Unless, of course, the society as a whole is divided between those who have too much and those who have not enough. All nations are, to one degree or another, a collective endeavor. I am an American, I am part of America and Americans are part of me.
All around the world, this shit works. Nations with nowhere near our resources and capacity care for their citizens better than we do. We should be embarrassed.
The ACA is not a marvel of the ages, it is working simply because the god-awful mess we had is a god-awful mess, and the ACA is merely a mess. Much tinkering will be required, mostly because so much of the laws were crafted by men determined to see it fail. But the jury is in, it can be done, it is being done.
As far as the correct purpose of government, the purpose of government by, of and for the people is whatever we say it is. * Tres duh, mais non*?, to paraphrase Rousseau.
And if these are not our people, well, who’s people are they?
I agree with this. I would just add that IMO the “compassion” sub-discussion in this particular thread has been of the first sort and not of the second.
I’ve heard that sort of thing associated with this Jesus fellow, who may well be a fictional character. Please be advised that we have it on the very best authority that only a foolish person looks to a fictional character for guidance…
But, y’know, the CBO doesn’t matter unless it adheres to the bullshit vertical integration behind this lawsuit. No, Gruber’s remarks are FAR more legally relevant. :dubious:
Well, you got your Jesus of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Workers, Liberation Theology, then you got your Jesus of the “prosperity Gospel”, and Opus Dei.
Remember how part of my inspiration for the OP was pointing out the disingenuous insidiousness of Michael Cannon? Well, here’s further proof that this flagrant sociopath is more than capable of correctly reading the ACA when it suits his bullshit purposes.
One fig leaf that the left has been waving frantically around is the idea that the Court just HAS to uphold the ACA, because of all the horrible things that will supposedly happen if they don’t, since Congress (now) obviously won’t pass any laws to fix it.
In other words, so the thinking goes, because Congress is so gridlocked, that fact should be considered by the Court in interpreting the statute.
It should come as no surprise to my regular readers that I think that’s a load of horseshit. The Court should interpret the words of the statute, which don’t change meaning based on what the current composition of Congress is or on what actions Congress might take or not take in response to a particular Court decision.
And of course it’s commonly considered that Justice Kennedy is a swing vote on matters like this.
During his Hill testimony today, Justice Kennedy apparently signaled his agreement with that proposition:
If that’s a correct quote (right now, I only have Josh Blackman’s blog for the quote) that’s a good sign indeed.
It’s a good sign if you thought Kennedy was going to vote based on the statutory-construction-in-context-of-legislative-gridlock argument. Which he wasn’t, and neither was anyone else, but you knew that.
Judging from the veritable explosion in Twitterverse following his statement, I was not alone in seeing this as a negative for the government’s position.
I’m not on Twitter, and notwithstanding its increasing legitimacy as a communications medium, I suspect I am not missing any insightful legal analysis. The court will either uphold the subsidies because the plaintiffs lack standing, or because of Chevron, or it won’t. No court has ever (to the best of my knowledge) refused to strike down a statute because it’s worried the legislature won’t get around to reenacting it for a while.
It’s not nonsense. As I’ve said from the beginning (or near it), there is a colorable argument here. Not the sort of argument that normally makes it beyond the trial court, but to the extent that this dispute is mostly one of statutory construction it really should be resolved at the appellate level.