Roberts' Rules: A Look At The Precedents Set(?)

M2RB:  Motörhead

 Born to raise hell, Born to raise hell
Be a good soldier and die where you fell
Born to raise hell, Born to raise hell
We know how to do it and we do it real well

 In so many ways, Obama is irrelevant.  He is just a haemorrhoid on the anus that is Progressivism.

I'm still not laying off of my criticism of Shrub's Warren, but as I was spending hours yesterday writing my rebuttal to Larry Tribe, which I'll post soon, I had the opportunity to look at the opinion closely and compare it to my writings and the arguments that the Left had been making championing over the years.  In the words of two of Harvard's most glorious, constitutional scholars, "Obamacare was a slam-dunk, clear-cut, (no-brainer) case under the Commerce Clause and Necessary & Proper Clause."  Without getting into too much detail here or being "gauche" by gloating, the title of the post on my Tribe rebuttal will be "Womano-a-Mano:  The Faculty Lounge Fails."  Hehehe!  I love when we, the ignorant rubes, whose legal arguments are "frivolous and will be laughed out of Court," drop Fat Man and Little Boy into the entire Progressive echo chamber.  

1.  "If no enumerated power authorizes Congress to pass a certain law, that law may not be enacted, even if it would not violate any of the express prohibitions in the Bill of Rights or elsewhere in the Constitution."

2.  Congress cannot use the Commerce Clause to regulate individual persons.

3.  Congress cannot use the Commerce Clause to regulate inactivity.

4.  Congress cannot use the Commerce Clause to compel individuals to engage in commerce so as to regulate them.

5.  Congress can only use the Commerce Clause to regulate individuals substantively engaged in economic activity.

6.   The Constitution "protects us from federal regulation under the Commerce Clause so long as we abstain from the regulated activity."

7.  The Commerce Clause is not a general licence to regulate an individual from "cradle to grave, simply because he will predictably engage in particular transactions."

8.  That a market might be "unique" is irrelevant.

9.  That "everyone will be in the market one day" is irrelevant.

10.   Congress cannot force Americans to purchase health insurance, vegetables, solar panels, Obama Dolts, etc.

11.  The above applied to the Necessary & Proper Clause and the General Welfare Clause.

12.  Congress has broad, but not unlimited, power to tax.

13.  Under the 10th Amendment, Congress cannot mandate states expand Medicaid, create exchanges, or do much anything else by  either outright command or "holding the gun due and owing funds to their heads."  As was held it South Dakota v Dole, only "reasonable conditions" can be attached to future monies and they cannot be a substantial amount.  (In Dole, the condition was a mere 5% of the Federal highway money that the government was going to pay to South Dakota anyway).

14.  "Even if the taxing power enables Congress to impose a tax on not obtaining health insurance, any tax must still comply with other requirements in the Constitution."

15.  While Congress can "tax" those, who go without insurance, pursuant to its Taxing Authority, the Court reminds the Federal government that it continues to hold that ‘there comes a time in the extension of the penalizing features of the so-called tax when it loses its character as such and becomes a mere penalty with the characteristics of regulation and punishment" and ‘power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.”

Finally, let us not forget the Obama Doctrine.  Presidents simply do not have to enforce laws that they, themselves, believe to be unconstitutional, cost-ineffective, "unfair," contrary to our "values," not politically expedient, etc.  Thus, a future President can issue an Executive Order on Day One ordering the IRS not to collect the Obamacare Tax.

Progressives should consider the Roberts' legal reasoning behind his creation, the Obamacare Tax, and the Obama Doctrine in the context of those issues nearest and dearest to their little hearts (Yes, Virginia, Congress can very possibly tax abortions, flag-burning., etc. and Presidents evidently do not have to enforce the FACE Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the VAWA Act, the Social Security Act, etc.)    As one of President Obama's predecessors  -- also a Democrat -- said:

"[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it...if he can!"

- President Andrew Jackson, alluding to the fact that being Commander-in-Chief has its privileges

Political pendulums do swing, wildly, and precedents are cudgels that can be wielded most deftly to beat opposing political ideologies and legal theories  -- and those that advocate them -- about the head.  

Let's get cracking...and start challenging some of the laws that are the books while we have the Roberts' Court and see if we can't turn tiny fissures into cracks and cracks into chasms.  

When the Supreme Court ruled that Connecticut's ban on contraception was constitutional in Tileston v Ullman, 318 US 44 (1943), did Progressives accept the decision and sit around meekly for the next 100 years?  No.  They plotted and planned.  In 1961, they returned to the Supreme Court, once again, challenging the Connecticut ban on contraception.  Did the Court simply say:  "Hey, ever heard of stare decisis, dummies?  Get the hell out of here"?  No.  The Court, in Poe v Ullman, 367 US 497, ruled that the challenge to the law barring the possession of birth control was not ripe for constitutional challenge because of lack of enforcement.  The Justices were practically begging the petitioners to go back to Connecticut and force the state to enforce it by charging someone so that the matter would come before the Court again, which is exactly what happened four years later in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 47, when the Court found the heretofore unrecognised constitutional right of privacy.

When the Supreme Court ruled that bans on sodomy were constitutional in Bowers v Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), did Progressives accept the decision and sit around meekly for the next 100 years?  No.  They plotted and planned.  Seventeen years later, Justice Kennedy authored the landmark decision, Lawrence v Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), overturning Bowers and ruling that bans on sodomy across the country were unconstitutional.

When a people have voted against SSM or a moment of silence in the classroom or anything else, has that ever stopped the Progressives?  No.  Then, why the hell do we stop?  We must fight Progressives with the same intensity that we have fought Obamacare and we must do it every day for the rest of our lives.  In so many ways, Obama is irrelevant.  He is just a haemorrhoid on the ass that is Progressivism.

So, "born to raise hell, be a good soldier and die where you fell."

Born to Raise Hell - Motörhead

Listen up here, I'll make it quite clear
I'm gonna put some boogie in your ear
Shake and bop, don't you stop
Dance like a maniac until you drop
I don't mind, I don't mind
I can run a razor right up your spine
What are you waiting for
What do you think you were created for

Show us you care, show us you dare
You don't know what happened, not if you weren't there

Born to raise hell, born to raise hell
We know how to do it and we do it real well
Born to raise hell, born to raise hell
Voodoo medicine, cast my spell
Born to raise hell, born to raise hell
Play that guitar just like ringin' a bell
Take it or leave it

Going for broke, rock till you choke
It don't matter if you drink or smoke
Speak through the beat, get up on your feet
Sweating like a hound dog, white as a sheet

Don't you be scared, don't you be scared
Everybody terrified, it don't seem fair
What are you waiting for
What do you think you were created for

Out of your seat, blind in the heat
Do the nasty boogie mama, stomp your feet

Born to raise hell, Born to raise hell
We know how to do it and we do it real well
Born to raise hell, Born to raise hell
Go back to zero take a pill and get well
Born to raise hell, Born to raise hell
Be a good soldier and die where you fell


Born to raise hell, Born to raise hell
We know how to do it and we do it real well
Born to raise hell, Born to raise hell
Go on out and boogie 'cos you never can tell
Born to raise hell, Born to raise hell
Be a good soldier and die where you fell
Born to raise hell, Born to raise hell
We know how to do it and we do it real well