Category Archives: Justice

UPDATE II: A Romp Down Memory Lane With Justice Roberts

Bush, Constitution, Federalism, Founding Fathers, Healthcare, Justice, Law, The Courts

HERE are excerpts from “A Romp Down Memory Lane With Justice Roberts,” now on RT.

Is John G. Roberts Jr. no more than a smooth operator, I wondered on September 15 2005.

I began tracking the now infamous Justice Roberts a month earlier, around the time he was exciting admiration from gay-rights activists for winning “Romer vs. Evans” for them. The Los Angeles Times, at the time, noted that “Romer vs. Evans” had “struck down a voter-approved 1992 Colorado initiative that would have allowed employers and landlords to exclude gays from jobs and housing.”

Gay activists still consider the decision Roberts won for them the “single most important positive ruling in the history of the gay rights movement.” Special pleading not being this column’s “thing,” arguments from and against so-called gay rights did not sway me much.

Rather, I urged readers to pay attention to Roberts’ efforts against the private property and freedom of association of Coloradans. “When property is rendered insecure,” said Edmund Burke, “so is liberty.”

Alas, Roberts’ (pro bono) work comported with 14th-Amendment jurisprudence, aspects of which violate private property rights and freedom of association. Simply put, to the extent that the Constitution coincides with the natural law, it is good. More often than not, it has buried natural justice under the rubble of legislation and statute.

My choice for the Supreme Court of the United States, back when President Bush was pushing the goofy Harriet Myers, was Justice Janice Rogers Brown. An originalist, Justice Brown is also black. Pigment, however, only works in favor of candidates of the Left.

“Today’s senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much ‘free stuff’ as the political system will permit them to extract.” This was just one of Justice Brown’s many admirable utterances. (Today’s brazen cannibals would object to Brown’s maligning as vociferously as the obese derided this writer for telling the truth about their fat and flaccid icon, Citizen Karen Klein.) …

… But, here’s the thing that unsettled so about Roberts’ performance during confirmation proceedings. Or so I wrote on September 15, 2005:

“He seems to be all about the moves” …

READ the complete column. “A Romp Down Memory Lane With Justice Roberts” is now on RT.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive libertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

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UPDATE I: “A vast new federal power to ‘tax'” has been birthed by the philosophical successor to chief justice of the United States, John Marshall, the “intellectual progenitor of federal power”:

No one can know the true motivations for the idiosyncratic rationale in the health-care decision written by Marshall’s current successor, John Roberts. … Perhaps Chief Justice Roberts really means what he wrote – that congressional power to tax is without constitutional limit – and his opinion is a faithful reflection of that view, without a political or legal or intra-court agenda. But that view finds no support in the Constitution or our history. It even contradicts the most famous of Marshall’s big government aphorisms: The power to tax is the power to destroy.
The reasoning underlying the 5-to-4 majority opinion is the court’s unprecedented pronouncement that Congress’ power to tax is unlimited. The majority held that the extraction of thousands of dollars per year by the IRS from individuals who do not have health insurance is not a fine, not a punishment, not a payment for government-provided health insurance, not a shared responsibility – all of which the statute says it is – but rather is an inducement in the form of a tax.

“The logic in the majority opinion is the jurisprudential equivalent of passing a camel through the eye of a needle. The logic is so tortured, unexpected and unprecedented that even the law’s most fervent supporters did not make or anticipate the court’s argument in its support. …”

UPDATE II (July 6):

From: J
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2012 11:49 AM
To: Ilana Mercer
Subject: Recent article

Your article today was excellent.

Most notably the part about how Roberts answered the question posed by the Senator about the administrative state….. so true. That’s our biggest problem in this country because half of all “conservatives” are for it. Very strange how he steered around the question.

J.

UPDATE III: The Closing of The American Mind? What Mind?

America, Education, Family, Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Intellectualism, Intelligence, Justice, Morality, Pop-Culture, Reason

Expect a WND and RT column follow-up in response to the responses (a sample is here and posted below) to “Bullied ‘Jail Bus’ Lady: Fearful Fatty, Not a Hero,” which gave me a glimpse of America at it illiterate, fulminating best.

A dear friend (and libertarian luminary) wrote to say, “Bravo.” He also divulged that he had given up on combating what goes for wisdom (Sophia) in America today. He quit writing for the “public.” His career spans decades to my 15 years (having arrived in North America in 1995). My friend is fortunate in the sense that most of his magnificent writing was done before America entered “The Age Of The Idiot.”

Illiterate and educated: They joined to castigate and curse this writer for writing truths that, if heeded, could set free the prisoners on the “Yellow Jail Bus”—those coerced to ride and/or pay for government schools.

Illiterate and educated: There was scarcely a difference in the quality of argument. I described immutable reality: a dysfunctional, ineffectual adult that had abnegated her duty and dissolved into a puddle of self-pity in the face of taunts from a couple of crappy kids. I urged: “Drain the septic tank that is our federalized education system, and with it the auxiliary personnel that infest the schools and feed off a dwindling tax base. There is now one non-teaching adult for every eight or nine children.”

For using words to describe reality, I was peppered with ad hominem, my character impugned. (And no: to the detritus delivered to my WND email address, and posted below: Even though she has had a life far harder than Karen Klein’s, in Israel and South Africa, my mother is still a dignified, beautiful lady at 73. I love you, mom.)

A day will come, and a child riding the Yellow “Jail Bus” will be beaten to a pulp (or maybe to death) by the type of wolverines who set upon Klein. Klein will have retired (and moved closer to “the Mecca of maturity: Disneyland”). But true to the system and society she represents, another ineffectual, fearful female will have taken her place.

I wonder what my assailants will say then? A second-hander might write a similar article … years down the line. (As has happened with most hot topics; mainstream catches up.) Or, more likely, people will continue to pay homage to PC pietism, making sure no one utters words that cleave to reality, such as, “Feeble, too fat to budge and too powerless to perform the task for which she is being paid.”

Kids could be injured because of Klein-like adults in positions of “authority.” But so long as nobody’s feelings are hurt—all will be deemed copacetic (even if it’s not). Wreaths will be lain, candles lit, tears shed, more slobbering will happen on weak-minded TV shows.

And “Managerial-State busybodies” will mandate compulsory anti-bully courses to all inmates in the Jails that are our government schools.

Not to tax the American Mind too much, but the Klein episode conjures a story by Edgar Allan Poe. (Don’t worry; your kids won’t hear about him in the public schools, from where his ilk has been expunged. Poe was, after all, some white American dude who could, “like write and stuff.”)

“The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether” tells of inmates in an asylum who overpower their wardens, tar and feather them, throw them into underground cells, and proceed to have “a jolly season of it” without them.

If only…

UPDATE I (July 1): Abelard Lindsey: You may need to re-read the column. Excerpt: “… Perhaps the two [bus drive & monitor] live in fear of potential lawsuits, lodged by the parents who sire these good-for-nothing seventh graders…”

UPDATE II:

From: Greg
Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2012 7:40 AM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Subject: Bullied ‘jail bus’ lady: Fearful fatty, not a hero

Ilana

This was an excellent commentary on both the public schools and the “sissified” adults that pretend to manage them. I agree with you completely.

Greg

UPDATE III (July 5):

From: John W.
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2012 9:23 AM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Subject: Thanks….

I only “taught” children for one year. If I can’t spank ’em, I can’t teach ’em. I found other work!

Thanks for a great article.

John W.

I’m getting tired of this thankless, punishing gig. I may just oblige my detractors and, for starters, close the moderated sections of what is a labor-intense blog spot. If you have a preference, which I very much doubt it, you may register is by clicking to Donate.

ILANA

Here’s a sample of America the Virtuous:

From: bizlique@comcast.net [mailto:bizlique@comcast.net]
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 6:23 PM
To: imercer
Subject: cunt

you’re a bitter old hag and total cunt.

here’s some attention: i hope you die soon and when you do, we’ll rejoice like we did when breitbart died. that will be your legacy.

From: Virginia Gomez [mailto:virginiagomez4@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 2:20 PM
To: IMERCER@WND.COM
Subject: YOUR ARTICLE ON MS. KAREN KLEIN

Wow, and ‘YOU’ actually have the nerve to call yourself a writer?! … But what can one expect from a ‘liberal’ whom I consider jerks and idiots. There aren’t any nice words I can use to describe your despicable article on: “Bullied ‘jail bus lady’: Fearful, fatty Not a Hero”. Is your mother overweight or is your dad overweight from eating too many twinkies?? Would they be considered “Fatty”? Do you call them “fat” without regards to their feelings?? It’s a shame that YOU haven’t taken a real close look at yourself in the mirror and seen how ugly you really are! …when I saw that you are a liberal I said to myself “hey, what else can one expect from a liberal, thank god she has not disappointed me.” Take your shitty comments/ articles and apply them to your parents and other jerkoff liberals who appreciate your worthless talent.

From: Thomas Mariani [mailto:xmarianix@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 3:00 PM
To: ilana@ilanamercer.com
Subject: Bus driver

How can you write things like this, “Or, perhaps the bus drive is another fearful fatty who was unable to dislodge herself from her seat”. Ilana, Go fuck yourself.

From: C B [mailto:taz11375@yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 6:06 PM
To: ilana@ilanamercer.com
Subject: Exclusive: Ilana Mercer asserts Karen Klein is perpetuating infantilism in America

Fuck you – ignorant bitch!

UPDATED: Screwed By The SCROTUM & Its Chief Politico (Obama On Top)

Constitution, Founding Fathers, Healthcare, Justice, Law, The Courts, The State

“Anticipating A Turn of The Health-Care Screw,” last night’s Barely-a-Blog post title, was apt.

The SCROTUM would fail to dissolve “the hulking bill,” Orwellianly titled “The Affordable Care Act.” The Supermen Court, after all, doesn’t follow natural law; individual rights, or even the founders’ federalism.

Why, the Constitution itself, in all its amendments, has long since veered from the just law. All the more so the jurisprudence that “interprets” this already flawed, dead-letter scroll. (“Sometimes the law of the state coincides with the natural law.“ More often than not, natural justice has been buried under the rubble of legislation and statute.”)

“As affable as he is,” said a September 15, 2005 blog post titled “Judge Roberts: Smooth Operator?”, during Roberts’ confirmation hearings, “Roberts, regrettably, is no Janice Rogers Brown.”

Their devotion (and dotage) prevents President Bush’s lickspittles from realizing that he too considers Rogers Brown ‘outside the mainstream,’ to use the Democrats’ demotic line. Let’s hope, at the very least, that Roberts is a Rehnquist.” AND, “here’s the thing that unsettles: Roberts seems to be all about the moves.”

Lyle Denniston, of the SCOTUS Blog, speaks to the technicalities of today’s decision, in “Don’t call it a mandate — it’s a tax”:

Salvaging the idea that Congress did have the power to try to expand health care to virtually all Americans, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutionality of the crucial – and most controversial — feature of the Affordable Care Act. By a vote of 5-4, however, the Court did not sustain it as a command for Americans to buy insurance, but as a tax if they don’t. That is the way Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., was willing to vote for it, and his view prevailed. The other Justices split 4-4, with four wanting to uphold it as a mandate, and four opposed to it in any form.

“The Roberts Court is Born”:

Today’s Supreme Court is often referred to as Anthony Kennedy’s Court. Although Kennedy is the swing justice who usually casts the deciding vote in close cases, the landmark ruling this week in the healthcare cases clearly mark the maturation of the “Roberts Court.”
Chief Justice John Roberts was the surprising swing vote in today’s Obamacare decision. Although he agreed with the four conservative justices, including Kennedy, that the individual mandate was not a regulation of interstate commerce, he voted with the Court’s moderates to hold that it was justified as a tax. Because people who don’t obtain insurance pay a tax to the IRS, the mandate was within Congress’s power to raise taxes for the general welfare. As a result, the Affordable Care Act was upheld.
With this deft ruling, Roberts avoided what was certain to be a cascade of criticism of the high court. No Supreme Court has struck down a president’s signature piece of legislation in over 75 years. Had Obamacare been voided, it would have inevitably led to charges of aggressive judicial activism. Roberts peered over the abyss and decided he didn’t want to go there.

UPDATE: Absolutely right is the New York Time: “The decision was a victory for President Obama and Congressional Democrats, affirming the central legislative pillar of Mr. Obama’s presidency.”

AND, so was “SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: ARIZONA ET AL. v. UNITED STATES.”

So, for heaven’s sake. Quit the denial. Liberty was not sundered with Obama. It’s long gone.

UPDATE IV: “Jesus, No Radical”? (Jesus’ Jewishness)

Ancient History, Christianity, Classical Liberalism, Hebrew Testament, Islam, Judaism & Jews, Justice

“Jesus was no political radical or rebel. He was God” is how the ever-provocative Jack Kerwick introduces his latest Belief.Net blog to Facebook Friends.

Maestro, pray tell, why are the two categories of the title—“G-d” vs. “political radical”—mutually exclusive?

One might have theological reasons for designating “G-d” and “political radical” as mutually exclusive, but reason is reason. It has to work a priori, surely?

Jews (at least those who think) think of Jesus as a preacher in the great tradition of the classical Hebrew prophets, whose genius, courage and yes, radicalism is hard to match—they were forever telling the stiff-necked people where to get off in no uncertain terms.

UPDATE I: “Yiddishkeit.” In reply to the thread on Facebook: Jesus was indeed a Jew (or a Hebrew), with everything that being a Hebrew would imply. A lot of people describe Jewish traits negatively. But you can be sure that Jesus was not without a dose of “Yiddishkeit,” as my blond, blue-eyed, Jewish mother would call it.

UPDATE II: Meathead: One should never place Russell Kirk in the company in which you placed him. For one, Kirk was against the wars Buckley embraced as a matter of principle. As I read Kirk, he was a classical liberal of enormous talent.

UPDATE III (June 14): The “because” is unfairly placed in yours sentence below, Jack Kerwick.

As for Ilana’s contention that Jesus was a “radical” because, like the prophets of old, He told “the stiff necked people where to get off in no uncertain terms,” how does that make Jesus, or anyone, a radical?

Here is what I wrote in the post above:

In punctuation, the sentence indicates that the last clause is but an example of the “genius, courage and yes, radicalism” of the prophets, and hardly exhaustive.

In meaning, how does the last clause, which you rightly seem to disparage as inexhaustible, qualify the words “genius, courage and yes, radicalism”?

It doesn’t. Yours is a somewhat unfair read of the sentence.

As for conflating, as you do Jack, the views of Jews on Christ with those of Muslims: That, in my view, is a grave error.