Macswain

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Chief Justice Roberts Tells Oregon Voters To Go To Hell!

We told you so!

We told you John Roberts was THAT conservative. We told he was no O'Connor. We told you he was a conservative, result-oriented judicial activist.

So Arlen Specter should just shut the fuck up!

Today's Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Oregon reveals how far Roberts is willing to go in pursuit of his desired results. Results driven undoubtedly by his religious beliefs and his rightwing fervor.

The State of Oregon voted twice by explicit referendum - the second vote by a wide majority - to allow physician-assisted suicide or "death with dignity" under specific and narrow guidelines. Former AG and religious zealot John Ashcroft sought to impose his (and presumably President Bush's) religious views on the People of Oregon by finding authority in an act of Congress to criminally punish Doctors who assisted compassionate deaths under the Oregon statute. Was this grant of authority explicit? No. Was there any evidence that Congress inytended to grant this authority? No. It was just a pure power grab by the executive branch to impose its will by misinterpreting statutory authority in some out-of-whack fashion (Hmm ... sounds much like using the Afghanistan authorization of force statute as a basis of conducting warrantless wiretaps).

Indeed, after Oregon's Death With Dignity Act passed, Congress has had ample opportunity to specifically address the issue and those who have tried have failed. But then, guys like Roberts, Scalia and Thomas really don't care that much about allowing this issues to be addressed in an explicit, democratic fashion. One a result is against their moral beliefs, they like Tyrants of the past, say "Screw Democracy!"

Once confronted with this gross power grab, Roberts sides with the imperial presidency over the democratic rights of the People of Oregon and over the individual liberty of the people who are suffering slow and painful deaths.

But I'll guarantee you another thing. Roberts would not reach this result if it were a Democratic President who engaged in such obvious statutory misinterpretation. His philosophy - as that of Scalia, Thomas and Scalito - is and will be one based on the result. If its a conservative result, he will claim there was no misinterpretation by the President. If its not a conservative result, he'll find an abuse of power.

Roberts, through his conservative activism, places himself above democracy and individual liberty. The People of Oregon can go to Hell if they don't agree with him. He is exactly what the Left feared.

20 Comments:

  • Average age of Roberts, Alito, Scalia & Thomas: 58 yrs.

    Average retirement age of Supreme Court Justices retiring Since 1971: 79 yrs.

    Average age of Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsberg & Breyer: 72 yrs.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:49 AM  

  • Yikes!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:50 AM  

  • Thanks pb.

    That's truly scary stuff.

    By Blogger Macswain, at 10:51 AM  

  • My "yikes!" of course refers to pb's trenchant observation that we're looking at 20+ of right wing dominance of the SCOTUS.

    Suck it up, macswain.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:52 AM  

  • Roberts wisely knows that:

    “Medicine” refers to “[t]he science and art dealing with the prevention, cure, or alleviation of disease.” Webster’s Second 1527.

    suicide is not medicine macswine.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:56 AM  

  • macswine:

    where would sammy scalito would have ended up on this one?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:22 AM  

  • pb is as much a master of the obvious as Macswain. Thanks for the perceptive insight and great adding and dividing. You and macswain are brilliant. Rolly

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:34 AM  

  • And Oh, you Maswain, try writing without using adverbs, just once, please. Rolly

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:30 PM  

  • Rolly:

    Instead of asking Macswain to "try writing without using adverbs," why don't you try writing without using meth?

    you'll be amazed how clearly you'll think

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:04 PM  

  • Who is this Rolly dude, anyway? He pops in and out and makes these inane and assine statements. Bearshaft

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:10 PM  

  • Who is Rolly? Who is Rolly? He is the master of insight, the caliph of credibility, the guru of the righteous, the cognoscente of the dolce vite and the nemisis for that knothead, McStupid. Rolly

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:15 PM  

  • bearshaft:

    you have an expensive mirror on your office wall, yet you ask "who is rolly?"

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:19 PM  

  • Bearshaft writes "assine."
    Rolly writes "cognoscente" and "nemisis."

    maybe there is a difference between bearshaft and rolly after all--rolly's twice as bad a speller!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:24 PM  

  • Webhub--one of the small minded, form over substance type of dudes, huh? Rolly

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:24 PM  

  • Webhub, where did you come up with "yikes"? Girlyman or queer? Confess. Rolly

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:25 PM  

  • Webhub, at least I know that proper nouns need to be capitalized. Rolly

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:27 PM  

  • Rolly,

    Please let us know when you actually get to the substance. Your complaints regarding "form" ring hollow given your bitch about adverbs upthread.

    As to Sammy Scalito - his record of consistently twisting words to reach conservative results leaves me with no doubt that he would've joined the dissent in this case.

    Anybody with a position on today's SCOTUS decision?

    By Blogger Macswain, at 3:31 PM  

  • Hey, it is your website. I would thing that the host, the "philospher" would be the one to get it right, would be under a particular burden to sound somewhat wise. Maybe, I'm wrong, but just what I thought. Rolly

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:34 PM  

  • rolly:

    Capital letters are not required when referring to lesser entities, such as bearshaft and rolly.

    Regarding your Girleyman comment, I outta have Arnold Schwarzenegger kick the shit out of you, but he's busy governing a whole state-ful of "rolly's" down in CA.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:13 PM  

  • macswain:

    you write:

    "Anybody with a position on today's SCOTUS decision?"

    I do. It's a good decision, because it gives the rolly's of the world a way out.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:14 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home