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Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Givings And Takings Part 2: The Heart Of The Matter
"The rule of law" is among the least understood and worst abused of all the catchphrases of our political lexicon. It's been used as a bludgeon by voices on every side of every issue, but without a consistent application of meaning...and without respect for the meaning it was given when the law was first separated from class privilege.
The heart of "the rule of law" is the jurisdiction of the law: that is, whether it applies to all persons without regard to their identities, possessions, and stations in life, or whether it discriminates among persons according to those characteristics. Law of the former sort genuinely rules. Its jurisdiction includes all persons, without regard for their lineage, their associations, their pet causes, or their pet activities. It stands above kings and noble classes. Law of the latter sort is class privilege. It "rules" in the manner of a tyrant, enabled by the possession of superior force to mulct some of his subjects for the benefit of others.
"The rule of law" in the original sense gives substance to "the consent of the governed," for no man, ab initio, would freely consent to be governed by a system that could establish privileged classes to his detriment. Men will only pledge their uncoerced allegiance to a system that treats all of them equally. Class privilege can only be instituted at sword's point.
From that understanding, your Curmudgeon concludes that the United States has not enjoyed "the rule of law" for quite some time:
- Persons are taxed differently according to the source and amount of their earnings, and in some cases according to how much they possess.
- Certain businesses suffer intrusive regulation that others don't; certain businesses enjoy subsidies or subventions that others don't.
- Persons whose property is coveted by a sufficiently influential institution might suffer its involuntary seizure for that institution's purposes.
- Until late in 1973, men between the ages of 18 and 26 were subject to involuntary servitude -- the draft -- at Washington's whim. Doctors were subject to the draft until age 35.
- A number of bureaucracies are empowered to impose extra-judicial burdens and penalties on persons and businesses for reasons of their own (e.g., "wildlife protection," "species diversity," or "wetlands conservation").
- Judges at all elevations are conceded so much discretion that they can arbitrarily nullify contracts, set convicted felons free, and sanction felonious behavior in the name of a "compelling government interest" (e.g., Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the seizure of Elian Gonzalez).
Note that each of the above obscenities has both a victim and a beneficiary class. The beneficiaries are perfectly happy with the arrangement, and will remain so...unless the reins of power are somehow snatched from their hands. But it's been a common fantasy of the privileged of all places and times that their status is immutable.
Mark Alger's citation below points to the sharp contrast between a political campaign against some particular violation of the rule of law and a campaign for a uniform return to the rule of law in full scrupulousness:
“We can continue to stand apart in sullen indifference to those fellow patriots who are focused on a different usurpation than we, or we can UNITE behind that Constitution. All patriots recognize that document as the essential foundation of what it means to be American.”
The Constitution, the Supreme Law of the Land, is today routinely ignored by our ruling elite: executives, legislators, and jurists all. If anything definitively gives the lie to the fiction of "the rule of law" in our time, that would be it.
He who opposes some specific usurpation, in Bob Wright's phrasing, without regard for others equally at odds with the rule of law, has defined himself as a special interest. His contentions could be completely valid, as for example are the arguments of the gun-rights community against restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms. Even so, he is at best an advocate against -- or for -- a specific class privilege. He serves his specific enthusiasm, not the greater cause of liberty under the rule of law.
Americans are worse beset by overweening government -- government that serves its own interests, and those of its backers, at the expense of all others -- than we have been since the New Deal. They take, and take, and propose to take still more. We must either submit and give, or rise in revolt; there are no longer any other plausible alternatives. But a revolt against a single usurpation would only create a new class privilege to divide some of us from the rest. If we are to rise, let it be for Constitutional fidelity. Let it be for the rule of law.
Let it be for freedom.
Comments
Thanks. I had already been considering Mark’s post, and you built on it. Two thoughts:
1. Persons are taxed differently according to the source and amount of their earnings, and in some cases according to how much they possess.
And, if they are willing to pay for the expertise, can also delay, avoid, or otherwise mitigate these disproportionate taxes...a luxury not available to persons of lesser means.
2. I’ve been in an ongoing discussion with a conservative friend on Facebook who is excited that Michigan will soon make all bars smoke-free. He informed me that this was done “because the employees had a right to work in a smoke-free environment.” And now he’ll be able to go out and not come home smelling like an ashtray.
I have done my best to help him to look at this as being the wrong result...employees who do not have to work there have dictated to an employer what customers they can and cannot cater to, and that he needs to think of it as a chess game, not checkers, and realize that government doesn’t have the right to tell a business who they can and cannot serve under those circumstances, but I’m afraid I’m whistling into the wind.
Posted by Blackiswhite, Imperial Consigliere on 12/16/2009 at 12:23 PMPerhaps the most profound article you’ve written recently. And that’s saying a lot.
Posted by on 12/17/2009 at 01:37 AMThere are only two outcomes to rebellion: success, or death.
Posted by on 12/17/2009 at 07:36 PMYes, well, what you call “success,” we Americans call liberty.
Patrick Henry said it first...and best.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 12/17/2009 at 07:43 PMThis post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 12/18/2009, at The Unreligious Right
Posted by UNRR on 12/18/2009 at 07:31 AM
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