The Rule of Law

We often hear people refer to America as a democracy. In a pure democracy the people vote on every issue and the majority, no matter how slim, wins the day. The danger of democracy historically has been that it devolves in time into mob rule. When people don't get what they want they go to the streets and try to bully the opposition into surrendering. The result is chaos and civil war.

Our Founders, understanding the weakness of such a system, wisely created a republic, a representative government, to protect the rights of the minority. The people take part in a democratic process by electing from their peers someone to represent them in the government. The checks and balances built into the system with the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial branches of government ensure the rights of all the people, the minority included. This system has worked fairly well for over two centuries keeping the country operating peacefully and generally promoting the welfare of the people.

Obviously there are flaws because people are flawed, but this system of government by the people, a first in world history, has succeeded because the people have accepted the rule of law. We are not led by a monarchy with a divine right to act above the law. We are not enslaved by a tyrant with an iron fist who rules by the whims of his own deviant desires. Neither do we take to the streets with "people-power" revolutions whenever we are not satisfied with the leaders we have. The United States essentially has a revolution every four years where the people change the leadership, or determine to continue with the current leadership, by the ballot box.

While there have been many attempts to copy or reproduce something similar to our government, most nations fail to repeat the success of the United States because of corrupt, power hungry leadership that defies the system. These "banana republics" always degenerate into self-destruction because the people have no foundation or moral conviction to live by the rule of law. Chaos ensues.

The principle of self-government was a key factor in the deliberations over our Constitution. Free people can get by with limited government if they have the integrity to govern themselves. Basically, when people live by the Golden Rule there is less crime and less need for excessive laws or government intrusion. But as John Adams wrote, this kind of government can only work for a religious and moral people. It can work for none else.

The religion and morality he was referring to was the Christian religion and the principles found in the Bible. James Madison declared that the Founders had created a government based on the Ten Commandments and the New Testament. Self-government works when people love God and have the conviction to live by God's standards, and when they love their neighbors as themselves. The only place you find this kind of religious or moral teaching is in the Bible.

America today is facing a crisis more profound, I think, than even many conservatives realize. We have left our Bible foundation far behind. The love of God is forgotten and the love of neighbor, or the brotherhood of man which the liberals so piously intone, is rejected for the selfish greed of personal aggrandizement. A government usurping powers never intended for it by the Founders has created a welfare system that has made a generation of Americans not only dependent on the government, but demanding rights, privileges, and wealth the government cannot give.

Liberals infamously call the 1980's the decade of greed, but we are seeing greed in an unprecedented scale right now. For the last four years we have seen representative government callously mock the people it represents, passing legislation such as Obamacare that at least two-thirds or more of the country opposes. It is spending more money than even the world can afford to loan us, and surprise, when anyone suggests we have to cut back, the greedy, welfare dependent society that this government run amuck has created starts having a temper tantrum.

Further complicating the matter, we have a president who has declared he will no longer govern by the rule of law. The president has usurped the authority of the judicial branch to declare the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress and signed by former president, Bill Clinton, unconstitutional. His government will no longer defend this law. In other words, he is presuming to do the Judiciary's job for it, while he reneges on doing his own job. The question that needs to be asked is, if he can get away with this, how many other laws will he also ignore? (For starters, how about his failure to defend the Arizona border and prosecute illegal aliens?)

The president is thumbing his nose at the Constitution. He is telling us that the law doesn't matter. His "Organizing for America" has made Wisconsin a battle ground and is instigating labor unions, which represent less than 13% of the total work force, and which poured hundreds of millions of their mandatory union dues into Democrat campaign coffers in the last election, to take to the streets and protest, to demand their rights, and to perpetuate their greed. The president is leading the country in a mad descent from constitutional government to mob rule. (Have we heard any more comparisons to Ronald Reagan lately?)

In Wisconsin, a budgetary crisis led newly elected Governor Scott Walker to take measures designed to save the state from bankruptcy. The state is 3.6 billion dollars in debt, even though it's previous Democrat governor received 4 billion dollars in stimulus money from Obama in the previous two years. Walker's attempt to save the state from going bankrupt resulted in a strike by the union cry-babies, which is spreading to other states.

Walker has an opportunity now to show himself truly Reaganesque. In 1981 when the air traffic controllers went on strike, President Reagan gave them 48 hours to return to work, then fired those who didn't and dissolved PATCO, their union organization. Walker ought to give Wisconsin state employees, including public school teachers, 48 hours to return to work, then sack those who don't. The strike will break up when the rent comes due and no paychecks are forth coming.

The nation is watching: Liberals to see if they can get away with defying the law and entrenching themselves in entitlements forever, or until the government declares bankruptcy; Conservatives to see if the rule of law will be upheld and some common sense returned to government. Conservatives are looking for another Ronald Reagan. If Scott Walker handles this crisis right he could be perceived to be the man to fill Reagan's shoes, and it could be the catalyst to propel him to the White House.

That will happen, by the way, not when the mobs rule the streets, but when the Constitution is followed and a new election is held according to the rule of law.