Chief Justice Roberts...Genius, or Fool, or both?

Just wondering...is Chief Justice John Roberts a genius, a fool, or perhaps a bit of both? Mitt Romney says he disagrees with the Chief Justice's siding with all the liberals on the court. Every conservative on the court plus the usual swing vote, Justice Kennedy, said that the Chief Justice's vote was nothing more than the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the The United States) making law through Judicial Activism, which is clearly unconstitutional. Other conservative commentators that I have heard are all over the map, some saying that Justice Roberts was wrong (Rand Paul, Alan West), others saying that he awakened a sleeping giant (Dick Morris), others brand it the death of America's freedoms (Limbaugh, Hannity, Laura Ingraham. Who is right?

Much remains to be seen here. But, like every other major decision from SCOTUS, there certainly is no lack of opinions, pontifications, and forecasts of gloom and doom or utopia, depending on one's political philosophy.

Here is an excellent website saying that Justice Roberts made the right decision, in an op-ed by Bert Atkinson, Jr. http://www.ijreview.com/2012/06/9398-why-chief-justice-roberts-made-the-right-long-term-decision-with-obamacare/ . Here is another article where numerous conservative commentators universally condemn the decision as an assault on freedom: http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/rush-freedom-just-met-its-death-panel/ .

What is the outcome? In all actuality, no-one really knows. One thing is for certain, however, is that America will never be the same again. The Supreme Court has, by abdication, become the most powerful branch of the Federal Government. It can, by judicial edict, make national law, as is seen in this latest decision (a power Constitutionally given only to the legislative branch of the Federal Government), or it can destroy law by declaring it unconstitutional, or even rewrite the Constitution by re-interpreting previous decisions, ignoring precedent making decisions from the past, and ignoring the original intent of the founding fathers as they wrote the case decisions of the past based upon the intent of the writer of the section of the Constitution or the case law decision being revised.

This was NOT what the founding fathers intended; in fact it is the exact opposite of what the founding fathers intended. Thomas Jefferson, who I believe was probably the smartest of our founding fathers, warned us of the implications of allowing the Supreme Court to dominate the three branches of the Federal Government when he said the following:

The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, Aug 18, 1821

We are seeing Jefferson's words come to pass as we live and breath today. With lifetime appointments, with really no firing mechanism in place but impeachment, which has never been utilized in the two-hundred forty years of the republic thus-far, these nine political appointees sit immune to any repercussions from their decisions.

This last decision, for instance, is replete with wrong-doing. Justice Elana Kagen, an Obama appointee, should never have been in on the Obamacare decision. A former Solicitor General under President Obama, she was obviously involved in the furthering of this bill, and correspondence shows that she was following its progress with anticipation of it becoming law. Yet, with her nomination by President Obama to the Supreme Court, it presents a clear case of “stacking the deck” with Justices that have a vested interest in the upholding of a law that she was part of the formulation of as Solicitor General to the President whose bill it is. This is a Supreme Court Justice that is so blatantly socialist/liberal in her political philosophy and so obviously had a vested interest in upholding the Constitutionality of Obamacare that she should have recused herself from this case. I cannot recall any situation in history where behavior like this has been tolerated. You have a Justice of the Supreme Court that undoubtedly was part of the formulation of a bill that the President of the United States that nominated her for the Supreme Court got passed through a loaded legislature, was overturned as unconstitutional by numerous Federal Courts in the land, upheld by the most liberal Federal Court in the land, went to the Supreme Court that she is now a part of, and she deems herself to be able to render an unbiased opinion on the law. Surely we must all be fools because we let her get away with that and did not even breath the evil “I” word (Impeachment!). That is one vote FOR this travesty to every U.S. Citizen that should NEVER have been cast, and would have spared us this interminable nightmare.

There was never any doubt about the way our Liberal/Socialist members of the court would vote. Justices Breyer, Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and Kagen were givens...they will vote for whatever a liberal President or Congress wishes. Likewise, there are three conservative justices that will always vote according to the Original Intent of the founding fathers as they penned the Constitution and its Amendments, e.g., Justices Alito, Thomas, and Scalia. Usually, Justice Roberts has voted with the conservative members of the Court, and Justice Kennedy has been the swing vote, who in this instance voted with the conservatives. But Justice Roberts, in this instance, was the maverick on the Court and voted in a way, and with reasoning that no-one in their wildest dreams could have envisioned.

Chief Justice Roberts voted with the liberal wing of the Court this time and allowed Obamacare to stand as a Constitutional law, but did NOT do it in the way that was envisioned. The entire debate on whether or not this law was Constitutional or not has revolved around the Administration's claim that under the Interstate Commerce Clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3), they could impose a penalty fee onto anyone who would refuse to purchase insurance under Obamacare. As went the mandate, so went the entire law under the commerce clause, or at least so everyone in the nation except Chief Justice Roberts thought. Every Democrat in the House and Senate and the President of the United States swore up and down this penalty was not a tax increase, but that is exactly what Chief Justice Roberts called it, and therefore, because the Legislative Branch does have the power to levy taxes onto the citizenry of the U.S.A., this law is Constitutional. But Chief Justice Roberts was not through; he went on to say that the Administration's claim that they could use the Commerce Clause and force Americans to buy a product was NOT Constitutional; and he went further saying that the leverage that the Federal Government wanted to use via withholding ALL Medicaid funds (as opposed to the additional Medicaid funds associated with Obamacare) to States that did not implement Obamacare was not Constitutional. This was part of the lawsuit that twenty-eight states plus numerous universities and and other governmental bodies had filed against Obamacare.

Already, several States, including Louisiana, have made statements that they will not implement Obamacare, and basically there is nothing that the Federal Government can do about it. Many of the political commentators are saying that not only are many people just going to refuse to buy the insurance, but they are going to refuse to pay the penalty/fine/tax, or whatever that charge will be, and the commentators are saying that there really is nothing that the IRS can do about it. So...where does that leave us with our original question; e.g., is Chief Justice Roberts a genius, or a fool, or a little of both?

My personal opinion is that he is perhaps a little too smart for his own good and for the good of the nation. In my opinion, based on the Chief Justice's previous opinions and on his personal stated views during his confirmation hearings, it is my belief that the Chief Justice took a calculated gamble with the future of America. It is my belief that Chief Justice Roberts is determined to drive the Court back into the direction of a strict Original Intent representative view in its decisions. I believe he is a very conservative Justice and is trying to set an example of following the letter of the Constitution regardless of whether the decision is liberal or conservative in its outcome.

In this case, I believe he is sincere in believing that the “penalty”, or “fee” that the liberals have assigned to those refusing to purchase the individually mandated insurance under Obamacare is, in reality a tax, very similar to the Social Security tax, and therefore legal. I also believe that he declared it as such in order to re-ignite the conservative movement's backlash against any new taxes and in doing so, hopefully drive the election in November deeply into the Republican's hands, ultimately giving them a super-majority in both houses, which will inevitably lead to a total repeal of this monstrosity called Obamacare.

I also believe that this is a VERY dangerous gamble with the future of America's healthcare industry, and with the future of our economy in general. I am convinced that the Chief Justice is sincere in his beliefs/hopes that he has pushed conservatives over the edge and, as Dick Morris suggests, “awaken a sleeping giant, and instilled a terrible resolve into him” which will return America back to the nation that our founders envisioned. My only fear is what may happen if the gamble does not work.

Many American, me being one of them, are sick and tired of a tyrannical, nanny-state government using my hard earned money paid in as taxes to buy votes from deadbeats and illegal immigrants and their families. I am tired of paying people to sit at home on their butts and do nothing but have bastard children so that they can receive a handout from Uncle Sam for each child that results in them making twice as much as I make in retirement and social security combined! I had to work for forty years, and some woman can sit on her butt, pop out children like a baby factory, and collect TANF, Welfare, food stamps, and receive a free cell phone, free transportation, free child care, and free or subscidized housing, while I worked for forty years to provide for my family, and I have to pay for everything, including the deadbeat's free everything. That is not what our founding fathers envisioned, and is NOT the American way.

Our Declaration of Independence states that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, including Life, Liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness. It does not guarantee us happiness, it does not guarantee us a free cell phone, free food, free or subsidized housing, free transportation, or free anything. Even the Bible, which the founders of our nation said was the “...cornerstone of the republic...” states in Thessalonians 3:10-12: "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their own work quietly and to earn their own living."

I believe that America needs to phase out of the Nanny State mentality as quickly as possible. That philosophy has been tried throughout history and has never worked. It cannot work, because only in an all-Christian world could such a society every exist, and as we all know, that has never been, and will never be until the second coming of Christ, then the tribulation, and lastly the final judgement. Until then, we are going to have to function in a world filled with evil, and be ever vigilant against it. We are a nation built on freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. We are a nation built on a Constitution which was written to restrict the Federal Government's intrusion into the lives of its citizens, and which delineates the powers given to the Federal Government and strictly says which freedoms that Federal Government cannot invade. But, as Jefferson described so long ago, over time, a step at a time, the Court has slowly began usurping the powers away from the Executive and Legislative branches so that now, simply by declaring a law or a freedom as unconstitutional, they have neutered the Legislative Branch's ability to protect our freedoms, and through Judicial Activism, have stripped the States of most of their sovereign rights as guaranteed under the Constitution.

Justice Roberts, in my opinion, made a grave mistake with his decision. He is gambling that America's conservatives will rise up in revolt at the ballot box in November and will oust a vast majority of the liberals in Congress and the White House because of the overwhelming majority of them that hate Obamacare. However, he has taken a grave risk, because there is a large number of special interest groups that will virtually block vote for Him and liberals, regardless of anything that the conservatives do, because they are more concerned with protecting their government entitlements than they are destroying the nation's economy and freedoms. They are willing to sacrifice their self-esteem, their freedoms, and the nation's future in order to preserve their free ride, even if it bankrupts the nation, which it is inevitably guaranteed to do. I would much rather Chief Justice Roberts simply ruled that the Commerce Clause did NOT permit the individual mandate, not sought out an avenue by which he could keep the law Constitutional, but have just taken the Democrats at their word that the mandate was not a tax, and voted with the conservatives and ruled the law un-Constitutional. Instead, he may have awakened the sleeping giant, but instead just long enough for him to roll over and be lulled back to sleep nursing at the breast of the Un-United Nanny State of America.