Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Supreme Court Establishes Right to Gay Marriage

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The United States Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 that marriage is a fundamental human right, and that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause requires states to confer civil marriage to same-sex couples, and that states must recognize same-sex marriages conferred by other states.

In its majority opinion, the court said that, “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. . . . [The petitioners’] hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.” With regard to interstate recognition, which was perhaps the simplest question before the court (due to the ‘full faith and credit’ clause), the court sidestepped the issue entirely and stated that the establishment of a national right to same-sex marriage removed any lawful basis for refusal to recognize such marriages conferred by other states.

In Chief Justice John Roberts’s dissent, he argues that the Supreme Court has overstepped its authority by legislating from the bench. This is a curious argument, as Roberts only yesterday released a majority opinion in which he rewrote a portion of the Affordable Care Act.

The majority opinion was issued by Justice Anthony Kennedy, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagen. The other four justices issued several overlapping dissents: one issued by Chief Justice Roberts and joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas; one issued by Justice Scalia and joined by Justice Thomas; one issued by Justice Thomas and joined by Justice Scalia; and finally one issued by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by Justices Scalia and Thomas.

Supreme Court Upholds ACA Federal Exchange Subsidies

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The United States Supreme Court has ruled 6-3 to uphold healthcare tax credits and subsidies through the Affordable Care Act’s federal insurance exchange, in direct contradiction of the law as-written. This is a major court victory for President Barack Obama’s (D) administration.

At issue in this case is the structure of the Affordable Care Act, the health care reform law colloquially known as ObamaCare. Under the law, states have the option of setting up their own health insurance exchanges. If a state chooses not to create an exchange, the federal government will cover that state’s citizens via a federal exchange (the HealthCare.gov web site). Under ObamaCare, a number of tax credits and subsidies are made available to citizens—particularly those with low incomes—to make their health insurance more affordable. However, the law itself establishes these credits and subsidies only in “an Exchange established by the state . . . ,” quite clearly excluding the federal exchange.

In this ruling, the Supreme Court has claimed that the phrase, “an Exchange established by the state,” is ambiguous and should be properly understood as applying to both state and federal exchanges. The ruling appears to be based on an assumption that the intent of the authors of ObamaCare was to extend these credits and subsidies to all who qualify, regardless of what exchange they are in. This may be true, but runs directly counter to the clear text of the law. In its ruling, the court does acknowledge that the ObamaCare law contains “more than a few examples of inartful drafting,” but instead of taking the law at its word, the court has attempted to rewrite it in line with legislative intent.

A fiery minority opinion referred to the majority opinion as “quite absurd,” and points out that between this ruling and an earlier ruling where the court redefined a fine as a tax, perhaps ObamaCare should be known as SCOTUScare (SCOTUS being a common abbreviation for the Supreme Court of the United States). Indeed, we have now established court precedents at the highest level that arbitrarily redefine ‘fine’ to mean ‘tax’ and ‘state’ to mean ‘state and federal.’ This raises serious questions about whether any law can be presumed to mean exactly what it says, and about the level of authority the Supreme Court has asserted to modify duly passed and signed legislation.

The ruling was delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito filed a dissent.

Cuba, Iran, and Diplomacy

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Dear fellow conservatives, let’s get a few things straight. We’re supposed to be all about the constitutional separation of power, and prudent and responsible action on the international stage. Within our ranks there will be disagreements about how to act (or not act) on specific issues, but let’s try to remember our core principles and not let blind politics get in our way.

First, the U.S. Constitution gives primary responsibility for international affairs to the president and the executive branch. Whether you and I agree or disagree with President Barack Obama (D) and his administration on foreign policy matters, we have to accept that they are his responsibility. Congressional efforts to interfere with executive actions with regard to Cuba and Iran are unconstitutional and improper. Congress has the authority to declare war, and the U.S. Senate has the power to ratify (or not ratify) any formal treaties brought before them. The Congress can exercise those specific powers all it wants. Otherwise, foreign affairs are none of its business.

Second, let’s not lose track of what we want to accomplish. I tend toward the ‘neoconservative’ side of the spectrum and I’m fine with being very active on the world stage, with military force when needed . . . but we must be smart, and we must always be open to diplomacy until it has been proven completely ineffective.

We normalized our relationship with the People’s Republic of China under President Richard Nixon (R), and it has been good for us and it has been good for the people of China. We could have maintained our diplomatic and economic stonewall, or, worse, gone to war with them, but in that particular case those would have been very poor choices. The lack of diplomatic and economic relations was not leading to change in China, and war would have killed millions (or even billions) and also not affected any positive change. Our best option was to try and get China to open itself to the rest of civilization . . . and it worked. China still has serious problems with human rights and political liberty, but it is light years ahead of where it was, in large part because of its robust political and economic ties with the west.

Similarly, President Ronald Reagan (R) made serious efforts to engage with the Soviet Union, and thereby helped lay the groundwork that led to economic modernization and, eventually, the collapse of a terrible regime. The Soviet Union had to earn our trust, and it took time, but in the end diplomacy worked.

This isn’t always the right course of action; I would argue that deposing Saddam Hussein was the best possible option for Iraq, as diplomacy really had failed. Smart people can disagree about what the right approaches are in specific cases. But we can’t assume that diplomatic and economic stonewalls, or war, are automatically the best way to handle isolated and despotic regimes. We must be open to using diplomacy and economic relations to advance the march of freedom, even if we have to ‘hold our noses’ and deal with some really bad regimes in the process.

I would argue that the normalization of relations with Cuba, recently initiated by President Obama, is likely to affect Cuba much like it affected China. It is the best among the available options. Iran is a more difficult case, given its efforts to develop nuclear weapons capability, its fervent antisemitism, and its unapologetic support of Islamic terrorism, but we can’t assume that continued sanctions and diplomatic silence are the best way to move forward. We must be willing to talk, and to give them the chance to make incremental improvements and build trust. That’s what we did with China, and what we did with the Soviet Union.

It doesn’t always work. President Bill Clinton (D) made similar deals with North Korea, and they promptly subverted and violated those agreements and eviscerated the small amount of trust they had earned. There are no guarantees here. But let’s be open to giving Cuba and Iran a chance to surprise us, and let’s not blindly condemn President Obama for being willing to negotiate with the devil . . . just like Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton before him.

Alaska Cruise 2015 Photos

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In celebration of our tenth anniversary, Melissa and I went on a fourteen-day Alaska cruise. On Monday, May 18, we flew from Washington Dulles International Airport to SeaTac Airport near Seattle, Washington, where we embarked upon Holland America Line’s m.s. Statendam. My long time readers may recognize the ship name; we sailed on the Statendam for our honeymoon just about ten years ago. We have always loved the Statendam and other smaller cruise ships, and of course there was great sentimental value in coming back to the same ship.

Statendam has seen some upgrades in the last decade, but most of it remains very familiar. Sadly though, its days are numbered. Statendam will be going into dry-dock later this year to be refitted and transferred to P&O Australia, where it will be called the Pacific Eden.

Our cruise left Seattle on the afternoon of May 18, and returned there on the morning June 1. The ports of call along the way were Ketchikan, Juneau, Icy Strait Point, Anchorage, Homer, Kodiak, and Sitka, Alaska, and then Victoria, British Columbia. In addition there were several days at sea or cruising scenic fjords and inlets, which took us to Tracy Arm and the Sawyer Glacier, as well as the Hubbard Glacier. We stayed for a couple extra days in Seattle at the end, and returned home the evening of June 3.

We had a wonderful time—it was incredibly relaxing, and the service (and food) on Holland America Line is just as wonderful as we remembered. We have cruised on a number of different lines, and Holland America remains our distant favorite. Anyway, I could write a novel about our trip, but instead of that I’ll just post over seven-hundred photos. Enjoy!

Read more . . .

So-Called Journalism

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Here on my tenth-anniversary cruise vacation to Alaska, I have spent relatively little time following the news. On port days where I have wireless Internet access, I am catching up on some of the major headlines, but other than that it’s just occasional ‘catch-up’ sessions with the news channels available on our stateroom television.

There are three news networks available here on the ship: MSNBC, Fox News Channel, and British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World News. So my options are American news with a hard-left bias, American news with a hard-right bias, and international news with a . . . British bias? I am spending most of my time on BBC, which is the least offensive of the available options. It seems to be about on-par with CNN, which is the closest thing to television journalism we have left in the United States.

But sometimes the BBC’s journalistic integrity goes out the window, and they suddenly become fearful of speaking the plain truth. As a prime example, consider their coverage of the Islamic State (I.S.), formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Many of the BBC’s presenters have been repeatedly referring to I.S. as the ‘so-called Islamic State.’

So-called? Look, it would be journalistic malpractice to paint I.S. as being fully representative of Islam generally, so I understand that we have to be precise about how we discuss them and how we use their name. But at the same time, a dispassionate and accurate report about I.S. cannot separate it from the Islamic religion. Those who founded and support I.S. believe that they are following Qur’anic Islam. Whether they are right or wrong, their name accurately reflects their intent, and their intent is an essential part of the story.

The way that media outlets can separate the I.S. from Islam itself is not to editorialize every time they mention its name, but to interview Muslims who oppose I.S., quote from clerics who condemn them, and—most importantly—show the death and destruction that they have wrought in the lives of the mostly Islamic people of Iraq and Syria. But we can’t gloss over what the supporters of the I.S. believe, and we can’t pretend it has no direct connection to Islam or the Qur’an.

Supporters of I.S. believe that they are creating a new caliphate, a unified Muslim political and religious authority, in accordance with Qur’anic teaching and Islamic tradition. This is the truth, no matter what the ‘so-called journalists’ at the BBC think.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.