The Rule of Law and the Constitution.

I will put this as simply as I can.

America is, and is only, The Constitution….and the laws, rights and privileges spelled out therein.

There IS nothing else.

We do not have anything else from which to proceed, there is no other basis for reference, there is no alternative history or text. We have no monarchy and no traditions of monarchy, we have no aristocracy, we in fact do not even have a philosophy. We have a Constitution. We have Laws. We are a Nation of Laws and nothing else. Without the Constitution…what is America?

Without the Constitution, in point of fact, America becomes a monarchy, an aristocracy with the president as our King, and Congress as our aristocracy. Yes they can still be replaced, but while in office for two, four, six or eight years…well we have seen how long the last eight years have been and how much damage has been wreaked in that time. These 536 people set and decide and enforce the Law. On what basis? Personal whim?  What brings them the most lasting power (see gerrymandering and the incumbent re-election rate.) What will garner them the most political contributions? Favors for the temporarily influential? The politics of the moment?

On what basis do they proceed in governing, without the strict guidance of the Constitution?  When a difficult question of governing arises, to what do they refer? There either is or is not a Constitution, there either is or there is not the Rule of Law. We are either governed by laws, or we are governed by the  exigencies of the moment and the will of ….men (and women).

We have are just emerging from a momentous civics lesson. The most unpopular President ever, the worst President ever, seized power by court order and proceeded to do everything in that power….literally regardless of law…to increase that power. George Bush declared war, not America, not the Constitution. George Bush declared that torture was legal. George Bush declared that he would spy on Americans. In direct contravention of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution. George Bush and Dick Cheney decided that the President had the power to rule America. Not govern America in a co-equal system of checks and balances. As the Constitution insists. Without basing every decision made upon the Rule of Law, we become a nation ruled by the whim of the President and the Congress, or at best by political expediency. If the President can cow the Congress and corrupt the only other agency to which he is accountable, the Department of Justice, HE…a fallible man…becomes the Ruler, Not the Rule of Law. Not the Constitution.

And here we are.

America has the incredible benefit of being founded on the highest principles and the best presentation of those principles in the history of mankind. It is ALL in the Constitution….and it works. The principle of the Rule of Law is the only way  that freedom, justice and equality is possible. At the moment we are in grave danger of throwing that away….because Obama has so much else to do to ‘fix things.’

But what basis, what reference point is there for any ‘fix’ if the most basic principle, the founding principle of America, The Rule of Law is ignored, if it is not restored?