The dumbest dialogue on Obamacare yet
Posted by Brenda Higgins on April 3, 2012
In the wake of the recent oral arguments to the Supreme Court, politicians with stakes on both sides of the issue have exercised their liberty to open their mouths about it. With matters that are complex enough to necessitate Supreme Court intervention, politicians would have been well served to exercise restraint. As the saying goes, better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.
POTUS seemed to lob the first grenade in this nonsensical war of words with the following disposition of his genius.
“I am confident the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically-elected congress” Gee, I don’t know Barry, but maybe a clue exists in the cases of Marbury v. Madison, McCullough v. Maryland, Gibbons v. Ogden. In all of these cases the high court determined that Congressional or State Legislature actions were either appropriate or inappropriate under the powers granted to them by the Constitution. Judicial review? Ever heard of it? Just because the majority of a democratically elected Congress voted that we should all covert to Buddahism, does not mean that the court is going to allow such a law to stand.
I believe that Barry attended and graduated from Harvard Law School, even though I have not seen any official transcripts, BUT, my question would be whether or not he passed Constitutional Law after a comment like that. The popularity of the law, or the strength of the majority on the vote have no bearing on the grant, or lack thereof, of power to Congress, in the Constitution. I get that he is confused when he is losing on an issue, and is not very good on his feet, but these recent comments sound much like, “Oh yeah, I know I am but what are you?!” Genius. Articulate. Our POTUS.
Then, we have Mitt Romney being questioned about the comments of the President and we get this gem.
“So judicial activism is not following the Constitution. Judicial activism is departing from the Constitution”
Giving Mitt one tiny break, you can not impart a meaningful explanation of the concept of “judicial activism” in a one liner. When we have Obama jumping up and down crying “judicial activism” you can’t merely say, “judicial activism is not following the Constitution”. He could have said, the court will do what it has always done, and strike down laws that are not constitutional. That is their job, it is what we want them to do. He seems stunned by the question and ill prepared to address it. His retort sounds as childish as the comments from Barry and is tantamount to “Yeah, well come over here and say that!”.
Mitt, I understand, also received a Juris Doctor from Harvard, and I’m pretty sure it’s not one of those online law schools.
Judicial activism, is not like super-twins-powers-activate!, that you get all power and unsuspected, otherwise humanly impossible victory for your team whenever it is invoked or granted to your side. It is a criticism of the judiciary that they are allegedly utilizing and relying upon their own personal biases and politics when they are interpreting an issue of First Impression, which is that it has never been addressed before. Judicial activism then, is the battle cry of the whiners on losing side. Not unlike complaining about how blind the Umpire was at your kids Little League game.
When it comes to the Supreme Court, somebody is always unhappy, somebody leaves the building a loser, and somebody cries “injustice”, and yes, someone raves”judicial activism”. It just ain’t fair. It is the way the system works, and works pretty effectively. This utter lack of reverence and political demonizing of this branch is something that should be offensive to us all.
I have seen several comments questioning that if the court can be “activist” on Roe v. Wade, then why not be “activist” on overturning the PPACA (Aka Obamacare). THIS is the most illiterate and incomprehensible of all the dumb comments so far.
Roe, whether you like it or not, is a case protecting fundamental rights of individuals, primarily under the 14th Amendment. The focus is the individual and the protection afforded to all of us within the 14th Amendment. The PPACA case involves the POWER of Congress to do what it has done. This legislation is so breathtakingly broad, it is difficult to even start to describe the plethora of overstepping the powers of Congress that has gone on here. Just on its face, it compels businesses to provide health insurance coverage for employees, compels individuals to purchase health care coverage, and compels the same insurance companies to provide insurance to those whom they might otherwise not wish to have as clients. I don’t care at all about how “human” Obama wants to characterize this, Congress can not go around dictating who will do business and contract with whom, and dictating what we will purchase. While we get mired in whether Congress had the POWER to do ANY of this, we don’t even get to the question of the First Amendment Rights to Association that my be impacted by the various “mandates”. Breathtakingly broad. There is no other way to describe this abomination. In both cases, the court is the last vestige of defense and the one thing that protects the individual by curtailing the government.
Congress has overstepped and abused its powers. It is really that simple, and that complicated. It likely goes down, but Barry is obviously nervous, and he is the consummate campaigner. Sorry, the Supremes don’t work that way and their lifetime tenure make them generally immune (hopefully) from such public relations games by the Great Campaigner. As officers of the court, as elected officials, do these politicians not have the job to instill CONFIDENCE in the court? Please, all of you verbose campaigners, stop scapegoating the most distinguished branch or our government with your sore loser rhetoric. An ounce of respect and dignity for the branch that is literally our last defense against this kind of government infringement, socialism and tyranny, and all sorts of invasions of our rights and privacies.
Obamacare will likely be overturned because it is bad law, and it is the JOB of the Supreme Court, to overturn bad laws that violate the constitution.
Mitt, you can use that next time someone asks you.
OC Political 
met00 said
The main issue being heard by the SCOTUS deals with the “mandate” and the commerce clause. So, we should look at the founding fathers and what they would do, right? Isn’t it always about the original intention?
In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed – “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.
Yep, most of the “fathers of our country” were in Congress at the time. So, we know that a mandate on health insurance passed the “original intent” test back then. The question is no longer if it is constitutional, but one of whether the activist right-leaning court will now twist original intent for the purposes of political expediency.
Considering Bush v Gore and Citizens United, I think you may be right that the health plan will get chopped to bits by this court. But now because it’s not constitutional, but because this court is activist and ignores settled issues that don’t meet the courts political agenda. Remember this court found that counting all the votes is wrong, that money is speech and that corporations, a legal fiction, are people. Expecting them to follow the founders lead when it foes against their political philosophy is too much to expect from activist right-wing Justices.
Brenda McCune said
“A little learning is a dangerous thing, drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.”
Dear Met, your comment is as dumb as the “strong majority of a democratically elected Congress” comment. You clearly have missed the relevant distinctions. I find it interesting that the Obamacare Koolaid drinkers had to search back 223 years to find anything that could even be pitched as supportive of this socialist fiasco.
Follow along, I’ll talk slowly:
A TAX is not a MANDATE. Tax = permissible government action. Mandate = requiring Americans, individuals and business owners and corporations and their share holders, to enter into contractual relationships with each other, NOT permissible government action.
WRIT OF CERTIORARI. The Supreme Court only hears cases in which there was a lawsuit filed in opposition to a law, and not all of those requests to be heard are granted. NO ONE challenged the constitutionality of the tax and regulation of one distinct group that was important to the economy at that time.
“Fathers of our country”? Do you understand anything of life in 1789? The framers intent, was to create a system of checks and balances such that in the event one branch overstepped it’s bounds, the others were there stop the abuse of power by utilizing their own power. To protect individuals from unecessary government intrusion wa the primary purpose. The mammoth that our government has become would likely be unrecognizable to the framers.
The real problem with ALL OF THIS is that we elected a man who deliberately and overtly mislead the public. He promised things that were not in his power, nor in Congressional power to do. A chicken in every pot, indeed.
“Right wing activist judges”? Again with the whining. The liberals behind this once again played the American public for fools and assumed the whole country would look the other way while they ran over the Constitution. The thing you all forgot is the Supreme Court, plays to no one. They can’t be fired, termed out, and are never re-elected. They have an agenda? To impress or appease who? Sore losers always blame the ref.
If those are really the best arguments you’ve got, I’m not surprised you won’t share your name or your picture.
Regards,
Brenda
met00 said
Hi Brenda.
I am NOT an attorney, nor do I play one on the Internet. I did spend 18 years learning about the rule of law from one. I also clerked for him. He wasn’t a family law attorney, he preferred to take on “constitutional cases”. As you so eloquently point out, very few cases make it to the SCOTUS. In most cases that do make it that far. I am proud to have on display in my home the document that the SCOTUS provides you when they grant you the opportunity to practice before them, as my father did.
If you look back to FDR’s “new deal” you can see that the court prior to the “new deal” tended to lean to a rather restrictive view of the commerce clause. But, understanding that some things actually required federal intervention, the court started to decide on a more open view of what fell under the commerce clause. The Warren Court (under Chief Justice Earl Warren) was even more inclusive in the belief that the federal governments interests extended beyond state borders (yes, dinner table conversations when I was growing up included discussions about the cases, and my brother and I having to pick a side and argue it),
Your prose above seems to be scattered at best. You claim to be a professional (a member of the bar) yet you start with a personal attack on the messenger rather than detailing your counterpoints to my statements. Sloppy debate such as that would have gotten you excused from the table.
The fact is that the Federal level mandated insurance for all members of a class. That at the time it was done most of the members of Congress, and the President, were what are commonly referred to as “Founding Fathers”. That if you go by “original intent” as a constitutionalists (and at least three of the four Republican appointees claim that mantle) then you would have a very hard time stating that the founding fathers original intent did not include mandating health coverage without being able to deny reference to the fact that they did just that.
Now, you go on to attempt to discuss “framer intent” (along with more unprofessional personal attacks) as if we don’t have an actual law passed by the framers that shows their intent from their actions, as if the two could be divorced from one another. Your rather uninteresting prattle about separation of powers doesn’t do anything more than set up a stawman so you can return to your failed arguments as if the response is actually supportive, when in fact they were but strawmen – non-responsive and non-supportive of any relevant point to the items under discussion.
Your meaningless use of “ALL CAPS” as if to underline a point actually doesn’t underline a point of law or a valid argument to what I posted, but seeks to change the dialog to whether the POTUS misled the public. I will grant you that he in fact did do so. He stated when he was running for office that he was a supporter of “Single Payer”, and in not fighting for that, and not fighting for the even weaker public option, I would agree that he misled those that believed he would fight for a more universal healthcare program that would eliminate the profit taking vultures (and their respective death panels) by creating a truly non-profit environment where heathcare is available to all, not based on affordability. I know that as a supporter of a single payer solution I feel misled by the POTUS for his failure to fight for what he stated he believed in and giving into the whining of the well payed members of Congress who get their money from Big Pharma and others who don’t want to change the stats quo.
Unless you endorse the belief that a legal fiction called a corporation has the rights of a citizen, then yes, the current court is benched by a bunch of right -wing corporatist activist judges. Unless you endorse the belief that money equals speech, then yes, the current court is benched by a bunch of right-wing corporatist activist judges.
Unless you believe that the basis of the rule of law, that a ruling is used for the next occasion – that each ruling is an issue of precedence for future rulings is NOT a part of the rule of law, then this current court (minus four) is an activist court who has, in their rulings, upset the basis of the rule of law, by making one of their ruling outside the law.
Your final personal slam, that I am anon, seems to indicate that being anon is of and by itself a bad thing. It is a handle, and one that is unique. A quick check of google would find that “met00” is very active. About 5 posts down you can see that met00 was active on a board in CT. A check there would show that met00 lives in Los Alamitos CA and even list met00’s name (or you could check at the osCmax forums where it also lists my name). So, it’s not hard to find out who met00 is (I also post under that handle at the OCR where I have been outed by name a number of times) if you have the mind to do so. And yes, I am one of the plaintiffs who successfully sued my city for NOT following the rule of law in awarding the trash contract. The rule of law is very important to me, which is why I await, with baited breath, for the remaining activist justices who violated it to leave the highest court in the land.
Now, if I may be as bold to suggest that if you wish to continue this discussion that you act a bit more rationally and professional. Because I would sure hate to have posted the drivel above and expected it to warm the cockles of any potential clients heart. Counselor, if one believes that being a member of the bar is a sign of professionalism, your continued use of personal attacks seems to indicate that the standards for professional before the bar have been lowered significantly.
If you have missed or not understood any of the above biting commentary, next time I’ll type slowly.
Brenda McCune said
Met, reliance upon the 200 year old legislation is misplaced. You fail to understand, or just ignore the importance of an actual challenge of constitutionality, the breadth and scope of the current legislation, and the difference of a tax and government mandated transactional relationships.
If you don’t support Obamacare, then you are apparently just looking for a forum to complain that the Supreme Court is biased? Citizens United was not the topic here. That is whole different and complex discussion.
It is not my intent to disrespect you, but if you wish for your positions to be taken seriously, you have to be willing to accept some responsibility. The meanest and most inflammatory, unecessary and hurtful commentary on that I have seen on local political blogs come from people like you who allege some super-duper important reason that they can’t tell who they are. You have not imparted some confidential, public policy impacting, super-secret, whistle-blowing information here, you have ventured in to express a personal opinion. Without some ownership, your opinion is not relevant, and not something that can be taken seriously.
I’m a divorce lawyer. I have a firm grasp on what it means to be in dangerous or uncomfortable situations, and a political blog is not it.
met00 said
Brenda,
My point went to the concept of “original intent”, a phrase that the right-leaning members of the court have used to, in my never so humble opinion, pervert their decisions made in the past 20-30 years. I actually believe and support Earl Warren’s position that the Constitution is a living document, that the court should look towards it for broad strokes, but that the details must be made in the scope of the now.
If you want to look at legislation that is much closer to the “now” you have to only look at the courts decisions regarding most of FDR’s “New Deal” legislation (most of which was challenged in the court). Many of the same arguments regarding the commerce clause were raised at that time as well, stating that the legislation violated the rights of individuals and individual states and that the Executive Branch had overreached.
In his Feb 2 speech FDR let the Hughes Court know that he intended to repack the judicial system so that “the none old men” would no longer have the ability to derail the New Deal. It was shortly after that that (March) the court upheld Wagner Act and the Social Security Act. One of the key arguments against the Social Security Act mirrored the arguments currently being made with regards to this legislation.
As for your claim that you intended no disrespect of me.
Insults, false assumptions, alas a whole bevy of slippery slope personalization that one used to find in Usenet discussions between a bunch of dweebs back in the late 80’s. [oh my lord, Met00 was on Usenet – yep same handle back then too :-) – and a tech dweeb.]
Just because someone is black and they are wearing a hoodie doesn’t mean that that particular individual is a threat to you. Go back and read my initial response. There was no drive-by personal attacks, it raised two valid points to your piece; original intent and the makeup of the court. By now you should have become somewhat aware that your over generalization was somewhat false and that your move should be to eat a bit of crow and apologize for your bad behavior and then we can move on to the meat of the discussion (or drop it if you so choose to).
As an allusion that falls more to your line of work. A wife that has been married a number of times and every one of her husbands has beaten her gets married again. She may make an assumption that she will get beaten by this one too. When she doesn’t get beaten she starts to act out in ways that she sub-consciously knows will make her new husband irate so that he will beat her and then she will know that she was always right that all men are evil and beat their wives.
My initial response to you ignored the author and deal with only the content. Your claim that you believe that I am a member of a group and therefore had an expected response is invalid on it’s face. Only after you choose to attack the author rather than deal with the content did you hear anything from me regarding you Brenda.In fact, if you were to look at all my responses and post on this blog to date you will find that in none did I show “nflammatory, unecessary and hurtful commentary” (well, I do bash the Congress as a group a bit when I respond to Congressman John, but then I really don’t respect the group as a whole as they are a bunch of whores who will do anything for a big enough campaign contribution, including sell out any principles they may have once had. – And that is NOT party specific).
Have an outstanding day.
RJI said
The idea of a CONSTITUTION being a living breathing anything is a perversion of the very concept of a Constitution. Our country is exceptional because it was founded on certain bedrock principles that are not subject to the political whim of the day. The most important of which is LIMITED government with certain limited enumerated powers. Not “whatever powers fit the fickle public today”.
met00 said
@RJI,
I adore “limited government” conversations.
Was the three-fifths compromise constitutional? If not, why not? Is the government responsible for ensuring the civil liberties of all people, and what defines an unconstitutional incursion on ones civil liberties? In
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, APPELLEE,
v.
ANDREW DUGGAN, EAMON MEEHAN, GABRIEL MEGAHEY, AND COLM MEEHAN, DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS
The court found FISA constitutional. This was cheered on by those on the right where FISA (the “F” in FISA stands for fear, as in be very afraid and give up your rights so that the government can spy on you any time without having to go through anything even resembling due process and gathering a warrant and convincing a court that they should be granted the right). Is it limited government when the government has the right to spy on any member of society without that member having protection from that spying with due process?
Is the government limited when they state that polygamy is not allowed? Is the government allowed to recognize two adults of the age of consent entering into a contractual arrangement in which they get special rights because of the contractual arrangement? Does the government have a right to limit that arrangement by the colour or gender of the participants? Is the government limited when it specifies what the “age of consent” is? Does limited government mean that the government can give one group a set of rights that it does not give another group?
If I open a business does the government have the right to regulate it? Can the government tell me as a business owner who I may or may not hire based on age? Does the government have a right to tell me who I may or may not do business with? In a “limited government” does the government have a right to tell me how to conduct my business? In a limited government does the government have the right to tell me what levels of compensation I must pay? If I am a cigar smoker and I open a restaurant, can the government tell me that I can not smoke in my place of business?
The wonderful thing about the limited government debate is that everyone seems to have different limits. There are some that want to push the boundaries and give up their rights to the government because of fear, and others that want the government to not give equal rights based on their religious beliefs. The great part of this debate is seeing when and where someone screaming “limited government” wants to draw their lines. When government goes from acceptable to intrusive in their view. Why should the government care if my employee washes their hands after using the bathroom? Consider that after that intrusive law has been followed, the employee then touches the germ filled faucet to turn the water off, then the germ filled handle of the door to egress. So, what was the benefit of the invasive non-“limited government” law that required hand washing to begin with?
Time and time again the courts have upheld cases (like the one above) in which it is quite clear that “limited government” is NOT actually limited. The laws that have dealt with have been passed by both Democrats and Republicans. They have been on ballots as propositions and passed by the people. While my tone here may come off as snarky, it is not meant to be. People who want “limited government” want the government to be “limited” to what they want the government to do, and they don’t want me to expand the government beyond their approved expansions of truly limited government.
The Constitution is a living document. If we were to have stuck with the founders intent, we would still have people in America who were only 3/5ths a person.
[Sorry that this drifted a bit off topic to the current debate before the SCOTUS, but really, “limited government”? I just couldn’t let that pass by without pointing out the falicy of those that seem to insist on it. Now let’s get those children back into the sweatshop where they belong!]
Brenda McCune said
For an anonymous faceless person, you take a lot of things really personally. If you get your feelings hurt that easily you should stick to blogs on gardening.
met00 said
@Brenda,
The sad fact that you needed to resort to personal attacks on someone rather than deal with the content of their post says a great deal more about your immaturity levels than any comments I could write. You really should just grow up.
Brenda McCune said
Again, if the content is that relevant or important, perhaps some personal ownership of it would lend your views some credibility. Your ramblings are frankly disjointed and emotional. It’s not snarky, just meandering rhetoric.
Brenda McCune said
Met, at the end of a busy day, I have re-read this discussion and realized you misunderstood my comment regarding anomity.
“The meanest and most inflammatory, unecessary and hurtful commentary on that I have seen on local political blogs come from people like you who allege some super-duper important reason that they can’t tell who they are.”
I have not followed your commentary on other articles on this site, nor have I Googled you. I don’t care who you are or why your anonymous, and will assume that you have been polite and appropriate in your commentary on this site. I see this thread as a spirited discussion and have taken no personal offense to any of your comments.
Anonymity on the internet is very bothersome to me.
I have seen scandals erupt that have been incendiary once the story hit the blogs, hurtful, unsubstantiated and devastating to the parties. The rabid commentary that fuels those firestorms is non-productive and not in any way healthy debate. I participate in this site because of the intellectuality of the bloggers. This will never be a politcal tabloid style site. The people involved are far too dignified for that.
In your research, you probably noted that I have been a candidate in the city of Yorba Linda. The hateful, horrible, personal and demeaning insults that have been exchanged in forums on Yorba Linda politics are extraordinary in their volume and tenor, unecessary and totally unproductive.
I’m not implying any of that is you. I’m just saying the anonymity, in internet discussions where people already exercise much less restraint than they would in person, increases that inappropriate boldness. Kids are getting lectured on the effects of this behavior in school and on MTV everyday, but adults seem not to be listening.
I still think reliance upon a 200 year old law that was never challenged for constitutionality to support an argument for upholding the current PPACA is completely misplaced, but I do not find your commentary inflamatory, offensive or mean. Thanks for participating.
Now I’ve hijacked and changed the subject on my own article.
met00 said
Very nicely done Brenda.
Actually I have not researched you, just relied on the “blurb” associated to you here. To me “who” writes something is not as important as “what” they write. I was a tad shocked to see that you were a member of the bar after your first response to me.
I do know of the slime that goes on during a campaign. Having run for CA-46 back in the mid 90’s I also know of all the other dirty tricks (Farber’s campaign ripped out my lawn signs from private property). I have seen whisper campaigns deny a qualified candidate his seat on City Council, and watched the trash hauler “invest” tens of thousands of dollars into small Los Alamitos to influence elections (and spread lies about good people). Politics can be a very ugly sport (which may partially explain why I now advise campaigns rather than run in them myself, although that’s a story best left for another day).
If you really desire to know a bit more, I’m an activist (http://www.ocregister.com/news/council-347759-city-meetings.html) according to the OC register. Although Mr. Edgar most likely has less flattering names for me. :-)
Chris Nguyen said
For the record, here is the text of “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen” from the Library of Congress:
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=728 (bottom of page 605 and all of page 606)
I might also note that President Adams signed the act just two days after he signed the last piece of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which is nearly universally considered unconstitutional.
Brenda McCune said
Reblogged this on the127 activist.