Bryan Fischer
Roberts' ruling: irrational, illogical, unconstitutional, eye-crossingly bad
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
The ObamaCare ruling from Chief Justice John Roberts is mind-numbingly, eye-crossingly bad.
It is irrational, illogical, unconstitutional, a ruling that would not make sense even in an imaginary parallel universe.
Justice Roberts apparently switched his vote so late in the game that there was no time for Justice Scalia's opinion, written as a majority opinion, to be edited to remove his repeated references to Justice Ginsburg's opinion as a "dissent."
This, of course, is shameful on Roberts' part, and an abject abdication of his self-celebrated role as an umpire. Yesterday, he wasn't an umpire. He was a demolitions expert.
Roberts' ruling is legal gibberish. He opines that for the purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act, it's not a tax but for the purposes of the taxing power, it is. There is no world, not even the world of the White Rabbit, in which this makes any logical sense whatsoever. Even the dissenters not-so tactfully write, "That carries verbal wizardry too far, deep into the forbidden land of the sophists."
Roberts opines that the mandate is unconstitutional under both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. Okay, so it's unconstitutional. But not so fast. Under the taxing clause, it suddenly, magically and mysteriously becomes constitutional. So something can be, in Roberts' twisted legal mind, both constitutional and unconstitutional at the same time. This is just bizarre.
His reasoning is so confused and so senseless that the Drudge Report surfaced a news piece from the New York Times in 2007, warning readers that Justice Roberts' epilepsy medications "can have troubling side effects," including "mental slowing and forgetfulness."
The dissenting opinion in this case makes it abundantly clear that the Roberts' ruling has stripped the last vestiges of restraint on the power of Congress. The federal government can order us to do anything and buy anything it wants as long as we are financially penalized for refusing to comply. If the power to tax is the power to destroy, John Roberts just handed President Obama a neutron bomb.
But the Founders did not intend for Congress' taxing power to be unlimited. Just the opposite. They were quite clear that the taxing power authorized in Article I, Section 8 applies only to the limited powers of action granted in the rest of that section. Congress has no constitutional authority whatsoever to tax the American people to fund any any activity that is not on the list of enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8. Health care ain't in there anywhere.
The biggest problem for Obama is that Roberts flatly declared that this is a tax. ObamaCare is just one big, fat, hairy, humongous, gargantuan, gnarly tax. This ObamaTax is the biggest tax in the history of human civilization, a $1.7 trillion misbegotten behemoth, and Roberts has hung it for time and eternity around Obama's neck like an anvil.
The GOP slogan for the fall campaign writes itself: Obama gave you the biggest tax increase in human history; vote for us, and we'll give you the biggest tax cut in human history.
Further dimming Obama's re-election prospects is that this likely will completely seize up the economy. Ain't nobody gonna hire nobody until they have some vague idea of what health care costs are going to be and what their tax burden is going to be. Hiring will now come to a dead stop. The economy will go into a virtual coma, thanks to Barack Obama and John Roberts. Can you say "double-dip recession?"
The goal now for conservatives is simple: elect conservatives to power in the House, the Senate and the Oval Office and repeal this grotesque monstrosity root and branch. Rip it out of the ground, shred it, and dump it in the landfill of history where it can quietly rot.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
June 29, 2012
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
The ObamaCare ruling from Chief Justice John Roberts is mind-numbingly, eye-crossingly bad.
It is irrational, illogical, unconstitutional, a ruling that would not make sense even in an imaginary parallel universe.
Justice Roberts apparently switched his vote so late in the game that there was no time for Justice Scalia's opinion, written as a majority opinion, to be edited to remove his repeated references to Justice Ginsburg's opinion as a "dissent."
This, of course, is shameful on Roberts' part, and an abject abdication of his self-celebrated role as an umpire. Yesterday, he wasn't an umpire. He was a demolitions expert.
Roberts' ruling is legal gibberish. He opines that for the purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act, it's not a tax but for the purposes of the taxing power, it is. There is no world, not even the world of the White Rabbit, in which this makes any logical sense whatsoever. Even the dissenters not-so tactfully write, "That carries verbal wizardry too far, deep into the forbidden land of the sophists."
Roberts opines that the mandate is unconstitutional under both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. Okay, so it's unconstitutional. But not so fast. Under the taxing clause, it suddenly, magically and mysteriously becomes constitutional. So something can be, in Roberts' twisted legal mind, both constitutional and unconstitutional at the same time. This is just bizarre.
His reasoning is so confused and so senseless that the Drudge Report surfaced a news piece from the New York Times in 2007, warning readers that Justice Roberts' epilepsy medications "can have troubling side effects," including "mental slowing and forgetfulness."
The dissenting opinion in this case makes it abundantly clear that the Roberts' ruling has stripped the last vestiges of restraint on the power of Congress. The federal government can order us to do anything and buy anything it wants as long as we are financially penalized for refusing to comply. If the power to tax is the power to destroy, John Roberts just handed President Obama a neutron bomb.
But the Founders did not intend for Congress' taxing power to be unlimited. Just the opposite. They were quite clear that the taxing power authorized in Article I, Section 8 applies only to the limited powers of action granted in the rest of that section. Congress has no constitutional authority whatsoever to tax the American people to fund any any activity that is not on the list of enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8. Health care ain't in there anywhere.
The biggest problem for Obama is that Roberts flatly declared that this is a tax. ObamaCare is just one big, fat, hairy, humongous, gargantuan, gnarly tax. This ObamaTax is the biggest tax in the history of human civilization, a $1.7 trillion misbegotten behemoth, and Roberts has hung it for time and eternity around Obama's neck like an anvil.
The GOP slogan for the fall campaign writes itself: Obama gave you the biggest tax increase in human history; vote for us, and we'll give you the biggest tax cut in human history.
Further dimming Obama's re-election prospects is that this likely will completely seize up the economy. Ain't nobody gonna hire nobody until they have some vague idea of what health care costs are going to be and what their tax burden is going to be. Hiring will now come to a dead stop. The economy will go into a virtual coma, thanks to Barack Obama and John Roberts. Can you say "double-dip recession?"
The goal now for conservatives is simple: elect conservatives to power in the House, the Senate and the Oval Office and repeal this grotesque monstrosity root and branch. Rip it out of the ground, shred it, and dump it in the landfill of history where it can quietly rot.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
