Europe Is Baffled by the U.S. Supreme Court

[Freeper]

liberal N proud
 
Europe Is Baffled by the U.S. Supreme Court

Europe is scratching its head over possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down President Obama's signature legislative achievement. As the judiciary and the Obama administration trade legal barbs over the high court's authority, the idea that health care coverage, largely considered a universal right in Europe, could be deemed an affront to liberty is baffling.

"The Supreme Court can legitimately return Obamacare?" asks a headline on the French news site 9 POK . The article slowly walks through the legal rationale behind the court's right to wipe away Congress's legislation. "Sans précédent, extraordinaires" reads the article. In the German edition of The Financial Times, Sabine Muscat is astonished at Justice Antonin Scalia's argument that if the government can mandate insurance, it can also require people to eat broccoli. "Absurder Vergleich" reads the article's kicker, which in English translates to, "Absurd Comparison." In trying to defeat the bill, Muscat writes, Scalia is making a "strange analogy vegetables."

Over in Britain, the opposition is more direct. The Guardian's Kevin Powell called the debate "surreal" in his Monday column. "Wasn't the point to make sure the richest and most powerful nation on the planet could protect its own people, as other nations do?" he wrote. "If Americans are promised not just liberty but life and happiness, is there not a constitutional right to affordable healthcare?"

http://news.yahoo.com/europe-baffled-u-supreme-court-220944850.html
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002523366

The last line says it all, If Americans are promised not just liberty but life and happiness, is there not a constitutional right to affordable healthcare, there is no right to happiness, there is a right to pursue happiness though. Big difference between the 2.

Joe Bacon
15. I'm not.

We have five Ju$ti¢e$ and four Justices.

Five of them have been bought off and none of those five even go to the bathroom without getting permission from Wall Street.

No complaints about the 4 justices who are beholden to the democrat party though.

xtraxritical
52. Pack Congress with Democrats in November and everything can and will be corrected.

The whole point of the ACA exercise is to show voters that Democrats in congress are working for the citizens betterment. If the SC is as biased and stupid politically as it appears to be, it is of no matter, an overwhelmingly Democratic congress can pass single payer after the November elections. Whatever the SC objects to in it's opinions can be corrected by the next Democratic majority Congress. This current legislation can be considered a trial balloon to gauge voter sentiment (a large majority in favor) and test SC opinion. Vote a straight Democratic ballot in November
 

Free ponies for all until we run out of money then all we will be left with is a huge pile of horseshit.

Octafish
20. Europe needs to call Thom Hartmann.

He'll straighten them out, PDQ.

 

maddiemom
41. Absolutely agree!

Making "Socialism" a dirty word and boogeyman has been the most successful project the "closer and closer to Facism" right wing has come up with. "Democratic Socialism" is actually a bit redundant, but needed to get the point across. A majority of Americans seem to have no idea what Socialism is. They think : Communism, forced, rigid government, "they'll take what I have and give it to the worthless." No wonder the Europeans think we're a clueless, uneducated bunch of rednecks.

Socialism is a dirty word, to freedom loving people. If our founding fathers wanted socialism they would have set up the constitution for socialism, instead they set it up for individual freedom and a small federal government.

Horse with no Name
46. The court needs to be bigger.n/t

I agree Horse with no brain, it needs to be bigger, but we have to wait until a repuke is president to fill the new vacant slots. How do you like them apples? 

FDR tried that, he wanted to stack the court with justices that would go along with whatever he dreamed up.

Swede Atlanta
48. How does ensuring all citizens have access to affordable healthcare not meet.....

the concept in the preamble to the Constitution that reads "promote the general welfare"? How more intrinsic to "welfare" can there be than ensuring people can see a doctor when they need to?

And the ones on the right most loudly complaining are those that are either (a) covered by their employers such as the GOP members of Congress or (b) already on a single payer program, i.e. Medicare.

It says promote, not provide. It does say provide for defense though.

Taverner
63. Welcome to USA. In Europe you get sick. IN USA sick gets YOU!

Then ****ing move to Europe, we won't miss you one bit.

[jukin]

If people are guaranteed a right to health care then many other people are guaranteed a life of slavery to pay for it it and deliver it.

[franksolich]

Why is ****ing with the minds of European leftists a bad thing?

[Mr Mannn]

Of course our ways are baffling to them.
Europeans never quite got the democracy thing right.

[Rebel]

Pack the court with Dims in November? Yeah, good luck with that, DUmbass.

[dandi]

I don't give a flying fug what a bunch of mincing, monarch-worshipping Eurotrash twats think. Screw them and their nanny governments. The assholes wouldn't even do anything about Hitler until it was almost too late, and then we still had to come in and pull their asses out of the fire at great cost of American lives. That's how much they cherish freedom. Their's is a culture of appeasement and dependency and mediocrity. To hell with that and to hell with what their opinions are of the U.S. and its citizens.

[miskie]

"Europe Is Baffled by the U.S. Supreme Court" - So ?

I'm baffled by lots of European things, but my opinion on their issues doesn't matter. - provided those issues do not affect me.

If that makes me sound like a self-centered rethug, so be it.

[AllosaursRus]

Taverner
63. Welcome to USA. In Europe you get sick. IN USA sick gets YOU!

Yeah, ya just have to wait until ya die in order to get to use it, DUmbass! Wonder how the folks in Greece feel about your stooooopid statement? Oh, I do know! They're rioting in the streets because they're not used to havin' to fend for themselves! There's a word for that ya know. It's called LEECH!!!

I don't give a flying fug what a bunch of mincing, monarch-worshipping Eurotrash twats think. Screw them and their nanny governments. The assholes wouldn't even do anything about Hitler until it was almost too late, and then we still had to come in and pull their asses out of the fire at great cost of American lives. That's how much they cherish freedom. Their's is a culture of appeasement and dependency and mediocrity. To hell with that and to hell with what their opinions are of the U.S. and its citizens.

Contrary to what the O'Bummer thinks, with what he proposes, we will soon be wallowin' in the gutter with the rest of the Euro trash! If we don't turn things around, and ****in' soon, we're gonna look just like them, while China owns us lock, stock, and barrel! They won't have to worry about our military, they'll just collect on they're ****in' loans!

[Rebel]

Hey Taverner, I see you're using that old Russia meme, you know, "in America, sick gets you". Tell you what, ****tard, unlike your precious USSR, there's no damn wall to keep you in so, by all means, get your sorry ****ing ass out.

[GOBUCKS]

"Wasn't the point to make sure the richest and most powerful nation on the planet could protect its own people, as other nations do?"

No. The point is we ARE the richest and most powerful nation on earth, and over there the average man lives today the way people here did during the Great Depression.

There's a lesson to be learned, but the teacher and pupil are opposite of what the DUmmies and the Eurotrash think.

[USA4ME]

The Guardian's Kevin Powell

"If Americans are promised not just liberty but life and happiness, is there not a constitutional right to affordable healthcare?"

If it were true that affordable healthcare was a constitutional right, why was it not implemented in the USA back in the late 1700's?

Get back with me when you can answer that, Kevin. Otherwise, your silence is evidence you don't have an answer.

.

[Rebel]

When in the hell were we promised life and happiness?

[Dblhaul]

"Free ponies for all until we run out of money then all we will be left with is a huge pile of horseshit."

So true, yet so friggin scary.

[Rebel]

For accuracy, thats "until we run out of other peoples money".

[Aristotelian]

Why is ****ing with the minds of European leftists a bad thing?

If you count we English as Europeans then it's a good thing, nay one of my main occupations in life.

[franksolich]

If you count we English as Europeans then it's a good thing, nay one of my main occupations in life.

Like de Gaulle, I've never thought of the British as belonging to Europe; because of geography, historical and sociological characteristics, and their cultural and political impact upon the rest of the world, I wouldn't dare smear them by coupling them with Europeans.

I realize this perception is outdated, what with the world becoming "smaller" and the British themselves trying to integrate themselves into the mob, but old perceptions die hard.

I have no particular antagonism, even mild, towards Europeans, and in fact have found some rather splendid people among them, although I do tend to be slightly biased in favor of some groups; the Turks over the Greeks, or the Norwegians over the Swedes, or the Slovaks over the Czechs, or the Ghegs over the Tosks, but it's a bias that's pretty harmless.

But they're all Europeans, while the British are.....British, a race and culture apart.

[DumbAss Tanker]

It's nice to see that Eurotrash journalists who don't understand shit about our government (And who, outside the English-speaking countries which have at least a common point of departure with us, use a totally-different legal system than we do) are at the same vaunted level of Constitutional scholarship as our own top crooked politican and night-school lecturer.

[Splashdown]

Europeans baffle me as well. Mayo on fries? Really?

[DLR Pyro]

Europeans baffle me as well. Mayo on fries? Really?

Metric system.  Ha!

[franksolich]

It's nice to see that Eurotrash journalists who don't understand shit about our government.....

I've told this before, but it needs repeating.

When I was wandering around the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants, oftentimes I was asked about how the government in America works.

I explained this "balance of power" thing--three equal branches of government, the presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court.  All are equal; none is superior to the other, and they're always in conflict with each other.

I was usually then asked why this was such a good thing.

To which I usually replied, well, if the government's always fighting with itself, that means it can't fight, oppress, put down, the people.

As you're aware, sir, in most of Europe, there's always been this inclination to put all power in the hands of one single agent, which makes it easier to fight, oppress, and put down the people.

[DumbAss Tanker]

As you're aware, sir, in most of Europe, there's always been this inclination to put all power in the hands of one single agent, which makes it easier to fight, oppress, and put down the people.

I would put it to you that the English Parliamentary system, post-Cromwell, has been less-than-entirely-successful experiment in giving the Legislative branch the dominant power, rather than the dominant Executive that King, Fuehrer, Emperor, Kaiser, Duce, Grand Elector, First Consul, Party Chairman has generally entailed in the rest of Europe.  For England, it often led to a collapse of any cogent national foreign policy while commercial and bureaucratic interests struggled to gain the upper hand pursuing their own unrestrained agendas worldwide.  Only an essentially-uncontested control of the high seas, the valor of British arms on land and sea, and the unwarranted hubris of many of their enemies carried them through the wild swings of funding and orientation of effort produced by Parliamentary politics, and not without the occasional embarassing disaster even then.

[GOBUCKS]

I would put it to you that the English Parliamentary system, post-Cromwell, has been less-than-entirely-successful experiment in giving the Legislative branch the dominant power, rather than the dominant Executive that King, Fuehrer, Emperor, Kaiser, Duce, Grand Elector, First Consul, Party Chairman has generally entailed in the rest of Europe.  For England, it often led to a collapse of any cogent national foreign policy while commercial and bureaucratic interests struggled to gain the upper hand pursuing their own unrestrained agendas worldwide.  Only an essentially-uncontested control of the high seas, the valor of British arms on land and sea, and the unwarranted hubris of many of their enemies carried them through the wild swings of funding and orientation of effort produced by Parliamentary politics, and not without the occasional embarassing disaster even then.

We should get some input on that from a trained historian and journalist.

[Ballygrl]

Europe Is Baffled by the U.S. Supreme Court

Do we really care what a bunch of "crackers" think?

[DumbAss Tanker]

We should get some input on that from a trained historian and journalist.

If only we knew one that spoke English...

 

[franksolich]

We should get some input on that from a trained historian and journalist.

I'm sure that after November, the primitives are going to violently swing back the other way, suddenly seeing the advantages of competing branches of government.

Right now, the primitives have five-sixths of the government (the White House, the Supreme Court, and half of Congress), and it's going pretty good for the primitives.

But after November the primitives may very well end up with only one-third of the government, the Supreme Court, and suddenly the primitives are going to love this one-third, co-equal with the other two-thirds.

The primitives are going to hang on to their respect of three equal branches for dear life.

That is, until the next president changes the composition of the Supreme Court.....

Too bad for the primitives.