that represents the will of the people.
It seems to me that the reaction of some of you righties on here demonstrates your willingness to practice the Machiavellian approach to get what you want. Unfortunately for you, Roberts did not go along in this manner on this case.
If it quacks like a tax and wiggles like a tax, it is a tax, regardless of the wording used along the way!
The Supreme Court ruling now gives the President an opportunity to sell the PPACA just in time for the election, at a time when a different ruling would have made this a moot point, if not a negative! Thus we now see serious consternation among our friends on the Right.
PS: Speaking of taxes, when are you righties going to give President Obama credit for the tax cutter which he has been over his first term?
The relevant part of Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion justifying calling the mandate a tax can be found in two paragraphs on page 32 at this cite.
Koolo, here’s a bit more on the Catch 22. Obama’s Solicitor General deceitfully argued on day one that ObamaCare’s penalties were not taxes in order to get past the initial hurdle of the Anti-Injunction Act, but once that barrier had been circumvented it was necessary on day two to make the opposite case that penalties were in fact taxes. I believe it shows that fix was in and Judas Roberts was in cahoots with Obama and the SC libs from the git-go.
Justice Alito caught the contradiction and inquired of Solicitor General Verrilli:
Verrilli answered no.
PS: If you read a few pages past p.32, you will see the justifications which Chief Justice Roberts cites to justify his position in calling the mandate a tax. If you follow the highlighted portions up to p.44, you will encounter additional statements justifying calling the mandate a tax, even though the word “tax” is not explicitly stated in the PPACA.
Ropelight, you are beating a dead horse, much like I have been regarding the Citizens United ruling.
Obviously this ruling on the PPACA will be a benefit for tens of millions of Americans who otherwise would be suffering, thus the horse is alive, healthy, and doing well.
On the other hand, 2000 Bush v Gore ruling caused great and permanent damage to the American people, ruining the prospect for great prosperity, resulting in the death and wounding of hundreds of thousands of people, and the destruction of wide swaths of developed lands. This dead horse is beyond beating!
And the Citizens United ruling will likely place the governing power of our great nation into the hands of a wealthy and powerful few, thus stealing our democracy from us. This outcome, of course, remains to be seen, so I beat away.
I suppose we can hold out hope that a future challenge, or a future Court, will some day overrule Citizens United. For Bush v Gore, obviously it is too late, though it may be instructive should a future similar event occur. For the PPACA ruling, I believe we will thankful for it some years down the line.
Judas Roberts could have made his decision by examining chicken entrails, and you would still approve. It shows that you don’t care about principle, but only getting the partisan result you want.
More from the LYING BO
CBO: ObamaCare Price Tag Shifts from $940 Billion to $1.76 Trillion
By Brian Koenig
President Obama’s landmark healthcare overhaul is projected to cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, reports the Congressional Budget Office, a hefty sum more than the $940 billion estimated when the healthcare legislation was signed into law. To put it mildly, ObamaCare’s projected net worth is far off from its original estimate — in fact, about $820 billion off.
Backtracking to his September 2009 remarks to a joint session of Congress on healthcare, Obama asserted the following: “Now, add it all up, and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years — less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration.”
When the final CBO report was released before the law’s passage, critics surmised that the actual 10-year cost would far exceed the advertised projections. In other words, the numbers were seemingly obscured through a political ploy devised to jam the legislation through Congress.
“Democrats employed many accounting tricks when they were pushing through the national health care legislation,” asserted Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner, “the most egregious of which was to delay full implementation of the law until 2014.” This accounting maneuver allowed analysts to cloak the true cost of ObamaCare, Klein alleged, making the law appear less expensive under the CBO’s budget window.
If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, maybe this will: “President Obama’s healthcare reform law coverage provisions will cost less but cover fewer people than first thought,” the Hill reported, considering data from the CBO’s Tuesday report. Revised estimates of ObamaCare’s coverage provisions indicate that 2 million fewer people will acquire coverage by 2016.
Moreover, the CBO estimates that 4 million Americans will lose their employer-sponsored health plans by 2016, a far cry from the 1-million-person figure forecasted last year. Further yet, 1 million to 2 million fewer people will be granted access to the federally-subsidized healthcare exchanges, while an additional 1 million are estimated to qualify for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Provision.
In a second blog post published on Tuesday, Mr. Klein summed up the debacle: “It’s also worth noting that we were told time and again during the health care debate that the law didn’t represent a government takeover of health care. But by 2022, according to the CBO, 3 million fewer people will have health insurance through their employer, while 17 million Americans will be added to Medicaid and 22 million will be getting coverage through government-run exchanges.”
http://news.yahoo.com/cbo-obamacare-price-tag-shifts-940-billion-1-163500655.html?fb_action_ids=386789721380482%2C10151210718639989&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_ref=type%3Aread%2Cuser%3ACZ4jUcIIxivwcpanxnBvUThR9uY%2Ctype%3Aread%2Cuser%3ATlvE2nS_7pcGN9XLTCW3ugdZL9A&fb_source=other_multiline&code=AQD_IekR-7MyvbKXKNQZK3ThB0DUVUKZjEk_uDHV9dLMeop47U7W5fE8p9JumIazHPHYRRQfzEcmW_a_mB8rZogw5vvgOmolBhZZLIz8d8ufNlHPIBjqiR5suzrL2Ck_EfYqhs8dgxwTrTVyWWB6tKIHRoq6Li3KJvR9vtDkokwHslRUYPlI5XB98t3PDoeBXRY#_=_
Did you read the citation I furnished which gives Chief Justice Roberts’ reasoning for his decision?
I didn’t think so!
There is where you need to disect his stated principles before assigning nasty characterizations to him.
And I even provided the material for you, to save people like you some time, to no avail, as usual.
Yorkshire, only an uninformed person would ever conclude that a bill as complex as this one would likely require some fixing along the way.
My problem with you critics is that your party representives exude only negativism, when we all know very well that our current health care system needs fixing, especially for the tens of millions who are uninsured.
You told us you are 63. You’ve told us you have serious health issues. I would think that you would be very thankful that you will soon be covered by Medicare, a program designed by Democrats, and eligible for your safety net Social Security benefits, a program also designed by Democrats.
I predict that if not already, that you will soon be grateful to Democrats, though I don’t expect you to ever admit it!
And I also predict that your daughter will as well, for PPACA, given that she is struggling with health issues as well.
I find that it is usually the younger and healthier among us who gripe and clamor about these programs. I say to them: Just wait!
IOW, PAP lied when he said the word “tax” was used in the healthcare law:
Fancy that.
Pure speculative hogwash. There is no rational person who can make such a statement based on the event of 9/11 and actions taken thereafter.
Obama openly denied that it was a tax. Are you saying he LIED?
I’m not much interested in his excuses. We all know the REAL reason for his decision – he wanted to appease the liberals on the DC social circuit who had criticized him for running a “Right Wing” court. Now, he will be popular on the Georgetown cocktail party circuit.
You’re always whining about this, but you never give a rational reason why. All it means is that both sides can spend more money on elections, which means more political ads from both sides, making the whole thing a wash. So, what are you so paranoid about?
PS Perry, when it came to political spending, I don’t remember hearing a peep from you when Obama outspent McCain about 3 to 1. Where were your cries of “Unfair” then?
PPS Perry, do you even know what the Citizens United case was about? Why do I ask, of COURSE you don’t!
We all know what Algore would have done on 9/11 had he won the election. He would have hidden under the bed, sucking his thumb, going “Mommy, what do I do, what do I do?”
WW wrote:
Well, we’ll see, won’t we? The Republicans are now running hard on defeating the Democrats precisely to repeal the ObumbleCare law, and if the Republicans win, that would be strong evidence that the public do not like the law. Of course, if teh Democrats fall to a minority in the Senate, I’m sure that we can count on you very hypocritically supporting a Democrat filibuster to prevent a repeal vote from ever coming to the floor.
Not that you’ll ever stop. But there are a great many of us who are very glad that George Bush was our 43rd President, and not Al Gore.
And I continue to wonder just how restricting the freedom of speech is a good thing in a democracy.
WW wrote:
You just really don’t get it, do you? We don’t, or at least your Editor does not, believe that the “problem” of people not having health insurance is something for the government to “solve.” And I certainly don’t like the creation of an entirely new welfare entitlement.
We are being strangled by entitlement spending, and this system will only make it worse. We need to dramatically reduce entitlements, we need to tell people that they are responsible for themselves.
Eric, In response to your question at 20:35, I expect Algore would have appointed a blue ribbon committee composed of rich liberals and the accepted number of politically correct racial and gender minorities to coordinate with the UN, the Muslim Brotherhood, the teacher’s unions, and the Occupy Movement to investigate who was responsible and how quickly they could be approved for food stamps and green energy loan guarantees.
If the committee couldn’t identify the actual terrorists and get them registered to vote before the next election, the committee would be authorized to instruct the ATF to manufacture evidence linking George W Bush to disgruntled hair stylists and interior decorators upset over his failure to support gay marriage.
Wagonwheel says:
June 29, 2012 at 19:29
Yorkshire, only an uninformed person would ever conclude that a bill as complex as this one would likely require some fixing along the way.
Well, there is something we agree on, the Law is defective. And a defective law should be eliminated. Then maybe fix the one or two things good about the gigantic tax law. This should raise entitlement spending by a huge amount since it’s over 50% now. Well, you can say BO fundamentally changed America as he promised in his campaign, it went from bad to worse.
WW panders:
How odd, then, that it is that 63 year old man with serious health issues who is so solidly opposed to ObaminableCare, while the strongest partisans are precisely the younger people who are seeing getting something for nothing. Just wait until they start seeing $100 a week or more being taken out of their paychecks for health insurance that they don’t believe that they need. They ought to be about as enthusiastic about that as they are about paying into a Social Security fund that many of them don’t think will be there when they reach the ever-rising retirement age.
There are many things that I despise about ObumbleCare, but one part that I do like is that the insurance it will force people to pay will be based on population, and not on income. A person who makes a quarter as much as I do will still have to pay the same dollar amount that I do.
OK, that’s not true, either. Because of how we have our insurance structured, the person who makes a quarter of what I do will almost certainly have to pay more than I do for health insurance.
Because I have my insurance through my wife’s employment — she is a registered nurse at a hospital — I don’t take the health insurance offered by my employer. I receive $600 per quarter from my employer for not taking his insurance, and it just so happened that I got my health care bonus yesterday, the last payday of the quarter. You will recall that I said I had made a campaign donation to Mitt Romney yesterday? Guess where it came from?
WW wrote:
You want to know the real line of demarcation? It is between people who work and pay their bills and are continually getting socked for more and more money to support the poor dears who won’t work, and the poor dears who won’t work hard enough to support themselves and are constantly looking for the government to give them stuff that they did not earn themselves.
That was the difference between the TEA Party rallies and the Occupy movement. The TEA Partiers went home at the end of the day, because they had to do something really radical like get up and go to work the next day, while the fleabaggers could camp out as long as mommy and daddy’s money held out, because they didn’t work.
WW:
You told us you are 63. You’ve told us you have serious health issues. I would think that you would be very thankful that you will soon be covered by Medicare, a program designed by Democrats, and eligible for your safety net Social Security benefits, a program also designed by Democrats.
I would like to see people go through what I have since 1977. At no time did I rely on Government to bail me out. At no time did I ever take off sick more than the time I had earned. And tell me how many people you know went through eight years with a broken leg, scoped knee, life ending infections in the bad leg, hip replacement, exploratory operations, and the finale of losing the leg and all at my expense and my insurance. I would not wish those 8 years on anybody, and I mean anybody. When came to losing the leg, I went in Friday afternoon and home on Tuesday for lunch. And yet, I see crybabies with a hangnail and want the Government to wipe their ass for them. Now you know why I am like I am.
Since you were a government employee, Yorkshire, I presume you had health insurance through all your just described travails. Moreover, if you had no insurance, what would you have done? Have you ever estimated what the grand total of all your medical bills were throughout those years? Where would you be now if you had to pay all these out-of-pocket? To keep you from going bankrupt, or to have to deprive yourself of the care you needed, this is what people like you face if they cannot afford insurance premiums because they lost their jobs, or because they were kicked off their insurance when they got sick, or if they did not make enough money to pay the premiums. These unfortunate souls are driven into bankruptcy may well remain under water for the rest of their lives. Is this the outcome that you support? Why not have a safety net for these poor souls?
I can sort of understand our Editor, who seems pretty healthy, who is probably covered by his wife’s health insurance, whose daughters are covered either by military provided insurance or their mother’s insurance, who has a steady job probably paying a reasonable wage, and who then makes assumptions about those who can’t get a job, or who are struggling in spite of their working hard or suffering from some serious problem. Our Editor seems to be in good shape in all regards, yet he has no problem denying government help to those who need it desperately.
I really don’t understand you people, that you would jump to assumed conclusions in order to justify your opposition to certain social programs.
Your ilk is in the minority if you look at the health care programs available to almost all the citizens of other developed countries world wide.
Thus, the attitude of you folks puts you in a tiny minority everywhere but in the USA. You people have no problem going to war, no empathy for the collateral damage said wars cause, no problem with folks running around packing heat, and no problem with the skewed wealth distribution we have and getting worse.
So the bottom line, I guess, is again, that I don’t understand you people at all. Your instinctive libertarian ideology divorces you from most of your community, making you appear as cold, uncaring people who hate big government for everything except the issues you favor, like corporate personhood. You oppose women’s choice, but have no problem with invading women’s bodies with detection devices against her will. You insist on defining as a person the zygote that results at the instant of fertilization. And if a Conservative Supreme Court Justice rules against your preference, you immediately vilify him.
Even a person like John Hitchcock, who appears to be struggling financially himself, ridicules government assistance programs. I asked him a while back if he had ever been on welfare, or on food stamps, and he did not answer. My guess is that he has, but would never admit it, so he can feel free to attack government assistance programs, and the political party largely responsible for them.
You folks are a mystery to me!
WW claims that he doesn’t understand:
I’ve explained it to you before: I have seen far too much, from too many people, which has convinced me that the vast majority of poverty is the result of individual choices, primarily the choices to be lazy and to screw around indiscriminately. If we were somehow able to limit welfare and public assistance to those who really can’t take care of themselves, there would be very little opposition to such . . . and the programs would cost maybe 5% of what they do now.
And I’ve seen it in my own life, from my mother, who could have taken the easy way out, the welfare way out, but was too proud to do that. She worked her fingers to the bone — and she always did have bony fingers — but by working, by getting out of bed every day and going to work, she gained job experience and got ahead.
I’ve seen too many wailing stories about the poor young men in Philadelphia who just couldn’t catch a break, who just couldn’t find jobs, no matter how hard they tried, while there were construction crews by the thousands, pouring concrete and doing landscaping and framing houses and putting on roofs, filled with Mexicans (and, around here, Portuguese) immigrants, who spoke little English, because the contractors couldn’t get real American citizens to come to work every day and work a full day when they did show up.
These weren’t minimum wage jobs, and most of them were trades in which the majority of the skills could be picked up in just a few days — anyone with a brain can learn to do the flat sections of roofing quickly, though valleys and ridges and flashing will take a little bit longer — but they were hard jobs, jobs in which you have to actually work for a living. If Mexicans who spoke little English could learn and do those jobs, then there is no reason why American men couldn’t learn and do those jobs.
Due to the recession, a lot of those jobs have disappeared, but the contractors had a hard time finding American workers when times were booming, despite high male unemployment in the Philadelphia inner city sections.
You see, WW, my respect for people has a hard line of demarcation: I have a tremendous amount of respect for people who work for a living — and that includes those who did work but are currently laid off due to President Obama’s wholly ineffective economic policies — even if the only work they can find is washing dishes in a diner or cleaning out porta-johns on construction sites, and virtually none at all for the whiners and the malingerers who will find every excuse in the world for not working and for living off the efforts of others.
Mr Hitchcock was one of those people who was working, and then lost his job. That he was ridiculing government assistance programs, that he was opposing funding them, ought to tell you something: that, like my mother, he was just too proud to go on the dole. He has been very poor recently, but has been doing what he can to work his way back.
You see, Mr Hitchcock has discovered the secret to success in employment: when you do have a job, you get out of bed, every day, go to work, and give a good day’s effort on your job. You don’t make excuses, you don’t call out sick, you don’t find every excuse that there is for not working; you do your job, and you will be successful.
You are right about me in one regard: I am pretty healthy. But I’m also 59 years old, and that means it’s a little harder to get out of bed in the morning, and sometimes sore muscles don’t get unsore quite as quickly as they used to. But my employer never has to worry about whether I will show up for work: since I started with my current employer (in 2005), the only day I missed was the Valentine’s Day ice storm of a few years ago, when the roads were shut down completely, nothing moved, and the whole company was shut down.
If I can do that much, so can anyone else: it’s all in people’s heads. If I can get out of bed every morning and go to work, so can anyone else. And, these days, if you can do just that much, you will find that you are way ahead of everyone else.
John Semmons has published his July 1, 2012 Edition of Semi-News: A Satire of Recent News
More satire from John Semmons:
WW ranted:
Corporate personhood is simply the legal doctrine which holds that corporations are entitled to due process of law. Your Editor wonders why you would be opposed to due process of law for corporations.
Ahhh, but naturally, you are referring to the Citizens United case. You seem to believe that the First Amendment, which states simply that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” somehow allows room to restrict or ban speech based upon the identity of the speaker, to wit, corporations, even though the Amendment itself very plainly says that Congress shall make no law, period, concerning the subjects at hand.
Above in this thread you criticized Eric and others for not reading the opinion of Chief Justice Roberts in the PP&ACA case. I make the same suggestion to you: you should actually read the Court’s opinion in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, and pay special attention to Section A1, beginning on page 25.
Did you catch that? It was the opinion of three of the most prominent liberals on the Supreme Court — Earl Warren, Hugo Black and William Douglas — that “no point of view be restrained or barred, and that the people have access to the views of every group in the community.” Justice Douglas continued:
And, in an opinion released on the same day as the ObumbleCare ruling, Justice Kennedy wrote in United States v Alvarez:
Well, Mr Editor, the fancy words of 3 unelected, black-robed, old, white leftists echoing down the halls of hoary time from over 50 years ago failed to persuade then, and they fall on deaf ears today.
The Left uses words to conceal their intentions, to confuse issues and to divide their opponents, as an example: yesterday it wasn’t a tax, but today it’s a tax.
If it had been a tax yesterday the legislation never would have passed Congress, and if it had remained a tax it never would have been found constitutional. So, the solution is obvious, it’s not a tax when Leftists have to face the voters, and it only becomes a tax in the hands of Leftists who enjoy lifetime appointments.
Words let Leftists work wonders and if you take them at their word, you’ll find you have your account in the wrong bank, and it’s been cleaned out, for your own good of course.
I don’t understand people who outright lie about what’s in the healthcare bill. But it does explain why you’re a Democrat and love Obama — they all lied about it too.
Some people would rather lie than lose, they’re called Leftists.
Some people would rather lose than lie, they’re called Conservatives.
And some people would rather lose to Leftists than compromise with Conservatives, they’re called establishment Republicans.
Mr Editor, what you and the Conservative Roman Catholics on the SCOTUS are the ramification of their decisions on the people of the United States. This comes from my view that there is no such a thing as absolute. There are always, in every situation in life, exceptions to the rule which must be taken into account in their rendering a ruling.
An example of this is the McCain Feingold Campaign Finance Law which was overthrown. As you know, that law placed a restriction on the amount of money one person or a group could donate to a campaign at a reasonable level in terms of the power represented by said donation.
To remove said restriction grants practically unlimited power to the very wealthy in terms of their ability to influence an election and to influence the behavior of an elected official.
Of course you are in favor of the interpretation of the Constitution which favors this grant of practically unlimited power, because this favors you side. So you will sit down with your keyboard and spew out your absolutist rhetoric, which derives, in my opinion, from the brainwashing you received as a young boy, true also, probably, for certain other of the Roman Catholic SCOTUS Justices.
Sharia Law has exactly the same origins, brainwashing, and to no good end result. This brainwashing phenomenon turns people and groups into Machiavellians, that is, to achieve their goals no matter what it takes. The Geneva Convention is set up to counter those who would wage wars as Machiavellians.
Aren’t wars initiated on ideological grounds, often religion based? There is no reasoning with religious absolutists.
So this is the basic difference between a Conservative mindset and a Liberal mindset. Ideology matters more than reasoning and consequences/outcomes. Conservatives have great difficulty in compromising to solutions of disputes. The winner gets to make all the rules.
But there are profound exceptions which have altered the course of history, like the rebuilding of Germany and Japan following WWII, permanent conquest being the alternative avoided. Walls can be torn down by the people who act in defiance of their totalitarian leaders.
Today’s version of Republican Conservatives, extremists really, certainly absolutists, are attempting to take the First Amendment to its absolutist extremes, which is exactly what the Citizens United ruling did.
An absolutist mindset which acquires considerable power can lead a nation to plutocracy, aristocracy, or dictatorship, as has happened several times big time in the last 100 years.
Are we finding ourselves now on this path?
The desire to have an absolutist interpretation of the First Amendment, without consideration of the consequences, is one sign, in my view!
More “civility” from our resident demander of such:
Hmm … quite similar to comparing a past Hitchcock comment to the Holocaust. And equally preposterous, of course.
In reality, Editor’s view (shared by myself) on this matter is about freedom. There is nothing in Citizens United which benefits “our side” over yours or anyone else’s. It’s precisely about what our Editor has had to repost here numerous times to, hopefully, punch through your (PAP’s) pathetically repetitious nonsense — again, freedom. If disallowing spending money for political purposes, whether via person or corporation, is legitimate under the First Amendment, then — as I’ve asked PAP myriad times — why then can’t flag burning similarly be disallowed? After all, the text of the First Amendment says speech, not pyromania.
blu, in response to your comment at 10:30. I’ve been expecting your peculiar views to re-surface, but religious bigotry is not only unpersuasive, it’s offensive and shameful, especially coming from one who self-righteously claims to “care” about others, but not apparently enough to respect their rejection your elementary school absolutism.
For clarification and further discussion, go here.
” There is no reasoning with religious absolutists.”
Absolutely correct Wagonwheel, if you were debating a persons religion. The problem we have as conservatives is we don’t undrestand how your political beliefs have become your religion.The only absolutist here is you. You believe the government absolutly must run the health insurance industry. They must run the health care industry. There is no room for compromise or finding a better free market way to accomplish our goals. Hell No! Only the government can do it.
We believe in FREEDOM. We believe the very last place FREE people look for answers is toward the government. I’m sure as health insurance and health care costs spiral upward you’ll be the first to use this approach: Well, yeah, prices are going up BUT they would have gone up more without Obamataxcare. Unprovable of course, but you’ll believe it as a matter of faith because leftism is your religion. Justa as you believe, even after the Editor printed here in black and white , the outline for Romney’s healyth care plan, Romney has no plan.
Obamataxcare just laid the largest tax on the sholders of middle America EVER. Where is your compassion for the working guy now? I know the answer: that compassion has been trumped by your religion, the ideology of leftism.
BTW, I can see your compassion and respect for your fellow Americans when you use terms like:
1.” sit down with your keyboard and spew out your absolutist rhetoric”
2.”which derives, in my opinion, from the brainwashing you received as a young boy”
3.” This brainwashing phenomenon turns people and groups into Machiavellians”
4.” There is no reasoning with religious absolutists.”
5.” Republican Conservatives, extremists really, certainly absolutists”
Tell us, do you ever read the crap you type? Cause if you did you’d know who the absolutist is here. All that last foolish rant needed was “racist”, “unpatriotic” and ” dysfuntional” seeded in and it would have sounded EXACTLY like your last 100 lame posts.
BTW, when it comes to “brainwashing” seems to me that a person such as yourself who keeps repeating the same crap over and over is the one brainwashed. Do you hold any origional thoughts not previously proposed by some socialist? Have you any ideas which don’t include the government telling someone what or what not to do? Have you one idea which does not require goverment FORCE to enact? Anything? Beuller?
Right, koolo, so you are taking the absolutist position as well.
Freedom is not an absolute no matter how often you and our Editor might proclaim it to be. There are always exceptions. You might wish to argue over an exception, but you cannot argue that there are none at all, obviously, but not obvious to you and our Editor.
In fact, your last comment inadvertently alluded to an exception when you used the term pyromania, which brings to mind the yelling of fire in a crowded church allusion. One cannot do that because of the consequences which might obtain. One does not have an absolute if there is even only one that can be surfaced.
And to say there is nothing in Citizens United that benefits one side, at this moment in time this is not true. In a vacuum, however, it is true. We don’t live in a vacuum, koolo. Reality must be considered which, if not, can lead to undesirable consequences, in this case, the granting of excessive power to the side with the most money. Campaign finance contribution was meant to level the political playing field, which the Citizens United decision overturned. These are the facts, koolo. Deal with them!
Hardly bigotry against the Roman Catholic Church, ropelight. I would make the same statement about any religion or ideology which attempts to brainwash the developing minds of young children. Do you approve of the brainwashing carried out by Islamist extremists? If so, then so state.
Hoagie, be honest, all of our thoughts come from somewhere. None of us as adults are blank tablets. Therefore the words you throw at me are equally applicable to you, the only difference being that we agree on very little. Does this make either of us lesser of a person. To listen to you, it appears one of us is the lesser. So continue on with your version of bigotry; I expect it!
Both of our objectives in participating here is to convince others. Why are you objecting even to that? It’s telling!
Again, PAP: If disallowing spending money for political purposes, whether via person or corporation, is legitimate under the First Amendment, then — as I’ve asked you myriad times — why then can’t flag burning similarly be disallowed? After all, the text of the First Amendment says speech, not pyromania.
Spare us the sanctimonious bullshit, Perry. You don’t care about the poor, the downtrodden, etc., you just want government to get bigger and bigger and more expensive and to have more control over our lives. THAT is the left wing “Vision” for America.
Not true that I am an absolutist. I believe in compromising to resolve problems; you and yours do not. Moreover, on your other statements, you are putting words into my mouth, as absolutists are want to do. What you said is not true. In fact, if you think about it, the PPACA has made extensive use of the private sector, like the private insurance industry.
But yes, I would prefer if the government provided a single payer system, but that is not in the cards, so I accept the PPACA compromise. But you don’t. Your solution is to do nothing, thus prolong the health care system we have now, which is very costly and not very effective. Please explain your reasoning for supporting the status quo.
Please don’t tell me what I care for and don’t care for, Eric, without pointing to a statement I’ve made. The statement you did point to is not on your point.
Your statement about my wishes is grossly inaccurate! If you are too lazy to bring forward a quote to support your statement, then don’t make it in the first place. And yes, you are very lazy, like here for example.
I don’t favor “disallowing spending money for political purposes”, but I do favor having limits placed upon it, in order to prevent the ordeal that we are in for this campaign season, based on the unprecedented volumes of money being poured in, together with the skewed playing field which is happening before our very eyes.
In my view, a focus on debates between opposing candidates and their views is most desirable, without this overwhelming barrage of Madison Avenue advertisements being thrown into the mix, with emphasis on extreme negativity. We simply must do better than this.
LOL! Says the “man” who just called me an absolutist because I dared agree with Citizens United. You’re a living contradiction, PAP, all the span of a few moments.
Explain to everyone, please, how agreeing with Citizens makes one an “absolutist” on the 1st Amendment. While you’re at it, see if you can not duck my flag burning question for the 975th time.
Like you supported your “fact” that the term “tax” was specifically mentioned in the healthcare law? How “lazy” is constantly running away from big whopper?
Wagonwheel says:
June 30, 2012 at 01:15 (Edit)
You folks are a mystery to me!
I believe liberals, socialists, progressives, and marxists are easy to figure out. The have a firm belief in OPM, Other People’s Money. Here’s the major difference and WW for the reading you do or don’t do here and other places, it comes down to the simple belief that Conservatives want just enough Government to maintain safety and order, and defense of the country, whereas, Liberals believe that you can’t tax people enough to fix every perceived ill of society. You have a Robin Hood Complex.
As Former Prime Minister Thatcher put it, what do you do when you can’t tax anymore and you run out of OPM. We’re there. America Worked (past tense) because the people with an idea started businesses, made them grow, and hired people. Today, these same people are the enemy in LibLand. They are perceived as “enemies” of the poor. They should be stripped of their riches.
But the reality is right now entitlements consume well over half of the spending of the country, and that’s not counting what Obumble Tax will add. Just think what the doers of society could do for jobs if this was considerably lowered and they had capital to expand. This next picture explains it perfectly and enforced by the government.
Dana, you’re 08:00 was absolutely brilliant. Only thing is, left wing rodents like Perry will claim that you were merely lucky.
What “ordeal?” Why do you care how much people/corporations/unions spend for POLITICAL speech? And where’s your proof of this “skewed” playing field? Citation please!!
I’ll tell you exactly what I please. And one think that is obvious from all your posts is that the only thing you care about is Big Government.
You have some kind of nerve attacking someone else’s religion. Though I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, coming from the freedom hating feral rat that you are!
WW is incensed:
So, when I noted that Justices Earl Warren (a Protestant), Hugo Black (a Protestant so anti-Catholic that he joined the KKK early in his career), and William Douglas (a Presbyterian) all favored the absolutist interpretation of the First Amendment, it was due to “the brainwashing (they) received as young boy(s), true also, probably, for certain other of the Roman Catholic SCOTUS Justices?”
It’s really amazing that you, a military veteran, an American through and through, would want to give the federal government the power to restrict or ban speech based upon the identity of the speaker and the content of his speech.
And just what would those shari’a law supporters do? Why, they would do exactly what you would have us do: use the power of government to restrict the freedom of speech based upon the identity of the speaker (non-Muslims) and the content of his speech (anything which challenges Islam, anything which challenges the government, anything which advocates changes in society, really far too long a list through which to go). You claim to be against “wars initiated on ideological grounds,” but in seeking governmental authority to regulate speech, you are ceding to the government the power to censor ideological differences.
As you see us wicked Republican conservatives as wanting to control everything, “plutocracy, aristocracy, or dictatorship,” doesn’t it make you wonder why we would support freedom of speech? After all, freedom of speech is the greatest enemy of “plutocracy, aristocracy, or dictatorship,” as Hosni Mubarak found out, as Moammar Qadafi found out, and as Bashir al-Assad is learning. If we are what you say we are, why would we hand our enemies such a weapon?
There have been dictatorships which have occurred several times in the last century; do you believe that the Nazis were big on freedom of speech, or the Fascists in Spain and Italy, or the Communists in the Soviet Union? Freedom of speech is the biggest enemy the authoritarians have . . . and you want to tear down freedom of speech. I’d say that isn’t very wise.
Game.
Set.
Match.
Of course, because Single Payer removes all freedom of choice in health care. You’re stuck with whatever the governmemt gives you. It’s all part of your Big Government, anti-freedom agenda.
It’s almost a waste of time to talk about the Citizens United case with Perry. For one, he doesn’t know what it’s about and can’t be bothered to learn. So, why does he oppose it?
Well, we know that Perry if a left winger, that means he is anti-freedom and pro Big Government. And he must assume that expanding freedom of speech will adversely affect his left wing agenda. Thus he is opposed to Citizens United for purely selfish politicial reasons rather than because of any higher constitutional principles.
PS That should read “Rerry is a left winger”
Oops, another typo: “Perry is a left winger”.
Of course, we know Perry won’t reply to these posts, otherwise that would openly expose his left wing agenda of hating freedom and loving Big Government.
Not at all, koolo! It is your naïveté, or your carelessness, or partisanship, or all three, which would cause you to immediately leap onto our Editor’s conclusion.
Our Editor’s entire argument is based on a false premise, a premise which he made up, having nothing to do with my position, to wit:
There is nowhere that I said that, or anything like it. What I have said is that there are appropriate limits which should be articulated. We can have a debate on what those limits should be, and they can be legislated in Congress subject to a possible post legislative review by SCOTUS. In my view, this is a push back against that ruling which we must have.
As an example which I already mentioned, McCain Feingold was one such legislated limit on speech, thrown out by this activist SCOTUS by this horrendous Citizens United ruling; and there are many, many intellectuals who agree.
If we let the Citizens United v Federal Elections Commission stand, we could most certainly be on a path to Plutocracy.
For a spirited discussion of the Citizens United v Federal Elections Commission ruling, http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v-federal-election-commission/
Eric, my previous post is a response to your typically ignorant remark. If you want to debate something, at a minimum, provide an appropriate quote of what I said to which you object. And if you want to have credibility, you might decide to do some research and provide a quote or cite from a credible source to support your view. You’ve done none of this here!
This is a false statement for several reasons. Medicare is a single payer plan, for which one can buy substitutes or upgrades. Furthermore, I am not for “Big Government”, but I certainly believe that government has a central role to play in our lives. So do you, Eric, for example, you are all for our Big Defense, which is Big Government. I am also not anti-freedom, just one more of your made up epithets with no quotes or examples given.
Btw, Eric, without looking it up, do you know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid? I’ve run into a number of younger people who do not know the difference. It’s pretty basic!
Here is an example of the opening part of an erudite critique of the Citizens United v Federal Election Commission SCOTUS ruling:
Read much more here.
Moved here by request Ys
Many intellectuals agreed with Hitler. What’s your point?
Since when does freedom of speech mean we will be ruled by residents of Pluto?
Sorry, left winger, but you don’t get to dictate the terms of debate around here.
Wagonwheel, exercising his freedom of speech, rails against freedom of speech:
You know, I’m not a totally inarticulate guy, but I sure can’t tell what significant differences exist between my formulation, that you “want to give the federal government the power to restrict or ban speech based upon the identity of the speaker and the content of his speech,” and your “there are appropriate limits which should be articulated.” If you believe that “there are appropriate limits which should be articulated,” who is to say that those “appropriate limits” couldn’t or wouldn’t or shouldn’t be that speech advocating toleration of Islam has exceeded those “appropriate limits?” Remember, those “appropriate limits” are going to be set by politicians, by elected representatives, and sometimes those elected representatives won’t vote the way you want them to vote, don’t see things the same way you see them.
“(A) possible post legislative review by SCOTUS?” The case at hand was the action against a political movie aimed at the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton, in 2008. The Citizens United decision was handed down in 2010; it took two years for that case to wend its way through the federal court system and reach the Supreme Court. By then, the 2008 election had been long decided. Even with “a possible post legislative review by SCOTUS,” you are talking about a decision which is so delayed as to have denied the speaker proper and prompt review, by which time the object of his speech has become meaningless. Nor would every plaintiff have the resources to pursue an appeal through to the Supreme Court; you might well be denying legitimate speech which would otherwise be protected by a Supreme Court review simply because the suppressed speaker lacked the money to pursue his case. Indeed, corporations, your most hated foe, would be far more likely to have the resources to pursue the case than individuals.
If there are upgrades and other options available, then it is no longer Single Payer. By Single Payer, I mean what they have in Britain, where everyone is on the same plan.
I don’t believe this. Neither does Dana, Hoagie, Koolo, Ropelight, or any other conservative or libertarian. If it plays a central role in our life, then it is, by definition, big government.
I have never come out for “Big Defense”. I want the military to be large enough to defend the country, and no larger.
You’re anti free speech, as you have asserted time and time again in your foaming hatred of Citizens United.
WW contradicts his own point:
Well, there you are: Congress legislated a limit on speech, which was “subject to a possible post legislative review by SCOTUS,” and now you are upset that the “possible post legislative review by SCOTUS” didn’t reach the decision you thought to be appropriate. As should be obvious from the original theme of this now-off-track thread, there are many people here who believe that the Supreme Court reached the wrong decision with regard to ObumbleCare. It’s clear: everybody believes that the Supreme Court can, and has, made mistakes before. Do you really want to see restrictions placed on speech, which should not be upheld even in your reading of the First Amendment, which nevertheless were upheld by a Supreme Court we all believe can make mistakes?
Medicare ===> Old people
Medicaid ===> Poor people
Perry, I read that piece up to the point where my eyes glazed over. Whoever wrote that apparently was never taught how to come to the point.
That said, it is apparent that you really don’t know what the Citizens United case was about, nor, apparently, are you willing to make the effort to learn. Instead, you get wound up in anti-free speech hysteria and rail against it for what are obviously purely selfish partisan political reasons.
The McCain-Feingold Restriction on Speech Act prohibited corporations and unions from making expenditures out of their general funds to fund broadcasts which mentioned the name of a candidate within thirty days of a primary election, or sixty days of a general election, defining such as “electioeering communications.”
Why, then, if such was the case, were august institutions like ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, just a whole host of organizations which share one common trait — they are all corporations — allowed to broadcast any news which could reasonably be seen as supporting one candidate over another? CBS in particular was strongly engaged in using its broadcasts to influence the 2004 presidential election in favor of John Kerry, to the point of ignoring that it was using obviously forged documents in one story, and chose to sit on another story harmful to President Bush until the Sunday immediately prior to the election. Under the McCain-Feingold Restriction on Speech Act, shouldn’t CBS have been hauled before the bar of justice for these crimes?
Well, no, of course they weren’t, and Wagonwheel would never have supported such. But why should CBS, a corporation, have superior free speech rights over another legally chartered corporation? Because Wagonwheel and others on the left say so?
Eric wrote:
Absolutely.
What our liberal from Lewes wants is to support significant government intrusion into our lives — health care, welfare, food stamps, Affirmative Action, and controlling what certain people can say — but to keep saying that he doesn’t support big government. Of course, it is our freedom of speech which allows him to make such a hypocritical (dare I say Democritical?) statement without fear that the government will step in and punish him for it.
Dana, you’re using logic again. Don’t you know you can lead a liberal to logic, but you can’t make him think?
I’m sorry, I just got home. But Did Wagio0nwheel type: “Freedom is not an absolute no matter how often you and our Editor might proclaim it to be.”? Wagonwheel is An ass hole i9f he believes FREEDOM is not an absolute!!!
Mr Editor, I appologise for that, and I know you will cut mke off. Thank you , sir.
Okay, George Washington ( even Wagonwheelnknows who He is ) said : Freedom is a Light, for which many Men have died in Darkness”. It’s at the tomb of The Unknown Soldier of the Revolotonary War. At 7th and Locust i9n Philly. Where many men ( older than we ) died. I played there as a youth. And learned from Washinthon what it means to be an Ameri8can. I killed a lot of men, to stop them from killing us. I enjoyed every minuit of it vWagonwheel. Every shot I did for my country, for my friends….and for a clown like you.
Now, gentlemen I do believe it’sd time to start killing agin. If we allow these clowns to “tell” us what to do, well then we loose. Call me crazy.
Hoagie, it just means that you fought bravely for the right for Wagonwheel to say that the rights for which you fought ought to be clamped down upon.
Of course, when Wagonwheel wrote, “I certainly believe that government has a central role to play in our lives,” he is being quite honest: he even wants the government to have a role in determining what we can say, and what we can hear.
The freedom of speech does not include the right to be listened to; anyone is completely free to ignore whatever someone else chooses to say, unless, of course, what someone else chooses to say is “You must buy health insurance.” However, while there is no way that any law can prevent the decision takers at a corporation from thinking that Candidate R should be elected rather than Candidate D, Wagonwheel seems to believe that the First Amendment leaves room for the government to say that no one can hear a corporation saying that Candidate R should be elected.
I left my damn glasses at the Cheesecake Factory last night so now I’m using a pair of cheap “readers” June dug up somewhere. The Cheesecake Factory has a menu the size of the New York phone directory. It was like trying to read a Democrat bill in Congress. Anyway, I’ll shoot over when they open about 11am, hope they have them. These cheap plastic things just ain’t gonna work.
We should have known this was a tax. IRS is hiring 4000 agents to enforce the program. So, the death panels are nothing but bean counters in the end.
What makes bean counters so deadly is they can make life and death decisions as quickly and easily as and as ordinarily as they can balance the pros and cons of deciding to order out or cook at home.
We expect monsters but we get nonchalant desk clerks and bleary-eyed ticket takers. The horror of a cold and lonely death is reduced to the level of a blinking neon street signal, Walk or Don’t Walk.
Bean counters simply don’t distinguish between decisions involving human life and calculations which only effect warehouse inventories or office supplies. It’s not that they’re inherently heartless it’s just that deaths must be carefully arranged to come according to plan, so they don’t interrupt the schedule.
Speaks for itself:
WSJ Chief Economist: 75% of Obamacare Costs Will Fall on Backs of Those Making $120K or Less
Right, Mr Editor, and you think the opposite, correct? Correct! It is just that your version of big government is different from mine, but big government it is, nonetheless.
Let us look closely at this issue:
* Is it big government to support a almost $1T to attack a sovereign nation on manufactured justifications, a nation which was not a threat to us? I think so!
* Is it big government to tell women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies? Of course!
* Is it big government to bust unions, preventing them to represent employees against exploitive employers, private or public? Most certainly!
* Is it big government to slow the operations of Congress to an imperceptible crawl? You might ponder that one!
* Is it big government to expand the National Security Agency, NSA, so it has the ability to wiretap phone calls without a warrant and sift through e-mails, look through library records? Yes!
* Is it big government to create the Department of Homeland Security, the largest expansion of government since WWII? Of course!
Government which intrudes on peoples lives or grows in size, is by definition “big government”, but the behavior of said big government/central government depends on ideology.
Thus, in our country, there is no such a thing is small government, regardless of the fact that Republican rhetoric claims to want such.
When they have had power, theirs (the Republicans’) is big government every bit as it is with that other big government party!
Let us be honest about this, for a refreshing change, Mr Editor!!