You've done great work here in providing your thoughts and distillations. Bravo! I must say, I do agree with most herein written, even with much of what Roberts has to say. But might I interject, that a Devil's lie if fraught with truth, masking an untruth deeply so as to present it as truth, either relatable or opposite (in fact) or as a side point that is to be assumed; a rationalization, if you will. Again, much of it doesn't apply to those sentiments, but let me distill for you the points that I believe do through the proper lens of history.

I agree with you that precedent law in the face of Constitutional Law should not stand; it is, instead, a means by which progressives can progressively take baby steps away from first principles to the conditional and situational things they believe will give them power and render the individual enslaved (for the public good). Therefore, there is no comparison to unconstitutional precedent law that is applicable, simply because there has been no suit to declare such case unconstitutional. As you said, anyone with a reasonable education and brain in his head can read the constitution and compare that with law. The Founding Fathers intended us to pay such attention. I am also a believer in Original Intent, which is expressed in the Federalist Papers; therefore, all interpretations of Constitution need be via the principled (world) view of the Federalist Papers and Declaration, not post-modern law, particularly that which have not even been tested, and including administrative laws put forth as regulations of executive branch political hacks of any stripe.

So, with our Constitutional insights in tact, here are the salient points of the Devil's Lie:

 - That the Court is obliged to rationalize a law as constitutional using any reasonable argument available is WRONG. There is no such provision in the Constitution, Declaration, or Federalist Papers.

 - Nowhere in the founding documents is the sentiment that taxation power is available to Congress for merely existing. Therefore, Congress does NOT have the power to tax an inactivity any more than they have the power to regulate an economic inactivity as argued by Roberts himself. (This is evident in that post-modern property taxes are, in fact, unconstitutional. -- Republic Magazine #21) Roberts cannot just declare "we've done it before". I do not currently pay any taxes for doing nothing. Who does? (also, beside the point.)

 - Lastly, Roberts assertion that the individual mandate is a tax, even though I disagree (above) with Congressional power to levy it, by his own agreement, his only course of action, again, by his own admission on the job of the Court, was to uphold [as written] or strike down [as written]. Nowhere in our founding documents is the Court ever given any power to re-write any law. Roberts' obligation was to strike down the law, using the taxation argument, with the advice that if Congress wants it to be constitutional, they need to go back and rewrite the law as a tax policy, and therefore, re-vote on it as well, "letting the people endure the consequences of their choices." This is why people are pissed off. We never got another choice, even if you don't dismiss Roberts' point there (scarcely got on in the first place). It was not his job to just declare that choice for us by saying the words in the law don't matter, only the functionality of the operands.

I agree with the assessment, whether intended by Roberts (really) or not, that people need to be more politically engaged to deal with the politicians, which has not happened for generations now, I believe we are doing that now anyway. It is not an either-or but a both-and. We do not need to tread so close to destruction wrought by Roberts to see or do something about it. As such, he is irresponsible in writing so, and should be impeached for violating his oath (and as I asserted, Kagan needs to be impeached for not recusing herself).

The other point related to this is the idea put forth by the Left that once the court rules, we have no recourse. They believe in a tyranny of the Court as evidenced by the Roe v. Wade decision; that somehow, the people do not have the right to go back and re-argue and re-work the abortion issue because the court ruled. Roberts himself is stating that the people can overrule the Court. However, in true devilish fashion, that Leftist Mole (who has presented himself as a false conservative) gets to look like he's somehow a genius goading us into exercising the people's power, but to generations who no longer know how to do it; therefore, he knows its probability is uncertain. When we do "undo" what's been done to save the Republic, I will still assert he is a Fabian Socialist, wolf in sheep's clothing awaiting another time to assault the constitution with his own warped thinking, clothed in apparent conservative thought to mislead and misdirect conservatism itself away from first principles. Do not trust in words, only in deeds. And you can only compare one's words with one's deeds as a measure of integrity. Roberts fails. (And no, he's not some brainiac that nobody understands. Chessplayer, indeed! Bah!)