Justice Roberts: I Am A Coward

Discussion in 'Politics' started by AAAintheBeltway, Jun 28, 2012.

  1. Ricter

    Ricter

    It's nothing more than the mirror opposite of Coulter's writings. Where did she learn it?
     
    #131     Jul 1, 2012
  2. Sorry, but I think things like the EPA are smart. Single payer health care is smart. A coherent energy use policy is smart. Requiring guns to be registered and violent felons not being allowed to buy them is smart. Giving equal rights to gays and understanding that being gay is not a choice is smart. Raising efficiency standards for central A/C and cars is smart.

    All these things should be handled by the government. If we're smart our government has a chance to be smart also. Which will improve our lot.
     
    #132     Jul 1, 2012
  3. exactly. there are some things a competitive market cant handle. no manufacturer wants to be the first to build air conditioners that are more effecient because they cost more. if they built them they would be at a competitive disadvantage. but if the government sets minimum standards all manufactures have an even playing field.
    when i was in business i wanted to give my employees health insurance. i eventually did but it was tough. most of my competitors did not so they had a cost advantage over me. every time i bid a job i had a tough time making money. if the government had mandated that everyone furnish health insurance the playing field would have been level.
     
    #133     Jul 1, 2012
  4. jem

    jem

    1. understanding that pollution costs need to be factored into price so society can properly allocate resources are smart. The EPA is leftist big govt trash. it needs to be cleaned up and made more efficient.

    2. Having an energy policy which reduced dependence on foreign oil and Nuclear power (with the waste it is currently generating would be nice) so far we have never seen such a thing as an energy policy... yet alone coherent. What we have is big govt waste

    3. That is where you started with gun control but that is not where you are stopping.

    4. gays already have equal rights. and when you start requiring me to believe something which is clearly not true for all gays... you start entering the grounds of nazis and communists. Believe what you want to believe...but understand it is not fact.

    5. agreed..

    now lets make a list of all the leftist b.s. you promote.
     
    #134     Jul 1, 2012
  5. take a few steps back, if more efficient air conditioners are not built in a free market it simply means energy has more efficient uses elsewhere
     
    #135     Jul 1, 2012
  6. piezoe

    piezoe

    You have a very good point. There is a fine line. And that perhaps is what GofCutten fails to recognize.

    The U.S. has, for years, used taxing as an incentive to get its citizens to do one thing or another, and non-taxing, i.e., tax credits similarly. A Fine or penalty is also an incentive not to do one thing or another, or is it a penalty when you have done something you are not to do?

    This is not at all a clear cut issue. Reasonable people can come down on either side. If you see this as a black or white issue you're not looking clearly. It's gray.
     
    #136     Jul 1, 2012
  7. piezoe

    piezoe

    I read with great interest Richard Epstein's learned OP-Ed piece above posted by Occupy This.

    It would seem that Epstein may have gone wrong in the last paragraph where he attempts to make an argument on the basis of the ACA insurance mandate being germane to the issue of commerce regulation. It seems to me that once you have determined that the Commerce Clause is non-germane, as Roberts did, you are left with a pure taxation argument. After all, not all taxes are tied to interstate commerce regulation. So although Epstein makes a good case for the close tie between taxation and commerce, they are not necessarily tied, as countless examples show. Once you have divorced taxation from commerce regulation you have opened the door to countless examples of taxation, or non-taxation, i.e., tax credits, being used as incentives or disincentives. I see Roberts argument as consistent with the idea of using tax as an incentive to do something or not to do it. And in that respect, I don't agree with Epstein's position that Roberts was wrong because "If direct regulation is beyond the scope of the Commerce Clause (as he held), then taxation as an indirect route to the same regulation should be off limits as well."

    In other words, once you have determined that the Commerce Clause is not germane to the issue at hand, as the majority held, then you are no longer bound by the historical tie between the regulation of interstate commerce and taxation (as in Wickard v. Filburn, for instance) and you are now free to consider the issue purely as a question of whether a "tax", which the majority considered the "penalty" for non-compliance with the mandate to be, is constitutional or not. Furthermore, since one has a choice between paying a tax or buying insurance the majority held that there is no mandate, but rather a choice.

    It seems Epstein has failed to recognize the many varied uses of the taxation power that are clearly divorced from the commerce clause. And any argument he might make to insist on a close tie between taxation and the Commerce Clause is clearly refuted by long standing practice. I'm afraid it is just a little too late to expect for such an argument to prevail before the Court in cases deemed not to be a question of interstate commerce regulation.
     
    #137     Jul 1, 2012
  8. But it's a forced choice based on non activity.
     
    #138     Jul 1, 2012
  9. Ricter

    Ricter

    When I see this kind of statement in the context of human behavior I'm always immediately suspicious. Humans bring their values to every calculation, so what are the values not mentioned in your statement, I wonder; it appears to bridge indifferent calculations of energy efficiency with... laissez faire economics?

    Hacking out some approaches, efficacy comes to mind, and the time over which simple efficiency is measured, and barriers to entry, and the time value of money, and to whom the benefits of improved efficiency/efficacy accrue.

    So, when you say "simply means energy has more efficient uses elsewhere", do you mean, more efficient cooling uses elsewhere?
     
    #139     Jul 1, 2012
  10. piezoe

    piezoe

    Well, that's one way, among several, to look at it. You might be happier if you chose to look at it another way.
     
    #140     Jul 1, 2012