Do you ever get the idea that the American people - or those that respond to media surveys, anyway - are utterly ignorant of what the original purpose of the United States Supreme Court was and is supposed to be? And a great many other things, of course, but let's just focus on this one.
For example, take this ABC News/Washington Post poll on King v. Burwell:
Americans want the Supreme Court to leave ObamaCare premium subsidies alone, even as they disapprove of the law generally, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Monday.
Respondents said they oppose the law by a margin of 54% to 39%. But 55% said the justices should not block subsidies from Americans enrolled through the federal [Una]ffordable Care Act exchange, rather than a state exchange. Thirty-eight percent said they should.
We've got a tangle of conflicting impulses in these results:
1) A majority of Americans oppose ObamaCare;
2) A majority of Americans want ObamaCare subsidies more than they want ObamaCare repealed....which would necessarily entail the termination of subsidies.
So Americans are hopelessly confused about ObamaCare, and we haven't even gotten to the SCOTUS's role in this thicket.
To wit: What has the High Court got to do with either ObamaCare or illegal subsidies for policies purloined through healtcare.gov? Answer: the aforementioned King v. Burwell, in which plaintiffs reasonably point out that there is no provision in the UCA for subsidies for any policy not obtained through a "State" cartel. The reason, of course, why the UCA made no provision for federal subsidies for federally-obtained policies is because it never occurred to either the Regime or the then-Donk SuperCongress that any State would not enthusiastically and toadyingly create their own cartels. As reality actually unfolded, though, only fourteen States did so, and several of those have given up after their hugely expensive glitch-fests. Consequently, most Americans have been dumped in Obama's glitchfest....for which the UCA makes no subsidy provision. So his majesty just waved his magic putter and wrote federal policy subsidies into the law....something he is not constitutionally and legally authorized to do. Which is the plaintiffs' point and what they are seeking to enforce in order to stop the Regime from unlawfully legislating itself out of the full force of public anger and outrage over the consequences O himself sought to precipitate.
Put another way, if a majority of Americans truly oppose ObamaCare, they should not be illegally anesthetized from the full pain of its effects.
Actions - and mistakes - should, in other words, have consequences. Like, for example, electing and re-electing Barack Hussein Obama.
And yet the same majority that purportedly opposes ObamaCare wants exactly that - to be spared the consequences of their voting actions....and they are demanding that the SCOTUS provide that shield.
Which is not the role of the Supreme Court. Nowhere in Article III is it authorized to serve as a legislative adjunct. Fundamentally, all it is authorized to do is apply constitutional doctrine and law in specifically enumerated contexts.
Section 2:
The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;....[emphases added]
It goes on, but the aforequoted is sufficient for our purposes. ObamaCare did not "arise under this Constitution" and was not "enacted under their authority"; it is, both jointly and severally, flagrantly unconstitutional, no matter what jurisprudential abra-cadabras Chief Justice Roberts came up with ("It's a fine....except when Obama needs it to be a tax!"), and which the power to impose ("judicial review") is also not found enumerated anywhere in Article III, no matter what Chief Justice John Marshall glommed two hundred nine years earlier.
Thus, the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell are asking the SCOTUS to enforce an unconstitutionally modified portion of an unconstitutional law that the public doesn't like even though they twice voted for it but doesn't want the SCOTUS to enforce. Or, put another way, the more ignorant the American majority becomes, the more confused they render the rest of us in our task of straightening them out.
The U.S. Supreme Court exists to limitedly apply constitutional federal laws, not to enact or carry out policy objectives. Yet that is how a majority of Americans see the High Court's mission. And when Americans don't see the mission being accomplished per their own preferred policy ends, this is the polling results we get:
Americans are leery of how the Supreme Court will handle upcoming landmark decisions on Obamacare and same-sex marriage, according to a new CNN/ORC poll, even though they mostly approve of how the court handles its business overall.
The poll, conducted of 1,025 adults....
Which means it's inaccurate and irrelevant.
....at the end of May, showed that 52% approve of the Supreme Court's overall performance, with 41% disapproving, an improvement from a 48% each-way split two years ago.
Why is the SCOTUS being polled for public approval of its "performance" when they are not an elected body? The only such question should be, "Is the U.S. Supreme Court limitedly apply constitutional federal laws?" If it is, great; if it's not, Congress can impeach them all.
But the public sees the question in policy terms, and the Court itself as a "super-legislature," rather than seeking to hold the two elected branches of the federal government accountable for its "performance".
However, the ratings were worse on healthcare and same-sex marriage, with only about half saying they have at least a moderate amount of trust in the court as it considers those issues.
Trust that they will rule the "right" way, as opposed to according to the un-penumbraed Constitution as written and originally intended.
On healthcare, with the court considering if the law should allow subsidies for people purchasing policies through the federal exchange:
43% approve of ObamaCare overall, matching a previous high in 2013, with 55% opposed.
Democrats like it, Republicans and most independents don't.
11% agree ObamaCare is an overall success.
Communists and the clinically insane.
35% say it has been a failure.
Conservatives.
53% say it's too soon to make a judgment.
Somnolents, tequila coma sufferers, and reefer addicts.
64% of those who favor ObamaCare trust the court to handle healthcare policy, compared to only 39% who are opposed.
Which means one of several things, all but one of them, again, policy related as opposed to the Court's actual constitutional role, which it abandoned over two centuries ago.
Now we come to the completely non-controversial topic of....sodomarriage:
63% say they believe gay and lesbian couples have a constitutional right to marry, with 49% said that was a constitutional right as recently as 2010.
This question should not be in any survey, because a cursory reading of the Constitution will find no mention of even the word "marriage" in any of its seven Articles or twenty-seven Amendments. And any issue not mentioned therein is referred to Amendment IX....
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
....and Amendment X:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Marriage is, therefore, a State issue, and not the purview of the SCOTUS. And consequently, the SCOTUS should not have taken this case, because they are not constitutionally authorized to do so because the subject matter is not constitutionally relevant to it. And the High Court without question has no legal authority to write a non-existent "right to rump ranger nuptials" into the margins with its box of adjudicative Crayolas.
But they're probably going to do so anyway. Which, I guess, means I don't approve of the SCOTUS's "job performance". While the majority will make that call depending upon whether they get what they want:
63% of those agree on a constitutional right to same-sex marriage say they trust the court at least a moderate amount on the issue.
Only 25% of those who disagree trust the court.
Which tells you all you need to know about how the public thinks the Court will rule on sodomarriage imposition. But even the diminishing minority of opponents largely don't understand why they distrust Olympus, because if they did, they'd understand that the Court already erred by taking a case it was not constitutionally entitled to hear in the first place.
If Americans don't want ObamaCare, let them elect a Congress and a POTUS that will repeal it. If they do, let them petition their State governments to enact it. Ditto sodomarriage. Keep the federal government out of both and a helluva lot else, since it lacks any such constitutional authority to begin with.
That'll be the day.
D'ya see why I say this will be the work of generations?
UPDATE: By the way, see if you can tell how Barack Obama thinks the SCOTUS will rule on King v. Burwell:
Barack Obama says the U.S. Supreme Court probably shouldn't have taken up the latest challenges to his signature health care law.
And he's kind of right, though for all the wrong reasons. But then, if the Supremes had struck down the Individual Mandate three years ago, O-Care would have been aborted in its metaphorical crib, and King v. Burwell would never have existed.
Obama says there was no reason for the health program to end up in court, maintaining that "it's working."
Oh, yeah, it's working, alright....
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