Did You Hear About the Thing With the Thing?

The things in question: a certain health care law, and how the Supreme Court ruled earlier today.

Many observers of the SCOTUS had predicted a 6-3 decision upholding the law, or a 5-4 decision for it, or a 5-4 ruling that declared it unconstitutional. Also in the cards early this morning: partial invalidation of the Affordable Care Act, such as striking the individual mandate but keeping other provisions intact.

But in most cases, Chief Justice John Roberts and occasional swing vote Anthony Kennedy were seen to be voting in the same way. It's practically impossible to find anyone who foresaw the conservative Roberts affirming the law while the moderate Kennedy tried to kill it.

That's because most observers, including me, were working from the assumption that the Justices would NOT consider whether the law was constitutional, but would rather just exercise their usual political hackery and rule one way or another according to their political leanings.

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the final decision -- one of the key players on the right decided to not be an activist judge. Instead, he decided to be a judge judge. Instead of subverting the Constitution of the United States with the Personal Opinion of My Own Prodigious Intellect, he dared to judge the law on its merits. (!!!) Then, he had the audacity to issue a ruling that explained that the legislation was unsavory to his political taste buds, but constitutionally sound. (double !!! !!!)

Listen to the language from the decision, written by the Briefly Esteemed John Roberts:

"The Framers created a Federal Government of limited powers, and assigned to this Court the duty of enforcing those limits. The Court does so today." Already, Roberts' lack of enthusiasm for the law is apparent. As in: I wouldn't support this piece of crap legislation, except that I sort of have to, dagnabbit. "But the Court does not express an opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Care Act. Under the Constitution, that judgment is reserved to the people."

Roberts doesn't even believe the federal government has a right to force people to buy health insurance. He doesn't read the Commerce Clause in that manner. The individual mandate survives only because he agrees that the government can penalize the uninsured. "The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance. Section 5000A [the individual mandate] is therefore constitutional, because it can reasonably be read as a tax."

(I can easily see him saying "tax" in the same tone you and I might use for "f*ck." Easily.)

(Bonus parenthetical comment: Roberts' characterization of the penalty as a "tax" means the Chief Justice is handing Mitt Romney, R-Windup Doll, another billion or so rounds of ammo for the presidential campaign. Goody.)

So it's plain that Congressman John Roberts would have stridently opposed Obamacare. It's plain that Chief Justice John Roberts dislikes the policy preferences that drove Democrats to craft the law. But it's also plain that the man has enough respect for American representative democracy to be content with playing his part, and no more. The intelligent design of checks and balances is not lost on the Chief Justice. Hallelujah, I guess.

I didn't expect to be praising Roberts today. This is the same guy who, when nominated for the SCOTUS position in the first place, conveniently "forgot," under oath, that he ever belonged to the Federalist Society, a group farther to the right than the American Socialist Party is to the left. This is the same guy who lent his approval to Citizens United, the most anti-democratic Court decision of the millennium. Roberts is going to continue to do his best to make life harder for disadvantaged and poorly-connected Americans, for many years probably. He's still, on the whole, a force for corporate interests over the general well-being of the nation. He's still responsible for making sure the health care law didn't compel states to expand Medicaid -- that section DID get stripped -- so at least the right wing's war on the poor continues to go well.

He's still probably guilty of perjury, probably.

But forget all that for another fifteen seconds. Today, Roberts placed his ego beneath the U.S. Constitution.


And sadly, America was surprised.

Scatological, Theological, Same Difference

An anecdote that has the power to make you believe way more, or way less, in heaven and hell. Like everything else in life, the secret is perspective. Time for you to find out what yours is.

SYNOPSIS

A parent overhears his two boys, "Bobby" and "Dave," in the prime of their poop-joke-making days, discussing the afterlife.

CHAPTER ONE (frankly, it's the only chapter)

9:30 on a lazy summer night: bedtime. Bobby, age nine and full of the evening's desperate energy, seized his toothbrush and began to carelessly coat it in toothpaste. Swirls of magenta, white and teal trickled down the bristles at an impossibly slow speed, like a family of mismatched neon slugs.
Bobby's younger brother, Dave, stood at the toilet, giggling while relieving himself. Not an uncommon multitasking activity for the wiggly and precocious six-year-old.
"I used to think that when we died," Bobby said, "if we were bad, we went to a place that was all poop."
Dave giggled, flushed, and started on his own teeth-brushing mission. "And all pee!" he added.
Bobby paused his tooth-brushing long enough to chuckle, then disagree with the younger boy. "No, just everything was made of poop, even the houses."
"Even the food!" Dave chimed in.
"Well, maybe you had to drink pee."
"And the rain could be pee."
"Ewwwwww. Gross." Laughter.
"Ewwwwww." Snickers.
More toothbrushing ensued. Bobby finished first, which allowed him to expound on his earlier point:
"And if we were good, we went to a place where everything was made of gold." 
Dave, not terribly interested in the living conditions of a golden paradise, spit and circled back to the scatological portion of the story.
"And you would drive around in poop cars..."
"It would be so stinky all the time," said Bobby, and the treatise on an afterlife replete with bodily functions would no doubt have gone on for a while, had the boys' father, Jon, not stepped in.
"Finish up guys if you want a chance to read before lights out. And keep the poop talk confined to the bathroom."

THE END (curtain)

You don't need me to spell out the reasons why that anecdote's capable of reinforcing OR threatening the concepts of heaven and hell. And I won't. I'll just say that fire and brimstone no longer sounds like the worst  everlasting punishment ever devised.

The story, obviously, is zero percent fictional. In fact, it's barely an hour old. The names haven't even been adequately changed to protect the guilty parties. Sorry for all the poop.

It's the Numbers Who Are Omnipotent

I believe in Random.

This occurred to me while taking a recent survey. During the questionnaire, I was asked at three points to identify with a religious group or tradition. The first time, I chose "Christian." I didn't hesitate much. That's how I was raised, I philosophically agree with the Golden Rule and that cheek-turning bizness, and thus far, I'm a much better Christian than a Taoist. At least if I get to define the terms.

The second time, I answered "Agnostic." Just to even things out.

The third time, I clicked "Other."

Problem is, the Yellow Pages -- if they even still exist -- are conspicuously unfull of Other Agnostic Christian churches. It's not even a category!

Naturally, long after the survey was complete, the questions poked at me. What am I? Where do I fit? In what do I believe, besides avoiding sentence-ending prepositions? Those are the three big faith-y questions. And they are tough to answer definitively.

Well, I'm pretty sure I believe in Random. Let's steal a phrase from Frankie Baum. I believe in The Great and Powerful Random. Maybe even The Great and Powerful Randomizer.

Probability is omnipotent. A certain percentage of us will:

Get cancer
Win the lottery
Sign divorce papers
Miss our next credit card payment
Wake up with a hangover
Die tomorrow morning
Give birth
Eat Grape-Nuts for breakfast

And with enough research, I can tell you how many people in this country, on July 6, 2012, will meet the eight outcomes listed above. Pick any random date in the immediate future, and I can tell you how Random will act on that date. I can't tell you who Random will choose, who the Great Randomizer has predestined for a happy occasion or a tragic twist of fate.

Ah, but I can tell you that in 2012, x Americans will die in car crashes. I can tell you for certain that the number will be between 20,000 and 40,000. There is a zero-point-zero percent chance that the actual result will fall outside those numbers. Look.

2005: 43,510
2006: 42,708
2007: 41,259
2008: 37,423
2009: 33,883
2010: 32,885
2011: 32,310 (estimate)

(Source: here you go)

I could even make a $1000 bet with you that the 2012 number will fall between 27,000 and 35,000. Not that you would take that bet. You are not stupid. Why would I ever insult you? You are reading my blog! You are one of my favorite people in the world!

Okay. Point: If there is powerful celestial being, it is not as powerful as the numbers that explain probability. Or it has set itself up to be less potent than those numbers. A slave to those numbers, even.

But before you complete the process of burning me at the stake, let me say a couple more things.

You can not prove God exists; you can prove probability exists.

You cannot disprove God choosing to intervene in someone's personal life; you cannot disprove the force of random chance in a population of 300 million.

Taken as a whole, the past two paragraphs lead me to believe first in the supreme power of probability, and to begin crafting a theology around that. Do I have to reject a Judeo-Christian God-figure, as a result? Of course not. I just have to place that god's power one notch below the might of numbers.