ibenez wrote:

k wrote:

ibenez wrote:

WASHINGTON — John Glover Roberts Jr., (search) has been confirmed as the 17th chief justice of the United States.

Excellent. Hopefully he will uphold true conservative values like, less taxes, less social programs, less government, higher morals.

Although, republicans today are like yesterdays democrats so I doubt it.

I rather prefer my supreme court to uphold the constitution. It's their one and only job, after all. I don't deny that a judge's personal belief system influences their interpretation of the constitution, but there's a strict limit on how far that can go. It's one of the foundations of our system, if I recall.

On a separate issue, I have to ask, in regards to the conservative plank which calls for a reduction in social programs, wether it's because you don't believe in providing a safety net for people, or wether you simply believe that the federal government shouldn't be the one providing it? There's a divide on that issue and I've seen both responses, but you seem vocal and committed enough to provide additional information for me. I've also always thought the definition of "social program" is very fuzzy for a lot of people. Is education a social program? Health care? Where's the line drawn?

Healthcare = no.
Education=yes.
Feeding poor people=no.
Housing poor people=no.

Basically, lower taxes and pay for it by getting rid of whatever they are paying for exception military, and basic education.

Why education? What separarates teaching poor people from making sure they have the basic food and shelter to make education function? Should we therefore repeal minimum wage and child labor laws as well? What about things that aren't social programs like anything dealing with agriculture? EPA rules on toxic chemicals? OSHA rules on workplace safety? Transportation? What about things that have clear constitutional mandate like copyright and patents? What about the post office? Why is it ok to bail out S&L's, and airlines but not provide those same things to individuals? If it's New Orleans fault for getting hit by a hurricane and screwing up their disaster preparedness, does it also follow that it's New York's fault for being attacked by terrorists on 9-11?

And what on god's green earth (mostly blue but that's a different point) does this have to do with Roberts? He's not writing the laws that would change any of this, and has stated his position as firmly established in precedent and so seems unlikely to change decisions that would go in this direction. If anything, based on what he has said, this is exactly the sort of thing he will NOT do. It would even seem most likely that if forced to rule on something like gay marriage he would either vote in favor of it, or in favor of disqualifying any governmental recognition of marriage in general under either the due process or freedom of religion clauses.

I'm still waiting to see if he's Earl Warren or not, but he's not his predecessor, that much is obvious.

(How does that work? If the state recognizes marriage, but only as performed in one church as opposed to another, or only some marriages in a single church, then they are taking discriminatory action based on religion, or specifically denigrating one. Oops. I'm just waiting to see how people like Thomas try to figure out a loophole around that one.)

RE: FOXNews.com - Politics - Roberts Confirmed to be Supreme Court Justice