IS THERE NO MORE RULE OF LAW?
by Paul R. Hollrah, ©2017

(Mar. 28, 2017) — Throughout history, mankind has confronted many major crises and turning-points, both positive and negative, manmade and naturally-occurring. For purposes of this essay I prefer to divide those crises into just two major categories: 1) man-made and natural disasters, from which it has always been possible to either fully or partially recover, and 2) “flashpoints,” those major crises and world events from which a satisfactory recovery has never been possible.

Crises of the first category…. such as World War I and World War II, where combatants in those bloody conflicts eventually became allies… are far too numerous to mention. However, crises of the “flashpoint” variety are rare. And while it can be argued that the greatest “flashpoint” of all time has been the birth of Mohammed, the American people now confront no less than three such crises:

The legislative branch of the United States government, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in world history, is now broken.

The judicial branch of the U.S. government, the custodians of the rule of law, is now broken and the people have lost faith in the concept of equal justice under the law. And,

Two of the most dangerous nations in world history… ruled by men who are sufficiently unbalanced as to speak openly of preemptive nuclear strikes against their enemies… are now on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons capable of reaching Europe, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.

In recent days, the American people have been witness to one of the greatest failures of representative government in U.S. history. In a nation in which advances in medicine and medical technology have led the world for more than a century, the difference between healthcare costs and what people can afford to pay has grown wider and wider. In fact, while politicians continue to promote the fiction that it is possible to make the world’s best healthcare available to all, at affordable prices, it is fair to say that the United States now has a Rolls-Royce healthcare system, serving a population that can afford little more than used pickup trucks.

And although Republicans have been calling for the repeal and replacement of Obamacare for the past seven years… promising that they would fix our broken healthcare system if only we would elect a courageous Republican president and give them majorities in both houses of Congress… we find that they are unable to agree on even the first step toward healthcare reform.

While the Congress is made up of 535 members from all fifty states, the members have found it necessary to create no fewer than 222 special interest caucuses. No better example can be found than the Congressional Black Caucus, an organization of African-American members founded in March 1971 whose motto is, “Black people have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests.” Oh, yeah? Try telling that to black Republicans such as J.C. Watts (R-OK), Tim Scott (R-SC), Will Hurd (R-TX), or Allen West (R-FL), none of whom were considered “black enough” to be welcomed into the Black Caucus. Only Congresswoman Mia Love (R-UT) has had the courage and the patience to waste her valuable time trying to carry the conservative message to the 46 single-minded black Democrats of the caucus. No “permanent friends?” Democrats would be shocked and surprised to hear that. No “permanent enemies?” The caucus sees everyone who is not a Democrat as an enemy of black people.

On the Republican side thirty conservative Republicans, comprising the Freedom Caucus, have banded together to defeat the Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act. Insisting on a “perfect” bill that met all of their requirements, and unwilling to see Senate amendments to the bill or the product of a House-Senate conference, the members of the Freedom Caucus stood united against the bill. Were the caucus members representing the interests of their constituents? Or were they merely bowing to the peer pressure exerted by their fellow caucus members?

In our republican form of government, we are all entitled to have representatives in Washington and in the state capitals who will exercise their best judgment on behalf of their constituents. By yielding to the wishes of special-interest caucuses, regardless of the likes or dislikes of their constituents, they are, in many cases, turning their backs on those who elected them.

In the U.S. Senate, once referred to as the world’s “greatest deliberative body,” liberals and Democrats have played such vicious political games with Senate rules that we now find it all but impossible to confirm a ninth justice to the U.S. Supreme Court… unless that individual is one who is “mainstream” in his/her judicial philosophy. By that, Democrats mean a nominee who sees the U.S. Constitution, not as the Founders intended, but as a “living” document that can be twisted to meet what they see as the political, social, or economic needs at any given moment.

In recent weeks, three liberal district judges… two Obama appointees and one Bush appointee… have taken it upon themselves to write new immigration law by issuing temporary restraining orders against two Trump executive orders restricting the issuance of visas to individuals from six countries in which radical Islamist terrorism is rampant, and where it is impossible to vet any of its citizens. This, in spite of the fact that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, Public Law 82-414 (the McCarran-Walter Act), Section 212(a), enacted two years prior to the Communist Control Act of 1954, provides no less than 31 criteria under which “classes of aliens shall be ineligible to receive visas and shall be excluded from admission into the United States.”

That body of law gives every U.S. president the absolute authority to bar any foreign person or group of persons from receiving entry visas if he deems it necessary, for any period of time that he chooses, in order to protect the lives and property of the American people. Yet, three federal judges attempt to endow foreign immigrants and refugees with U.S constitutional rights.

The Trump administration has vowed to appeal those decisions all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. But what if Senate Democrats are able to prevent a cloture vote on the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch? In that event, a Trump Administration appeal would go before an eight-member Supreme Court. And if that court produced a 4-4 decision, that ruling would then revert to the lower court and their decision would be upheld. What then?

In such an event, and since Trump’s understanding of the law is irrefutable, he may wish to emulate President Andrew Jackson who, in 1832, refused to follow the dictates of the Supreme Court’s Worcester v. Georgia ruling, affirming the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation… a decision that led to the forcible relocation of some 15,000 Cherokees from Georgia to what is now Oklahoma. In that instance, Jackson is reported to have said, “(Chief Justice) John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”

As Daniel Greenfield writes in his March 27 column for FRONTPAGEmag, “Political conflicts become civil wars when one side refuses to accept the existing authority. The left has rejected all forms of authority that it doesn’t control. The left has rejected the outcome of the last two presidential elections won by Republicans. It has rejected the judicial authority of the Supreme Court when it (sic) decisions don’t accord with its agenda. It rejects the legislative authority of Congress when it is not dominated by the left. It rejected the Constitution so long ago that it hardly bears mentioning.”

Those of us who are seventy years old or older will remember the days when, as children, we were subjected to periodic nuclear attack drills. It was a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were the only two nations on Earth armed with enough nuclear warheads to literally destroy all signs of life on planet Earth. And while we could never be totally certain that the Soviets would never launch a preemptive nuclear strike against us, we were reasonably certain that the Soviet leadership was just as averse to a devastating nuclear exchange as we were. As a result, there was little chance that either side would ever launch such a first strike against the other. It was a standoff that was referred to throughout the Cold War as “mutually assured destruction,” or MAD.

However, the same is not true of today’s enemies. The bloodthirsty Islamist dictators in the Middle East and the brutal communist madmen in North Korea are all just insane enough to welcome a nuclear war with the West. And while the North Korean leader, Kim Jung Un, has never shown the slightest regard for the well-being of his starving people, the leaders of al Qaeda and ISIS are just crazy enough to think that death is their greatest earthly reward… not to mention the seventy-two virgins that await each of them in Paradise.

These are the “flashpoints” that we now face. And unless we take immediate steps to restore representative government and respect for the rule of law in America, and unless we take all the matches away from the maniac in North Korea before he burns our house down, then the crises we now face are truly flashpoints from which we will never recover. To parody a verse from Tennessee Ernie Ford’s hit song, Sixteen Tons:



What happens in Washington is a cryin’ shame,

The people hold elections, but it’s all just a game.

The Democrats betray us, at home and on The Hill,

If the Commies don’t get us, then the Muslims surely will.



If Daniel Greenfield is correct in his assessment, then civil war is truly upon us. Let the games begin.

—————————–

Paul R. Hollrah is a retired government relations executive and a two-time member of the U.S. Electoral College. He currently lives and writes among the hills and lakes of northeast Oklahoma’s Green Country.


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Excellent opinion piece, JALLEN. Thanks, and great to see you posting.
T

quote:

In recent days, the American people have been witness to one of the greatest failures of representative government in U.S. history.

That's a bit dramatic.
The Speaker pulled the bill because he didn't have the votes. The 'deadline' to get it done by last Thursday (changed to Friday), in something like 17 days after anyone saw it, was an artificial deadline.
It didn't really give time for deliberation.
It will be revisited and they will likely reach some consensus.

In an amoral culture the only law is that which is enforced. As such there is law for the serfs and anarchy for the elites.

quote:

unless we take immediate steps to restore representative government and respect for the rule of law in America

An excellent read. I don't know how this will be done given it requires action by the vary institutions that are the problem.

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
In an amoral culture the only law is that which is enforced. As such there is law for the serfs and anarchy for the elites.

And that becomes jungle law, survival of the fittest, mobocracy. (Sidenote, Mia Love is my dad's US Rep, he heartily endorses her).

The Rule of Law broke long ago.

Long, long, long ago.

We had a shot at seeing the Rule of Law and the concept of Equal Justice for All being more than snazzy sound bites, but we frittered it away.

Here is but one bit of evidence:

quote:

And although Republicans have been calling for the repeal and replacement of Obamacare for the past seven years… promising that they would fix our broken healthcare system if only we would elect a courageous Republican president and give them majorities in both houses of Congress… we find that they are unable to agree on even the first step toward healthcare reform.

Party A (the pro-Republican voters) delivered.
Party B (the elected) failed to fulfill their promise to repeal Obamacare.
No one has been held truly accountable.

That sequence has wormed its way into every aspect of our lives.

Concur. The rule of law has been made a joke for far too many years.

Jim, thanks for posting the article.

North Korea has the potential to be a failed state. One of the main justifications for its brutal existence has been to claim that other nations, in particular the US, are an active threat.
Some years ago I read an article about war gaming. It was found that when defeat became inevitable, participants would readily use nuclear weapons. With North Korea and its cult of personality, this is a very real threat.

Glad to see you back, man.

Zero accountability - that's the problem.

Where are those who broke the law using the IRS for political vendettas?

What about all those who suffered and died waiting for care at the VA?

What about the wasted $1 TRILLION on shovel-ready jobs like Solyndra?

What about leaking classified information into the public for political gain?

How about that Clinton Foundation as a scheme to pay to play?

I say - introduce term limits if the critters won't do their damn jobs!

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
Zero accountability - that's the problem.

Where are those who broke the law using the IRS for political vendettas?

What about all those who suffered and died waiting for care at the VA?

What about the wasted $1 TRILLION on shovel-ready jobs like Solyndra?

What about leaking classified information into the public for political gain?

How about that Clinton Foundation as a scheme to pay to play?

I say - introduce term limits if the critters won't do their damn jobs!

Sadly, you make good good point, and I imagine there are a number of items that could be added to your list.

excellent article

I posted a comment a few weeks ago about the republicans having had 7 years of Obaacare failure to craft a law, have it ready and waiting for the opportunity to present it and they utterly failed

It was and is Ryan's fault. What have they been doing for the last 7 years besides giving the voters lip service?

As far as I can tell, they've been sitting around with their head's up their asses.

If we want a better class of government, we will need a better class of people that want to be politicians - as it is right now I see most of them as unable or unqualified to hold a job in the private sector so they get elected to something.

I don't think that can be a good enough reason any more.

How many times did the House pass a bill to repeal Obamacare?

quote:

The U.S. House voted July 11 to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by a vote of 248-185 along party lines. While five Democrats joined the Republicans, none were members of the California congressional delegation. This vote represents the 33rd time the House has voted to repeal or defund ACA in its entirety or certain provisions of ACA. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said the Senate will not vote on the bill.

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yes, and each of those votes had zero chance of passing so it was a meaningless show

theater at its worst

but when the time came they could actually do something, what did they have?

zip, zilch, nada and they were so disorganized they couldn't get out of their own way