Yoshi Tsurumi – The Japan Times – Supreme Court Is Destroying US Democracy – 16 April 2012

By YOSHI TSURUMI

Special to The Japan Times

NEW YORK — Last month, we witnessed the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court resort to foolish sophism — what the Japanese call herikutsu (smelly gaseous logic). It would be hilarious were it not so serious for America and the world.

Justice Antonin Scalia, the intellectual leader of the conservative majority, equated a broccoli market with a health insurance market. He asked, “If the government can require Americans to buy health insurance, can it require them to buy broccoli?”

The issue is the limit of federal power. In a functioning democracy, government power is checked by Congress. ( Read more at: http://www.japantimes.co.jp  link to original article