Posted on 06/30/2012 7:30:52 AM PDT by dirtboy
In his majority decision, Chief Justice John Roberts hewed to the concept of judicial restraint, a favored approach of "progressive" pioneer Oliver Wendell Holmes. From Wiki:
Judicial restraint is a theory of judicial interpretation that encourages judges to limit the exercise of their own power. It asserts that judges should hesitate to strike down laws unless they are obviously unconstitutional,[1] though what counts as obviously unconstitutional is itself a matter of some debate.[2] Judicial restraint is sometimes regarded as the opposite of judicial activism.
In deciding questions of constitutional law, judicially-restrained jurists go to great lengths to defer to the legislature. Former Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., considered to be one of the first major advocates of the philosophy, would describe the importance of judicial restraint in many of his books.[3] Former Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, a Democrat appointed by Franklin Roosevelt, is generally seen as the "model of judicial restraint".[4]
So what does judicial restraint lead to? Basically, Congress can do just about whatever it wants. On another thread, a freeper said this about Roberts:
My daughter was in a small college seminar group with Roberts a few years ago. He said that his general philosophy is to leave decisions to the people in the decisions made by their elected representatives, since, in his opinion, it is much easier to change the Congress than it is to change the members of the Court. I guess this ruling was consistent with that.
In other words, Roberts believes SCOTUS should bow to the will of the majority that elected Congress and the President. And he will call a penalty a tax to allow them that kind of deference - even though those who passed and signed the legislation in the first place bend over backwards to avoid calling it a tax.
So in John Robert's America, democracy reigns supreme.
Upon the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government the Constitution was bringing into existence. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
John Roberts just lost it.
If I may make a humble observation, I don't think Roberts lost it. I think he took it from the rest of us.
Roberts should have known that.
-PJ
The stock market went up because Federal Reserve and/or the market makers tied to the Goldman Sachs/executive branch revolving door flooded dollars into the market to make it appear the people approve of the ruling. The markets are manipulated routinely. Nothing is as it appears.
To hell with the law, to hell with the Constitution, to hell with America... John Roberts is more concerned about John Roberts than anything else. “Look at me, everybody! I’m John Roberts, and I really shocked everybody, didn’t I, huh, huh, didn’t I?”
He’s the new David Souter, and he can never be trusted again.
The only thing in my mind that is not in doubt is Roberts made a political decision to uphold Obamacare. Acknowledging triple-long shot wishful thinking hopefulness, he may have done this to hedge on the eligibility suit in FL making its way to the Supremes - and giving himself room to find Barry is not a “natural born citizen.”
We need to stop kidding ourselves. Nobody outside of the military, who receives a check from the Federal Government is on our side. Expanding the beast is in their own self-interest - and Freedom and the Constitution be damned.
Only fresh, Tea Party candidates can change this, and they have to make their moves in the first few months of office since after that they are tainted and compromised.
That will never happen. Roberts is either insane, compromised, or a liberal, maybe all three!
Yes, that too. The Fed needs to go.
Well said!
That's the problem, right there. It should be the Constitution which reigns supreme!
It's pretty obvious Roberts was deliberately ignoring and twisting it - just like the other 4 Liberal termites on the Court.
I agree. He appears to be a "the government can do as it pleases and damn the Constitution" idiot who will say something is un-Constitutional, then give the government the ability to force the un-Constitutional on the People by extortion. If they can tax us for not abiding an un-Constitutional edict, and keep raising the taxes until you either knuckle under or have everything taken from you, then the word "Constitutional" has no meaning.
Power you refuse to exercise eventually becomes no power at all.
“Mark Levin who is saying that Roberts was writing for himself - and not the majority - when he said this isn’t appropriately part of the commerce clause and what this means is that the commerce clause is not restricted. So....what did we get out of this? Absolutely screwed.”
He’s not right about that. The four man dissent concurred with his commerce clause ruling. Therefore, the commerce clause ruling is the majority opinion of the Court.
Biden asked Roberts during confirmation hearings about hispotential course of action when presented with a decision on abortion and healthcare, IIRC. Roberts separated his supposed Catholocism from legal judgment.
Then there’s that pic of Reid, Pelosi, 0bama and Biden in Roberts’ chambers, with that knowing laugh and look on 0bama’s face, just before the photographer was told to leave. 2008? 2009? It was on the same day a challenge to 0bama’s eligibiiity was filed in SCOTUS.
We have a sleeper.
The scary thing is, I don’t think Roberts had to be blackmailed into this decision.
***You could beat Stephen King as a horror author.
He basically has stated his position regarding judicial restraint in the past, and his decision was in line with that view - with a dollop of transmogrification of the word ‘tax’ thrown in to make it possible.
***I think your perspective is the most rational at this time. It’s simple. It follows Occham’s Razor. It makes sense. It’s concise. It rings true.
I think he thought about his legacy and what the main stream media and academia would do to it, and he turned chicken.
He scrounged around to find some way to do it but not look like a coward, hence that tortured mess he produced.
I watched some MSNBC this morning, just to torture myself, and as you'd expect they were praising Roberts all day. Talking about how he saved the SC from becoming irrelevant and politicized. How he's a light in Washington. Everything he was hoping they'd say about him.
Funny how conservatives turning liberal is always evidence of being above the fray and noble, while liberals turning conservative are always examples of bribery or corruption.
Someone else here offered this reasoning- that Ginsburg threatened Roberts with resignation under Obama’s term unless the court held obamacare constitutional, and not retire now if they did.
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