{"id":927,"date":"2012-06-28T20:19:35","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T02:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/?p=927"},"modified":"2012-06-28T20:19:35","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T02:19:35","slug":"the-roberts%e2%80%99-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/the-roberts%e2%80%99-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Roberts\u2019 Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Whether it was his aim or not, Chief Justice John Roberts has cemented his legacy. As the Chief Justice, the swing vote and author of the opinion upholding ObamaCare, he will be the one most associated with this ruling, a ruling that renders the constitution null and void.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>His motives are irrelevant.\u00a0 It is the effect that will be remembered.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To the court\u2019s credit, it did rule that ObamaCare could not be supported by the commerce clause, but Roberts\u2019 structuring of the ruling so as to announce this first, will go down in as one of the worse bad\u00a0 jokes in history, for the media quite understandably announced this as it was read, instilling a sense of relief among millions of opponents of the bill, as if toying with them, only to stomp out that relief a few moments later when Roberts invented a new rationale so as to keep the law in effect anyway.<\/p>\n<p>This new rationale is the most insidious part of the ruling. \u00a0Robert\u2019s ruling did go a long way towards restoring the commerce clause to it proper place.\u00a0 But then it turned around and rendered it and the rest of the enumerated powers, along with the very concept of limit government that is at the core of the Constitution, irrelevant.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Thus in many respects the court had two rulings.\u00a0 The first was that ObamaCare was unconstitutional under the commerce clause. The second was that the commerce clause and the rest of the clauses defining the role of the government are null and void.\u00a0 Congress can do pretty much whatever it wants, or at least whatever the courts lets them. All they have to do is structure it as a tax and they are home free.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps even worse is the court\u2019s complicity in deception.\u00a0\u00a0 Supporters of the law were adamant that this was not a tax, and it is almost certain that had it been called a tax, it never would have passed. But even though its supporters declared it was not a tax, and took great pains not to call it a tax, Roberts considered it a tax so as to give himself a fig leaf of justification. Thus we are left with a bill that never could have passed if considered a tax, but could only be constitutional, at least according to Roberts, if it is considered a tax. A very real question is that now that the court has ruled, is it still a tax, or has it reverted back to a penalty?<\/p>\n<p>As I wrote in my <a href=\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/?p=925\">post before the ruling<\/a>, the ruling itself will have little lasting effect on Healthcare. \u00a0The bill is an unworkable mess and cannot remain as it is. The ultimate fate of health care will be determined by the election in November, not this ruling.\u00a0 This is the real damage of Robert\u2019s ruling.\u00a0 For in justifying what would have otherwise been an unconstitutional act by calling it a tax, Roberts did not really affect the ultimate the fate of health care.\u00a0 But he did effectively ended constitutional rule in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>We are no longer under the Constitution. We are under the Court, ruled by whatever the current majority of the court says, and the court has given the federal government a free hand to do whatever the powerbrokers in Washington D.C. want to do.\u00a0 It should be remembered that ObamaCare was not passed as an exercise of the will of the people. It was rammed through with raw political power against the will of the people. It remains extremely unpopular. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Robert\u2019s ruling breaks new ground and vastly expands the reach of government.\u00a0 By itself it makes a mockery of the concept of a limited government of enumerated powers that was once the law of the land called the Constitution.\u00a0 But history is very clear that this is not the end.\u00a0 This is just the beginning.\u00a0 If allowed to stand, this ruling will now become the foundation for a whole new area of law. Intrusions by the federal government once inconceivable, are now fresh new fields to be explored and developed.<\/p>\n<p>Thus Roberts\u2019 legacy is set. He will forever be the man who killed the Constitution.\u00a0 It only remains to the people, and the election in November, to see if his ruling will be allowed to stand and to see if the Constitution can be resuscitated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whether it was his aim or not, Chief Justice John Roberts has cemented his legacy. As the Chief Justice, the swing vote and author of the opinion upholding ObamaCare, he will be the one most associated with this ruling, a ruling that renders the constitution null and void.\u00a0 His motives are irrelevant.\u00a0 It is the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11,20,28],"tags":[308,327,1999,459,737,779,936,1235,2015],"class_list":["post-927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-culture","category-health-care","category-politics","tag-commerce-clause","tag-constitution","tag-election","tag-enumerated-powers","tag-john-roberts","tag-legacy","tag-obamacare","tag-supreme-court","tag-taxes"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Roberts\u2019 Legacy - Politics and Religion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/the-roberts\u2019-legacy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Roberts\u2019 Legacy - Politics and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Whether it was his aim or not, Chief Justice John Roberts has cemented his legacy. As the Chief Justice, the swing vote and author of the opinion upholding ObamaCare, he will be the one most associated with this ruling, a ruling that renders the constitution null and void.\u00a0 His motives are irrelevant.\u00a0 It is the [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/the-roberts\u2019-legacy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Politics and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-29T02:19:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elgin Hushbeck\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elgin Hushbeck\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/the-roberts%e2%80%99-legacy\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/the-roberts%e2%80%99-legacy\/\",\"name\":\"The Roberts\u2019 Legacy - Politics and Religion\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-06-29T02:19:35+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1e0462ceb31a6ae267de916fb1fc1e6b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/the-roberts%e2%80%99-legacy\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/the-roberts%e2%80%99-legacy\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/the-roberts%e2%80%99-legacy\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Roberts\u2019 Legacy\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Politics and Religion\",\"description\":\"Comments on Politics and Religion\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1e0462ceb31a6ae267de916fb1fc1e6b\",\"name\":\"Elgin Hushbeck\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/111d2d9a9a7ff4ed5376638ef5042b381a6987855b6398bfb2d91b1cf750d4fe?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/111d2d9a9a7ff4ed5376638ef5042b381a6987855b6398bfb2d91b1cf750d4fe?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Elgin Hushbeck\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Roberts\u2019 Legacy - Politics and Religion","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/the-roberts\u2019-legacy\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Roberts\u2019 Legacy - Politics and Religion","og_description":"Whether it was his aim or not, Chief Justice John Roberts has cemented his legacy. 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