If It Quacks Like a Duck...

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts surprised many this week by concluding that the penalty imposed on individuals for failing to obtain health insurance under the new Affordable Care Act is a tax. Taxes, unpleasant as they may be, are constitutional when properly levied by Congress. Roberts’ conclusion kept the law called Obamacare alive.

“Tax” is one of the dirtiest of words in this country, largely because of the perception that the revenues from taxes are wasted by the bodies that levy them or used for unnecessary purposes. It was a conservative, not a liberal, argument that the ACA created a new tax. The Obama administration bent over backwards to assure everyone that there was no “T” word involved.

The complaint about forcing people to buy health insurance through a penalty structure is that they are paying to support something they don’t need. But there are plenty of taxes we accept as necessary. We support fire and police departments, even though we could go decades without ever having to call either one for service. Their existence not only provides peace of mind – they are seen as being something that benefits everyone in the community. To a lesser extent, the same is true of public education – our taxes support it, whether or not we have children in school ourselves, on the grounds that educating children provides a public benefit. The principle behind the Affordable Care Act is the same, the public benefit being that easier access to health care provides for a healthier population, and less, not more, demand on expensive health care services.

Which federal agency gets to collect the penalty in the Affordable Care Act? The Internal Revenue Service, of course. Buying health insurance is a means of avoiding the tax. A common use of our modern tax structure is encouraging, or discouraging, behavior.

But one very American trait is our insistence on results – quick results, if possible. It remains to be seen whether the ACA will fulfill the expectations created by its supporters. There are plenty of us who simply don’t want to take that risk. In any case, that’s not the Supreme Court’s concern. Its job is over. Chief Justice Roberts and the majority have determined that it’s a duck because it quacks like one. It’s our job, and that of our representatives in Congress and the next president, to determine whether the duck should live – and if so, how it should live.

Triple COA

Brilliant.

No we see why lawyers get to charge so much. The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling gives both major parties something to crow about – and saves the Court’s reputation at the same time.

With the majority opinion that the individual must buy health insurance or pay a penalty is essentially taxation, and that taxes, of course, are constitutionally OK, saves the health care law. The time and effort President Obama and others spent on getting it passed wasn’t wasted, or so they will be able to say.

But conservatives have argued all along that it’s a not-so-hidden tax, and the only way you avoid it is by buying health insurance from private suppliers. Which means, the only way to get rid of it, the commentators say, is to elect Mitt Romney and make both the House and Senate Republican in the November election. Far from ending the debate on this issue, the Court’s ruling throws a little gasoline on the fire.

According to the reports, the deciding vote on the Court was cast by Chief Justice John Roberts. So now, the court gets to say, see, we’re not the ee-vil reactionaries you’ve been thinking we are (or at least Roberts gets to say that).

I’ve always thought the general principles of the law are a good thing, and that it solves quite a few problems, but not enough. There’s nothing in it about tort reform – and there should be. It remains to be seen how effective the regulations on transparency will be at holding down health care costs. I have my doubts.

For now, though, the Supreme Court’s ruling may not quite be a perfect game, but it’s definitely a political triple play.

Raising, or Sinking, Arizona

The Supreme Court’s long-awaited ruling on Arizona’s controversial immigration law has left some happy, others sad, and still others scratching their heads. The third group is largely populated, as you might expect, by lawyers.

The key provision of the law, which calls on police to verify an individual’s immigration status if that person is stopped for another reason, and the officer has cause to suspect the person is an illegal immigrant, was upheld by the court. Some call this a victory for Arizona, but others say that since the ruling doesn’t prevent litigation if the officer behaves unconstitutionally, the law is toothless. Three other provisions of the law were struck down, mostly on the ground that they’re already covered under federal law – which critics say the federal government isn’t enforcing.

So basically, we’ve got to call in the referee to see if the ball has actually been moved. But at least we’re talking about it.

Immigration is one of those “third-rail” subjects that most politicians seem not to want to address, mainly because it’s too difficult and almost any solution seems unfair. President Obama recently announced a plan to relax enforcement of the law on young people, especially college students, who were brought here illegally by their parents and raised as Americans. It was certainly the right thing to do, but in a political sense, it was a questionable time to do it.

We have to come up with a balanced solution that falls somewhere between deporting all illegal immigrants and declaring amnesty – and it must be clearly understood that it’s going to affect the pocketbooks of everyone who lives here. Already, farmers are complaining that a lack of laborers may force them to grow fewer crops. Replace the illegal farmworkers with American citizens? Good luck. Farmers say the average “ordinary American” who tries to do stoop labor gives up after one or two days in the field. Maybe we need a new bracero program. Fully enforce laws against employers who hire illegals? Sounds good – except how many businesses would be shut down by such actions? How much of a job creator would that be? And if illegals were replaced by presumably more expensive American citizens, how much more would the rest of us be paying for the products and services involved?

Immigration laws aren’t nearly as hard and fast as people say they would like them to be. When we need particular classes of workers, like engineers from India, for example, the laws are tweaked to accommodate the need. And it’s not new. Immediate citizenship was offered to Irish immigrants getting off the boat during the Civil War if they would simply join the Union Army.

We need to recognize that illegal workers are an integral part of our current economy, and if we’re going to make changes, we have to be very clear ahead of time about what we’ll be getting ourselves into.

Sandusky's Other Victims

The conviction of Jerry Sandusky on child sexual abuse charges brings a rightful close to an unhappy chapter in the lives of his victims, but it’s just the first chapter of a long story. There will likely be an appeal, and much more likely, civil litigation, and the victim pool will spread. I wonder what’s going to happen to Penn State University. Will the cover-up, apparently perpetrated by a few, result in the collapse of a respected institution, affecting students, faculty, employees, and in some way, an entire college town?

The good news, though unpleasant, is that thanks to cases like this and those involving the Catholic Church – and with special thanks to those willing to come forward to talk about what’s happened to them -- this form of abuse, which has been shrouded in shame and secrecy, is coming to the surface to be dealt with. One of the “victims” will be our complacency about it. There just isn’t any more room under the rug.

And we’re going to discover how common this sort of thing is. The most difficult point to grasp may be that while the predation involved in these cases is a crime, the mere predilection, while perverted, is not, if there's no overt action that follows. Some men who are subject to it have no victims – they realize what their problem is and seek help for it.

This goes back to what we might call brain wiring. Where does this urge come from? Is it caused by a traumatic sexual experience in childhood? Is there a genetic predisposition to it? What’s the solution for those who have it – treatment, castration, banishment for life to Devil’s Island, or exorcism? In his own way, is Jerry Sandusky himself, at least in some small measure, a victim?

Judgment is the easy part. The criminal justice system can deal effectively and appropriately, as it has in this case, with predatory behavior. Delving into the mystery of what makes human beings tick – especially at the wrong rhythm -- is a lot harder. But if there’s a cure, it’s that process that will help us discover it.

Is Putin's Ego Assad's Nightmare?

News reports coming out of the talks in Mexico indicate that Syrian President Bashir al-Asssad may no longer have Vladimir Putin watching his back.

This shift ties in with a cable commentator’s recent observation about Putin. The same guy who shows off his bare chest to his people, she said, clearly cares what the world thinks of him, and would ideally like to be cast as the hero in this situation.

Heroism might have applied 13,000-plus fatalities ago, but if Putin really is pulling the plug on Assad, at least the ball appears to be moving forward. The question of course is, forward to what?

Personally, I’d be satisfied, as I said earlier, if the Russians offered the Assad family a nice dacha on the Black Sea as an enticement to leave Syria. But in light of what many Syrians and much of the world consider Assad’s war crimes, the challenge, even for Russia, might be getting him and his family out alive.

Which brings us back to “then what?” Removing Assad is only the beginning of the story. There are plenty of Syrians with revenge in their hearts, and many factions will be jockeying for power. I’m reminded of the scenes in the movie “Lawrence of Arabia” in which various Arab tribes are vying for control of Damascus. One tribe has occupied the water works, another the electric power generating system, and very little is working.

That’s quaint compared to the present situation. Rebel forces in Syria now will likely insist on a purge of Alawites – Assad’s sect of Islam – from government. But some of these people clearly are going to be needed to help run whatever new government follows. There are plenty of non-Alawites who have benefited for decades from the current power structure and won’t be happy to see it changed.

Will all these parties have enough sense to sit down and come up with some scheme to share power, or will they insist on fighting it out? Will the rest of the world be compelled to put “boots on the ground” in Syria to keep the factions apart? If that happens, will the West – or the East, for that matter -- be able to resist the temptation to nation-build? As if there aren’t enough concerns, Syria may end up as a sideshow to what could happen in Iran.

No Asterisk for Bradley

Well, my wife, my brother-in-law and I watched the replay of the Pacquiao-Bradley championship fight on HBO. My wife and I had it 115-113 Pacquiao. My brother-in-law had it a draw. We are all experienced fight-watchers.

I did not keep the pledge that I made, which was to watch the fight with the sound turned off, so as not to be influenced by the allegedly biased commentary of the HBO crew. I did disagree with them in spots, and I strongly disagreed with Harold Lederman, who overwhelmingly scored the fight in favor of Manny Pacquiao. Unusual, because I agree with Harold most of the time.

Bradley seemed to score more points in terms of landing punches, but Pacquiao seemed to have more effect when he landed his. There was indeed a power differential. But Bradley showed himself to be, if not the worthiest opponent for Pacquiao so far, at least one of them.

So was the official decision questionable, or worthy of an investigation? ABSOLUTELY NOT! The decision falls well within the parameters of what any reasonable group of judges would have done – the fight was that close.

The bottom line is that we should all allow Timothy Bradley to enjoy his victory. He’s the champ, and there’s no asterisk involved.

Cleaning Up the Syrian Mess: Whose Job Is It?

This week, the U.N. officially declared the situation in Syria a civil war. Which I guess means the Syrian opposition is doing a better job of fighting back against the government that has been murdering civilians with a mechanized army and using militias to slaughter children.

Except maybe it constitutes another excuse for the free world to stand back and let the slaughter continue. Some countries have contented themselves with supplying weapons to the Free Syrian Army and other opposition factions. The United States has limited its support to night-vision and communications equipment.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Russia to stop supplying the Syrian government with attack helicopters. What color is the pot calling the kettle? Like the United States has never supplied weapons to its allies in the past, right?

In this space a few months and about 4,000 fatalities ago, I suggested the U.S. could send a message to the Assad regime by knocking out one tank or one piece of heavy artillery used by the Syrian army to shell civilian populations – something that says, “We don’t want a war with you, but it’s time to knock it off.” Of course, for every such suggestion, there are 20 analysts who explain why it’s not a good idea.

One expert I heard the other day said that the Obama administration has resisted getting involved militarily because the President doesn’t want to risk a possible foreign policy stumble, which would blemish what many consider his stellar record in this area before November.

There are many who want the Assad regime to remain, only out of fear about what may replace it. But now we have an official civil war. Unlike the one we had here in the 1860s, this will have multiple sides before it's over. Almost everyone agrees there is no scenario under which the Assad family can remain in power – perhaps even remain alive, unless they get out of Dodge. Those standing on the sidelines have resisted involvement for fear of making a mess, but the mess is being made anyway. How has non-involvement helped?

The bottom line is that the rest of the world is going to have to be involved at some level. Unlike Iraq, Syria is said to have real biological and chemical weapon stockpiles. Who’s going to be in charge of those when the current structure collapses?

The U.S. and other Western powers may not have made the Syrian mess, but at some point it will be time to clean it up, and we’re all going to have to get our hands dirty.

In Search of a Clear Win

When I woke up this morning, I was surprised that we were not already at war with the Philippines, following the controversial boxing match in Las Vegas between Timothy Bradley of Palm Springs and Filipino sensation Manny Pacquiao. I did not watch the fight (pay-per-view’s a little steep), but read the comments of many inside and outside the sport. The general consensus: Pacquaio, not Bradley, should have been declared the winner.

While Bradley fought aggressively, the statistics-keepers concluded that Pacquaio scored more points and that Bradley’s punches did not connect as often. But the three judges, at least two of whom were well known and well respected in the sport, came up with a close split decision in Bradley’s favor. So shocking was this that many observers reasoned that the fight – or at least the scoring – was fixed.

We’re all familiar with the phenomenon whereby different people watching the same event can report completely different perceptions of what happened. I always thought that a challenger – in this case, Bradley – had to show clear superiority over the champion to deprive him of his belt. That certainly was not the case here. The bottom line for me is that if Harold Lederman of HBO thought Pacquiao won, he should have. I have disagreed with Harold on individual rounds here and there while watching fights, but we have always agreed on outcomes.

A lot has to be said for Bradley, in that Pacquiao apparently hit him with everything he had during the fight, and Bradley never went down. Much also has to be said for Pacquiao, who reportedly went up to Bradley’s father after the fight and told him his son would be a great champion.

Bradley’s victory is a big deal for Palm Springs – in fact, all of California’s Coachella Valley. He grew up in a very poor area and earned every inch of his way to the top levels of his sport. But a decision like the one in Las Vegas seems not only unfair to Pacquiao, but also to Bradley, whose elevation to champion may be marked with an asterisk in the minds of many until the expected rematch.

Maybe there’s a misalignment in the heavens this week. Pacquiao should still be the champ, “I’ll Have Another” should have won the Triple Crown, and the L.A. Kings should be carrying the Stanley Cup. But hey, it’s only sports, right?

Making the Scene

I have a friend who likes to go where it’s happening. She’s been to the Indy 500 and the Kentucky Derby. She’s been to see Jay Leno in L.A., Kelly and former co-host Regis in NYC (even ran in the annual high-heels race), was a judge in the Nathan’s hot-dog-eating contest, and saw Garrison Keillor in Minnesota and Punxsatawney Phil, the famous groundhog, in Pennsylvania. This month she had a terrible dilemma – whether to go to London for Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee or to the Belmont to see a possible Triple Crown winner. She chose the horse race, though, of course, it was to be a disappointment. At least she would get to see “I’ll Have Another” lead the post parade at the start of the event.

Now my friend, of course, could stay home and consume all this stuff on TV like the rest of us – but that’s not good enough. For her, there’s just no substitute for being there.

Theoretically, you would think that the price of admission to all these things would be diluted by the ability to consume them electronically, but it doesn’t work that way. The big events continue to sell out, sometimes in seconds after the tickets are available. Even the pay-per-view tickets for electronic consumption go up in price, not down.

Much has been written about our need to have a collective experience. And I don’t mean those feeble sociial media vehicles like “Jane is reading...” or “Fred listened to…” Personally, I think that’s a little creepy. I don’t necessarily want people knowing what I’m watching or reading, unless I affirmatively want to share it. Some of my friends would approve of what I consume – and others not – so I’m selective about whose business I make it.

But there is no substitute for that live collective event, especially if it’s a competition, like the World Series, the Super Bowl, or even “American Idol” and its spawn, though why they should turn singing and dancing into an Olympic sport with winners and losers is a little beyond me -- but it sells.

For most of us, though, the ultimate experience is actually being there with other human beings, or having some direct participatory experience. It doesn’t have to be a happy thing – it could be a tragedy or a disaster – or even how we avoided a tragedy or a disaster, such as those who missed Flight 93 on 9/11. I had another friend, a reporter, whose flight was cancelled because of snow, forcing him to miss a trip to Jonestown, Guyana, the day of the mass suicide there – he would very likely have been shot to death.

While technological advances over the last half-century have been nothing short of miraculous, even those who consider themselves super-connected and plugged in will discover that there’s just something missing. If you’re there, you really do have something to share. The ultimate need is to tell somebody, “This is what happened to me!”

Admit It: Royalty Is Cool

It’s expensive. It’s frivolous. It changes nothing. So why are many of us fascinated by royalty, especially the British version? And why this particular British monarch?

We’re Americans, you may say, we’ve done just fine without all that. Well, no, we haven’t – done without it, by any stretch. We’re constantly crowning kings and queens, especially in entertainment and sports. The closest we came to it in government, perhaps, involved JFK and Jackie, but somehow, it never quite satisfied.

Sure, we fought for independence from Britain and won it, but our founding fathers started out as British subjects. Much of our legal system follows British traditions. “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” is really just a cover song (“God Save the Queen”).

When I was a little boy, I collected stamps. American stamps were great, but they didn’t do it for me – I specialized in the British Empire, back when there was one. There was nothing quite as impressive in the philatelic world as the stamps from a British colony, always with the king or queen on the side.

British kings and queens have been far from perfect. Some have been scoundrels, even murderers. In more recent times, even as their power has diminished in the U.K., their public personae have taken a distinct turn for the better. For those who don’t read a lot of history, Hollywood has filled in the gaps with offerings such as “The Queen” and “The King’s Speech,” showing us how the monarchy, useless as it may be portrayed much of the time, has been the rock in periods of great stress.

Elizabeth has been no different. As a child during World War II, she took to the radio airwaves to boost the spirits of displaced British children. More recently, she has been able to maintain her dignity while surrounded by, to put it mildly, some wacky family members. And while from the outside, being born into a royal family may symbolize a life of comfort and privilege, royals are basically condemned for life to a long series of duties in what amounts to a gilded prison. Yet, Elizabeth, at 86, spent hours waving to her subjects at her Diamond Jubilee, much of it standing up.

And she seems to be one of the few British women that have a modicum of sensible taste in hats.