Obama's Fundimental Principle

[bluethread]

Obama said that the Sipreme Court upheld the fundimental principle that no one should have their health or finances put at risk based on a medical condition.

First, is this indeed what the SCOTUS did with today's decision?

Second, is this indeed a fundimental principle?

[otseng]

That's because Obama is a dumb, incompetant, sorry excuse for a President who knows nothing about the law or the Courts despite his Harvard Law School education. This is what affirmative action does, it gives dummies like Obama nice, fancy degrees not reflective of his talent or intellect.

It's so much fun to see obvious racism flushed out of hiding. If President Obama were not black, you would not be saying this, no? Phfft.

Moderator Comment

I do not see this as an obvious case of racism. It's best in general to avoid labeling something as racism unless one can absolutely prove it.

Please review the Rules.


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Moderator comments do not count as a strike against any posters. They only serve as an acknowledgment that a post report has been received, but has not been judged to warrant a moderator warning against a particular poster.

[otseng]

Sore loser.

Moderator Comment

Please avoid making any comments regarding another poster.

Please review the Rules.


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[CrunkJuice]

He's smarter than you and me combined and I'm smarter than you. These are demonstrable facts.

HA is that a joke? If Obama is smarter than both of you, you must be complete and utter fools

You misspelled that.

Oh man we got a grammar nazi up in the house. Get all the Jews out of here

I find him to be a very competent pragmatic centrist.
His big error in his moral dream to forge a new future when the opposition is so extremist.

What is so extremist about not wanting the government to run every aspect of our lives? If anything big government is extremist.

How so? I think he's da man.

Im sorry you feel that way in your clouded foolish mind

Pure racism, as I suspected.
If you think Obama is a dummy and lacks intellect, there is no saving you. You can disagree with him and his vision and priorities, but to call him dumb exposes you as an unserious hateful, and emotional person. You lost big today. Suck it up.

HAHAHA racism card? typical liberal spewing out bullshit instead of using actual points. I call him dumb for his idiotic Keynesian Economics and completely flawed healthcare bill. Also the fact that he won the Nobel Peace Prize for using drone strikes and attacking Libya. The list goes on and on.

[Slopeshoulder]

He's smarter than you and me combined and I'm smarter than you. These are demonstrable facts.

HA is that a joke? If Obama is smarter than both of you, you must be complete and utter fools

Uncivil per forum rules, but you're imitating winepusher.

You misspelled that.

Oh man we got a grammar nazi up in the house. Get all the Jews out of here

Anti-semetic and offensive per forum rules.

How so? I think he's da man.

Im sorry you feel that way in your clouded foolish mind

Uncivil per forum rules, but you're imitating winepusher.

Pure racism, as I suspected.
If you think Obama is a dummy and lacks intellect, there is no saving you. You can disagree with him and his vision and priorities, but to call him dumb exposes you as an unserious hateful, and emotional person. You lost big today. Suck it up.

HAHAHA racism card? typical liberal spewing out bullshit instead of using actual points. I call him dumb for his idiotic Keynesian Economics and completely flawed healthcare bill. Also the fact that he won the Nobel Peace Prize for using drone strikes and attacking Libya. The list goes on and on.

Bullshit is uncivil per forum rules.
Personal attacks and profanity are, or were, against forum rules. I'm not sure anymore asshole, as you and winepusher get away with it because of now undeniable double standard around here. Anyway, until I get clarity, go fuck yourself. I'll retract and simply consign you to hell if I'm wrong and what passes for reason returns to this forum.

[dianaiad]

He's smarter than you and me combined and I'm smarter than you. These are demonstrable facts.

HA is that a joke? If Obama is smarter than both of you, you must be complete and utter fools

You misspelled that.

Oh man we got a grammar nazi up in the house. Get all the Jews out of here

I find him to be a very competent pragmatic centrist.
His big error in his moral dream to forge a new future when the opposition is so extremist.

What is so extremist about not wanting the government to run every aspect of our lives? If anything big government is extremist.

How so? I think he's da man.

Im sorry you feel that way in your clouded foolish mind

Wow. I have seldom seen so egregious a fracturing of courtesy, good sense, and reasonable debate rules as you are showing us right now. I'd have reported you, but the '!' is gone, so I guess someone else already has.

What's sad about this is that I don't like Obama or his policies either; there are few people here who are MORE conservative than I am, but I prefer to have my viewpoints represented in a way that makes the OTHER guy look rude.

True, I don't always manage, but....what you are doing here makes anything I've ever done look like tea and cream cakes.

""Get all the Jews out of here?" and "clouded foolish mind?"

SERIOUSLY?

[micatala]

Obama said that the Sipreme Court upheld the fundimental principle that no one should have their health or finances put at risk based on a medical condition.

. . . . It's not the Supreme Court's job to uphold a made-up principle that has nothing to do with the Constitution. Their job is to interpret the law as it is.

I would basically agree with this.

However, I think you are misreading the nature of the 'principle' Obama is articulating. I really don't think he is offering his principle as a constitutional one. I would say, as I said elsewhere, he is engaging in a bit of political spin. His intention in promoting the law included supporting this principle. The law is upheld so he is inferring, and I will grant it is not really a logical inference, that SCOTUS is at least indirectly supporting his principle. This does not mean he is claiming it is a constitutional principle.


I will point out this happens all the time, and famously as of late, by at least one of the Justices. I think if you read the comments of Justice Scalia in the Arizona Immigration Law case and the dissent in the ACA case under discussion here, you will see very clearly articulated principles that those making the statements consider to be important, yay even fundamental, and evidently relevant to the decision, even if they are not constitutional principles per se.

I will suggest you yourself hold certain fundamental principles, articulated on this forum, that you probably consider relevant to making judicial and policy decisions.

One of these might be that taxes should be as low as possible. Now, that is a perfectly legitimate philosophical position to take. It has a long history and has been supported by many an able statesman.

I do not believe it is anywhere to be found in the Constitution, not even indirectly.





Another fundamental principle might be that markets generally operate the best when they are unfettered by regulation, and a related prinicple is that free markets in and of themselves promote the general welfare of the society. Again, both have a long history of adherents in the U.S.

Again, I don't believe either are to be found anywhere in the Constitution.




I will finally point out that all of the principles mentioned above, and in fact the principles that are actually in the Constitution, are "made-up principles." All of them are human artifacts.

Their job in this case was to determine whether the individual mandate and Obamacare was consistent with the constitution. It is clearly not consistent, and the majority opinion even acknowledges this. The opinion explicitly stated that Congress did not have this power under not one, but two constitutional clauses. The Congress did not have the power to compell an individual to buy something under the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause.

I agree the mandate is not supportable by the two clauses mentioned, at least that is what SCOTUS said, and I would more or less agree with the Commerce Clause finding.

However, that does not mean it is not supportable by other clauses, which is what in fact has been found.

In addition, it is not really fair to characterize the law as compelling a person to buy anything. You HAVE the option not to buy health insurance. Yes, you do pay more in "taxes" if you don't, but you do have the option.

Again, this is conceptually very similar to other current practices, including the mortgage interest tax deduction. I know you addressed this on the other thread and pointed out some differences, and I will address those there, but it should be clear to everyone that this NOT really a compulsion.

But if you change the wording and call the penalty a tax, which it is not, all of the sudden Congress is authorized to exercise this power. The inconvienet fact is that it is not a tax, even Obama said it wasn't a tax. So in order to uphold the statue, the court had to redfine the statue into something that it's not. And it's not the courts job to redefine laws in order to make them consistent with the constitution, it's their job to interpret the law as it is.

I guess it depends on how important you think semantics are compared to the actual effect of the law. To me, it is the effect that is the most important, and I think if you read Robert's opinion, he says as much. He also says there is a long history of giving the law under consideration the benefit of the doubt. If there are two ways to interpret the law, one of which is consistent with the Constitution and one which is not, the court should (in Robert's view) err on the side of Constitutionality.

THis would seem to me to be a conservative principle, one which gives deference to the legislative branch. One which is consistent with the avoidance of judicial activism.





I found the following articles interesting in their commentary on why Roberts did what he did. They are admittedly speculative, but I do think it is fair to say that some of the rhetoric and argumentation in the dissent was extreme, at least I can see why even someone as conservative as Roberts would consider it extreme.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... calia.html

http://www.volokh.com/2012/06/28/more-h ... -his-vote/

[bluethread]

Don't be silly. Under Obamacare no 90 year old will be allowed such a transplant, whether or not he could pay for it him/herself.

Why couldn't he have it, if he could afford it?

[bluethread]

HA is that a joke? If Obama is smarter than both of you, you must be complete and utter fools . . .

This is an erronious quote. I had nothing to do with this quarrel. dianaiad, please be careful with your nesting. Everybody else, this thread has nothing to do with winepusher, slopesholder or even Obama. It is about whether or not the Supreme Court upheld the fundimental principle that no one should have their health or finances put at risk based on a medical condition and whether such a principle is indeed sound and/or fundimental.

Shall we try again?

[dianaiad]

Don't be silly. Under Obamacare no 90 year old will be allowed such a transplant, whether or not he could pay for it him/herself.

Why couldn't he have it, if he could afford it?

Because once Obamacare is fully implemented, the committees won't allow it. Even if he COULD pay for it.

That's one of the sneaky differences between what Canada and Great Britain have that the USA will have; in both Canada and GB, there is a secondary medical system that one CAN use, if one has the funds. I remember, when I was on my mission there, that a young man had a deviated septum that was so bad he couldn't lie down to sleep. Something was happening to him...during his own two years (and he was a native Brit) his condition worsened to the point that it was a DARN good thing he had a companion...his partner had to be with him ALL the time to make sure he didn't stop breathing. The UK health system at the time put him on a waiting list--he was told that surgery to fix it was 'elective' and he had to wait his turn. I mean, a 'deviated septum' was nothing. He was told that he'd have to wait at least 8 months to a year. In the meantime he was getting so bad that he was afraid to sleep...and his companion (he was eventually assigned two for this purpose) had to stay awake and watch him sleep so that he would live through the experience.

Two days after being assigned his second companion, he was in surgery and getting fixed. The church paid for it. Turns out that it wasn't a deviated septum; or at least, not ONLY a deviated septum. He had a tumor growing, and had he waited, it could well have killed him.

Now, under Obamacare, that wouldn't be an option. Once the government says 'you wait,' you WAIT, no matter how much money you have or how much your doctor says you need something.

THAT is what the IPAB (independent payment advisory boards) are for. Now Sarah Palin talked about 'death panels' and rationing according to how 'worthy' one is. Her language was ridiculed--and indeed, when it was related to 'end of life counseling,' rightfully so. However.....I'm not talking about 'end of life counseling." I'm talking about the IPABs.

In reality, what's the difference between rationing care according to 'worthiness' and "quality of life?" That is, the IPAB's are in charge of deciding whether someone gets treatment according to THEIR (or some statistical) idea of what a good 'quality of life' is. Personally, I don't see much difference between that and 'worthiness.'

Finally, because of the way Obama care is being set up, there isn't going to BE a private health sector to go to if the government run one doesn't do what you need: insurance companies and health services will ALL have to abide by the IPAB judgements regarding who gets what care, when.

Really and for true; has anybody here but me actually READ the "Affordable Health Care Act?"

Do any of you have clue ONE what's actually IN it?

Yeah, there are some good things that we should keep...but not in THAT form, or funded in that way---and NOT giving the government THAT Much control over every single aspect of your life!

[micatala]

HA is that a joke? If Obama is smarter than both of you, you must be complete and utter fools

You misspelled that.

Oh man we got a grammar nazi up in the house. Get all the Jews out of here

. . . .

Im sorry you feel that way in your clouded foolish mind

. . .


HAHAHA racism card? typical liberal spewing out bullshit instead of using actual points. I call him dumb for his idiotic Keynesian Economics and completely flawed healthcare bill. Also the fact that he won the Nobel Peace Prize for using drone strikes and attacking Libya. The list goes on and on.

Moderator Warning



Using the BS term is against the rules.

So are these other uncivil and personal comments.


I would advise everyone to avoid personal and inflammatory remarks, or further warnings may ensue, and the thread may possibly be closed.


Please review our Rules.

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