You people need a reality check.

And by "you people" I don't mean anyone in particular.  I mean a lot of freaking people though.  That's for sure.

John Roberts isn't some Constitutional Yoda, trying to gut the Commerce Clause by siding with four liberals who literally believe that the Commerce Clause provides limitless federal power.  And he also isn't the next Souteresque turncoat to betray his conservative backers and sell out to the dark side.

He's an honest man.  That's all.  Congress has the power to tax.  Congress regularly (frequently?) uses this power unfairly and in a way that is an insult to a republican form of government.  Our lying president's neverending lies notwithstanding, Obamacare's main vehicle of enforcement is a tax.  Just like you pay higher taxes if you smoke.  Just like you pay higher taxes if you drive a lot.  Just like you paid lower taxes if you bought an overpriced home a couple of years ago.  Just like you paid higher taxes if you didn't trade in an old car a couple of years ago.  Just like you pay higher taxes if you don't get solar panels installed on your house.  A tax is a tax is a tax.  They decide which of us will pay a higher rate, for whatever reasons they damn well please.

Two years ago, they decided that healthy people who want to keep their money should pay higher taxes.  We can whine about socialism and all the rest of it but, at the end of the day, Congress has the power to tax.  And the taxpayers have the power to elect a new Congress.  It's that simple.

Singling out one segment of the population for better or worse taxation than another segment of the population is nothing new.  They do it all the time.  They shouldn't do it.  If common sense had always prevailed in this country, we never would have allowed them to do it.  Bud we did allow it.  And they do do it.  Lying like a lying liar who lies a lot doesn't fundamentally alter the president's approach to Obamacare.  He and Pelosi/Reid decided that people who act like good little soldiers will get one type of tax treatment while those who refuse to play along will get another type of tax treatment.  This runs perfectly contrary to the ideals of the Constitution, yet it's perfectly Constitutional.

If you don't like the laws, elect better lawmakers.  Dictating the purchasing habits of individuals is abhorrent and completely antithetical to everything for which America once stood. But a law passed by dubious means (the use of 'reconciliation' when it was clearly not about reconciling appropriations to the budget) has a weakness of its own.  To wit, it can be repealed by the same dubious means.  Either elect people who will repeal Obamacare or accept that your fellow citizens elected the people who enacted it.  Stop counting on judges to enforce their views on the voters who choose to vote otherwise.  Here's looking at you - gay marriage and abortion supporters.

Honesty is sorely lacking in our political system.  But we can stand up and assert our rights at the ballot box, if we so choose.  We chose not to do so when they lied to us about Social Security, and so it became a sacred cow.  We chose not to do so when they lied to us about Medicare, and so it became a sacred cow.  Within a few months, I suspect that we'll have chosen not to do so when they lied to us about Obamacare.  And it too will become a sacred cow.

Cows taste pretty good when you devour them.  But, left to their own devices, they grow fatter and fatter and basically stink like shit.  There's a lesson in there somewhere, I think.

But enough with the overanalysis and pseudoanalysis about what John Roberts is or is not.  You and I won't know what his strategic thinking was until he decides to tell us what his strategic thinking was.  What we can look at is the opinion that was issued.  The Commerce Clause would go too far by requiring us to purchase a product as a condition of being alive.  Yeah, that's pretty obvious.  And a payment required by the government, collected by the IRS, is a tax.  Duh.  The opinion was an honest one.  That's all.

Cue the liberal outrage about a bitterly divided 5-4 decision in 3... 2... 1...

Heh, that... that was just a little joke.  5-4 decisions are only partisan when the liberal justices lose.