Yes, Congress has the power to tax but the mandate was NOT a tax until Roberts said it was. He made it fit the Constitution instead of rejecting it under the arguments the government and Ginsberg made: it was legal under the commerce clause.
He screwed us royally. Both with this ruling and for the future. We can’t stop you from refusing to eat broccoli but we can tax your decision not to do so. We can’t stop you from buying bullets but we can tax the hell outta them.
Enough of this crap.
We were pwned.
That is the unintended consequence of what Roberts has done. The only way to say this isn't the consequence is to say that Congress has really always had this power. But has it? To me that's the crux of this thing.
When pundits were talking about how Roberts was tending to the courts legacy/image/what-have-you, I almost wanted to throw up. Comments like this make them sound like the shallow class, not the protectors and defenders of the Constitution, which they are sworn to be.
“I can’t know where I’m going unless I know where I’ve been.” This is the mantra of those in education who feel it is necessary to placate various ethnic groups with their own specialized sub-set of literature, history, etc. Well, that is exactly what has happened in American schools and universities—to the detriment of teaching AMERICAN LITERATURE, AMERICAN HISTORY—oh, I don’t know, THE CONSTITUTION....
America no longer knows where She’s going (or even where She should go) because America DOESN’T KNOW where She’s been. America used to be a good people, a virtuous people. No longer. De Toqueville spoke well when he said of Her, “America is great because America is good. America will cease to be great, when America ceases to be good. We are there. And now America has taken on the same tendencies as one of the 7 churches in the Book of the Revelation:
Rev 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
Rev 3:15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
Rev 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Rev 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Rev 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
Rev 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Rev 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
Rev 3:22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
In just the same way Christ would “spue” Laodicea out of His mouth for their smug, self-serving, pseudo-religiosity, those who KNOW and LOVE what America once was would love nothing more than to “spue” this version of America out of their collective mouths and go back to the days when:
* our schools taught our children about God and Country
* our citizens were acquainted with their nations Constitution, its authority and its limitations
* people came to America to BE AMERICANS
* our nation had a collective sense of itself (not the balkanized view of itself shared by so many today)
* our leaders were men of courage not quislings of opportunity and expediency
There, I feel better...sad, but somewhat better...
Yeah, if he really believed in his own opinion, he would have said:
“Congress, re-write this thing and call it a tax. If you do, we will uphold it.”
Instead, he re-wrote it for them.
“Yes, Congress has the power to tax but the mandate was NOT a tax until Roberts said it was. “
Verilli agreed that it was a tax during oral arguments before the court. Roberts didn’t create that justification on his own.