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Part 89 About Our Law:
February 9, 2004:
To reorient this discussion, I am still dealing with the issues which fall under restoring the rule of law. That is the second of the big four I outlined in essay number 38. Briefly they are child welfare which I have already discussed, the rule of law, now under discussion, saving our environment, and democratizing the world. In restoring the rule of law we have already looked at several things which must be done as concerns our government and our organization which, for now, I choose to call Groundswell. Now, it is time to look more directly at the issues of law.
In looking directly at the law in America there appears to be three areas of discussion. First is the actual written form of the law itself. It is very difficult to be clear on this issue when we have extreme lack of uniformity, conflicting overlap, and considerable contradiction in laws across the land. The second area of discussion is in law enforcement. We can look at this from three levels which also have way too much overlap. The levels are local, state, and federal. Finally we have our court system which most folks say is being overwhelmed. Having sat on a jury and noticed what went on, I am not really convinced of that. Regardless, to bring about any reform, all of these areas must be dealt with.
In looking at the written letter or the law, we can first refer back to our constitution. It is my considered opinion that the constitution should be the basis for all law in America. I mean, there should be no laws anywhere that disagree with or are at odds with the Constitution of the United States. I believe, from what I have read, our founders intended exactly that.
I continue to believe that our constitution is a solid basis for American law. I will not pretend that it answers all questions and issues. Considering when it was written and what has transpired since, it cannot possibly do that. That is why we have Article V. It allows us to amend the constitution. In their thoughtful consideration, our founders knew it would eventually become necessary to do so. Article V is a very simple and straightforward statement. Here it is.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state , without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
I have made this point before, but I bears repeating. I will point out that it is not easy to change our basic law. It requires a great deal of agreement between several governmental bodies to bring it off. That is as it should be. We should not be able to change our basic law for frivolous reasons. The effort required, pretty much guarantees that we will not. Since the constitution was written, we have only managed to amend it 27 times. That's good. It means we probably had a pretty sound document to begin with.
Now our constitution is not the end all of law. That is why we have a congress as defined in article I of the constitution. A great deal of their responsibility lies in their power to create additional laws for new or altered circumstances. We also have a Supreme Court. Their responsibilities are spelled out in Section 2 of article III of the constitution. The most important thing is they have judicial power in all cases in law and equity arising under the constitution. In addition to that, the various state and local governments often have need to make laws specific to their particular situations.
That's all well and good. However, it's not as well or good as it appears. Unfortunately, our federal establishment, our state governments, and, to some extend, our local governments have systematically passed laws or simply acted without law in direct violation of the constitution. Through that shabby subterfuge, our basic law has been circumvented. Instead of doing the hard work required to amend the constitution, they have simply ignored and violated it. For the most part, they do this because they cannot make a convincing case for what they are doing. It's usually criminal in nature and would never stand an honest inspection. I have already pointed out many of these criminal activities in previous essays.
In our history, as long as we were correcting the constitution we were fine. We got off the track when we tried to make laws about morality. We got even further off the track when somewhere we decided we could just ignore the constitution and legislate around it. Sadly, the supreme court has gone along with that form of chaotic law making. Since then, the court has been more or less political on every issue. The constitution had taken a back seat. We have been very much political and much less judicial in our legal activities since then.
The ultimate indiscretion occurred when the court decided it
could circumvent the elective process and appoint a president
rather than go through the effort and delay of hearing the case.
Since then, a handful of people have been pushing us, very rapidly,
toward nationalistic despotism. Our entire government has become
about taking shortcuts in crisis mode. They take shortcuts around
the constitution. There are lies, deceit, and criminal activity
by the government at all levels. Our government has arrogantly
put itself above the law. I am convinced this country will be
destroyed if this continues.
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