"Never forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anybody has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn’t let him do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians."
-- Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith, Hope
On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote the following to his wife Abigail:
More @ Godfather Politics
For John Roberts, it is Palm Sunday.
Out of relief and gratitude for his having saved Obamacare, he is being compared to John Marshall and Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Liberal commentators are burbling that his act of statesmanship has shown us the way to the sunny uplands of a new consensus.
If only Republicans will follow Roberts' bold and brave example, and agree to new revenues, the dark days of partisan acrimony and tea party intransigence could be behind us.
Yet imagine if Justice Stephen Breyer had crossed over from the liberal bench to join Antonin Scalia, Sam Alito, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy in striking down Obamacare. Those hailing John Roberts for his independence would be giving Breyer a public caning for desertion of principle.
Why did Roberts do it? Why did this respected conservative uphold what still seems to be a dictatorial seizure of power—to order every citizen to buy health insurance or be punished and fined?
Congress can do this, wrote Roberts, because even if President Obama and his solicitor general insist the fine is not a tax, we can call it a tax:
"If a statute has two possible meanings, one of which violates the Constitution, courts should adopt the meaning that does not do so. ... If the mandate is in effect just a tax hike on certain taxpayers who do not have health insurance, it may be within Congress's constitutional power to tax."
Roberts is saying that if Congress, to stimulate the economy, orders every middle-class American to buy a new car or face a $5,000 fine, such a mandate is within its power.
Now, Congress can indeed offer tax credits for buying a new car. But if a man would prefer to bank his money and not buy a new car, can Congress order him to buy one—and fine him if he refuses?
Roberts has just said that Congress has that power.
More @ Chronicles
NHS doctors are prematurely ending the lives of thousands of elderly hospital patients because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds, a senior consultant claimed yesterday.
Professor Patrick Pullicino said doctors had turned the use of a controversial ‘death pathway’ into the equivalent of euthanasia of the elderly.
It is designed to come into force when doctors believe it is impossible for a patient to recover and death is imminent.
It can include withdrawal of treatment – including the provision of water and nourishment by tube – and on average brings a patient to death in 33 hours.
There are around 450,000 deaths in Britain each year of people who are in hospital or under NHS care. Around 29 per cent – 130,000 – are of patients who were on the LCP.
