Tuesday, September 17, 2013

The Rule of Law

From its humble and unlikely beginning, the “Founding Fathers” intended that law, not the whims of men, should govern the United States of America.  Their experiences under the rule of a monarch taught them the worth of personal liberty, but they were wise enough to realize that individual rights and freedoms must end where the rights and freedoms of another person begin.  Their solution was a legal code based on the Judeo/Christian ethic that taught, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  This basic biblical principle respects both individual freedom and the rights of other people.
Sadly, law no longer governs these United States.  They have devolved to the point of rule by men, under modern-day monarchs called lawyers and judges, in a system that allows them to impose their wills on other people, through their private interpretations of our legal code.  Many judges have taken for themselves the unconstitutional right to use policing agencies enforcing their own edicts.  Rather than instructing legislatures in the deficiencies of legislation and giving them time to amend, these activists exercise uncontrolled veto power.  Consequently, it is only necessary to find a judge that is sympathetic to your cause to enforce your will on all the people.
Protected first, by a self-governing association that determines who may or may not practice at the Law, followed by lifetime tenure, judges are so accustomed to interpreting the Law at will that they often disagree with each other.  Even the highest court in the Nation must resort to “majority rule” because they cannot agree.  The result being that people with enough money to pursue Appeals regularly ignore lower courts and jury rulings while their lawyer works to strain the gnat and find the camel that “higher” courts will swallow.  Everyone in the system seems to agree that the guaranteed trial by jury is just the first step in the process and not the solution of justice that it should be.
A few well-worn quips that reveal contempt for the system are:  “A jury is twelve people that are too stupid to get out of jury duty.”  “There is a way to legally do anything you want to do.”  “Justice is not for the poor.”  “If you cannot knock your opponent down and then kick him, you have no business practicing law.”  The truth is that even lawyers and judges mock the system.
Perhaps, the failings in the system that was originally intended to follow the Law and not the whims of men can be traced through two principles:  The first is, “Follow the money trail.”  The second is that our legal system is no longer concerned with the absolutes of right or wrong.  It is only concerned with legal or illegal.
Certainly, all butchers do not weigh meat with their thumbs on the scale.  Likewise, all lawyers and judges do not have their thumbs on the scales of justice.  However, even an honest butcher that is forced to use a broken scale will see an erroneous weight. 
Many good men and women are forced to work with the broken scale that is our legal system, but apparently, there are many others that thrive within it and perpetuate the brokenness.  This is evidenced when people such as Judge Moore in Alabama are removed for standing against the system.  We cannot reasonably expect that men and women within the legal system will sacrifice their educations and careers trying to reform a system that holds absolute control over them.  Therefore, if it is to change, “We The People” must change it, if we are to be governed by law, not men.  We need to “follow the money trail” to eliminate its source and redefine justice as “right” or “wrong,” not “legal” or “illegal.”

Jim