Friday, June 29, 2012

Home Truth

Timothy Dalrymple:
I think this places the central issue of the election very clearly in front of the voters: Do you believe that the government ought to have more power over your life, or do you think it should have less?  The Supreme Court is not going to save us against our own poor electoral decisions, if the people we elect go on to pass foolish taxes.  Conservatives cannot rely on the Supreme Court as a backstop.  So I think you will see the Tea Party movement revived, less focused on internecine battles and more focused again on the fundamental questions of the role of government.
Emphasis mine. Chief Justice Dread Pirate Roberts said as much yesterday:
Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.
Again, emphasis mine. Or, as H. L. Mencken put it many years ago:
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
A whole lot of common people thought they knew what the wanted in 2008. Yesterday those people, and the rest of us, got it good and hard.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mark,
I see a lot of Conservatives clinging to the misbegotten notion that yesterday's ruling is going to rile up the yeomanry and lead to the President’s reelection defeat. Well, I wish you luck with that, but history doesn't have your back. For the relatively non-partisan masses, a SCOTUS ruling, especially one written by the Chief Justice, usually has quite the opposite affect. While I gloat and you despair, many people's opinions are starting to coalesce around the ruling. This happened with Roe v. Wade. It happened with Bush v. Gore, and it will happen here as well. Of course opponents of ACA are upset and highly motivated to take Obama down. But you all have been in that mode for 3.5 years now. And of course, the President's supporters are elated. Best week in three and a half years. But for folks who don't read and write political blogs and can't name their own Senators, let alone the the 98 others and the states they are from, the message of the Roberts ruling is that the ACA is A-okay.

And finally, having the "weather-vane-in-chief" who built the ACA prototype as your torch bearer...ouch!

Regards,
Rich

Bike Bubba said...

Um, Rich, the survival of Roe is not for a lack of effort on pro-lifers' side--sorry, I don't see the debate dying down at all.Rather, the survival of Roe is due to some rather brutal politicking by the Democrats--"Borking" and such.

In the same way, deciding the government can do anything as long as a tax is involved....no, I think this one is going to resonate for a while.

Mr. D said...

Rich, I appreciate the "Surrender Dorothy" sentiments, but there's a fundamental difference between abortion, which is contentious but also only germane for a certain sector of the population, and this thing, which will directly affect every American in ways that are going to be disastrous.

It's not A-okay at all, which is why I'm going to fight like hell against it. Maybe I won't win, but I'm not going down without a fight. And I'm going to use every tool at my disposal to send Mr. Obama back to your fair city for a well-deserved retirement.

And I might add that Obamacare is only one of many reasons why the president needs to be retired.

And by the way, I don't despair at all. Do you see any despair in what I've written? If so, you misread me pretty substantially.

Anonymous said...

Mark and Bubba,
Regardless of what our always breathless punditry has to say, and the overheated rhetoric from partisans on the left and the right, public attitudes on ACA, vis-a-vis the election, are already pretty set. And just as SSA, Medicare and Medicaid (which took 17 years to fully implement) were very contentious and widely dissed at the time they were passed, ObamaCare will be gradually accepted (SSA and Medicare now have 80% and 83% approval from the general public according to a recent PEW Poll). Partisans on the right will always hate ACA, while most people will come to accept it. Just look at the polling numbers on what the Act actually does: Most provisions of ObamaCare are quite popular and enjoy widespread support (which is why Willard won't unvail how he will pay for his health plan, but assures everyone that it will include all the goodies everybody loves, i.e. guaranteed coverage, people covered by parent's plan to age 26, no refusal on pre-existing conditions, etc...). As this continues to roll out, it will gain in acceptance. So, if you haven't despaired, you probably should. But that wasn't my point. My point is that the election will not be about this. It will be about the economy and it will be incredibly close. Probably the same margins we saw in Bush's re-election. But I am not claiming it will be in Obama's favor or Romney's. I honestly think it is quite a toss up right now.

Regards,
Rich

Mr. D said...

But that wasn't my point. My point is that the election will not be about this. It will be about the economy and it will be incredibly close. Probably the same margins we saw in Bush's re-election. But I am not claiming it will be in Obama's favor or Romney's. I honestly think it is quite a toss up right now.

Go reread your original post, Rich. That's a point you didn't make.

And I disagree with you, because the goodies you promise aren't going to be enough to offset the pain it causes in so many other ways.

We're headed for the fiscal cliff, dude. And your party is stomping on the gas pedal. John Roberts wasn't going to save us. We have one shot left and it is this election.

I'm not sure Romney is the right guy for the moment, but I'm certain that Barack Obama must be retired.