FREEDOM UNDER THE LAW

 Submitted by: Joseph Grisafi Jr and Ruth Hammons

Freedom Under The Law

By James Bovard – with comments by Joe G.

What’s the difference between “freedom under law” and oppression?

I was going through my archives the other day and came across an article by James Bovard (JB). It was in Liberty magazine, issue July 1999.

I have commented many times before about a book he wrote called “Lost Rights”. “Lost Rights” is an excellent read. He writes in detail about all the rights we have lost - rights we know about and rights we never knew we had……but lost.

He states in his book: “The Founding Fathers looked at the liberties they were losing while modern Americans focus myopically on the freedoms they still retain.”

The first few paragraphs should give you an idea of what JB is talking about. What his theme is. Remember, this is 1999

President Bill Clinton, in a 1995 speech, declared, “If you want to preserve your own freedom… you also must stand up for the rule of law. You cannot have one without the other.”

In another speech in the same year, Clinton declared, “Our Founding Fathers created a system of laws in which reason could prevail over fear. Without respect for this law, there is no freedom.” Clinton was capitalizing on the doctrine that freedom can only exist under the law – under government protection. Thus, according to Clinton, the greatest threat to freedom was those who did not bow to the law.

The article is long and filled with details about law and his ideas and thoughts about the “Rule of Law”. I believe this article to be time-immortal. It’s just as prevalent today as it was in 1999 and even 1899. I will summarize the best I can.

It is not surprising that a demagogue like Clinton would seek to pervert a doctrine that was once highly respected to add credibility to his latest edicts. However, the abuse of the doctrine of “freedom under the law” has been ongoing for hundreds of years. This is a principle custom made for wishful thinking – and for concocting a duty to ignore the most blatant government abuses.

Not surprisingly, the doctrine of freedom under the law has long been popular with politicians. JB cites a few, like William McKinley and JFK. Both made speeches about how law created and preserved our freedom. McKinley’s speech stated as if the law were an end in itself and obedience American’s’ highest glory. Kennedy declared on September 30, 1962: “Our nation is founded on the principle that observance of the law is the eternal safeguard of liberty and defiance of the law is the surest road to tyranny.”

“Freedom under the law,” in its contemporary incarnation, is one of the great “let’s pretend” games of intellectual history. If we pretend that the law is what it should be, and if we pretend that those in power do not desire to subjugate or plunder the citizenry, then people become free by obeying the laws that the good government enacts.

Faith in “freedom under the law” derives from a time when the law was based on rules of conduct that were “known from time immemorial,” rules of just conduct by which people had lived for generation.

When the law respects freedom, freedom under the law is a feasible ideal. As Blackstone wrote in 1766, “The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual’s private rights.”

Today, however, laws themselves are far and away the largest violators of individual rights. Nowadays, “freedom under the law” means freedom to kow-tow, to curtsy, to grovel before any government employee one’s legally inferior status; freedom to accept as many burdens as politicians and bureaucrats deign to impose.

…the vast majority of laws necessary to safeguard freedom have been on the statute books for decades, if not centuries. What has been added, almost uniformly, is law that is subversive of freedom and destructive of individual rights, law explicitly intended to multiply the pretexts of which government employees can punish private citizens.

This article is very meaningful to something I’ve believed for many years. I have harped on this Bill or that Bill – this law or that law. I have let my belief’s known regarding the Texas State Rifle Association and their emails about ANOTHER GUN LAW, LIKE RECIPROCITY. It’s just another “do-nothing” bill that gives them power to rescind it at their will.

Laws are simply political edicts, with little or no resemblance to traditional, accepted principles of justice. Coercion and expropriation have become tools in politicians’ reelection campaign: whenever increased coercion garners votes or campaign contributions, new laws are promulgated and government agents sent out to inflict politicians’ wills.  “Freedom under the law means simply the freedom to submit to your enemy. To obey every law is to accept a life sentence as a political pawn.

In the classical concept of “freedom under the law,” law was a leash on both the government and the governed. But now, law is something that government imposes, not something that government obeys.

“A man’s home is his castle,” an accepted rule of English common law since the early 1600’s, required law enforcement officials to knock on the door and announce themselves before entering a  private home. But this standard has increasingly been rejected in favor of another ancient rule – “the King’s keys unlock all doors.”

James Madison, in his 1787 essay on “Vices of the Political System of the United States, “ noted, “As far as laws are necessary to mark with precision the duties of those who are to obey them, and to take from those who administer them a discretion which might be abused, their number is the price of liberty. As far as laws exceed this limit they are a nuisance; a nuisance of the most pestilent kind.”  Contemporary laws are both vague and expansive: as a result, citizens often have little or no warning before the wrath of government enforcers blights their lives.

JB states that some laws have advanced and better protect individual freedom and individual rights. But such laws did not create liberty; they merely razed previously erected legal barriers against a particular group.

Liberty is a result of the minimization of coercion: both governmental and private. The less coercion, the more liberty. A small amount of coercion – enough to secure respect for other people’s rights and safety – is necessary to minimize coercion.

“Freedom under the law” cannot become a worthy ideal until laws are fit for freedom.

In summary, I agree with JB. Every Bill, Act, Law, should be parsed. It should not, must not be accepted carte blanche. This reminds me of a Bill Dr. Ron Paul put forward many years ago. The Bill simply stated that any and all bills put through congress had to show in detail its Constitutionality. No one in congress supported his bill.

In my opinion, most people do not have the wherewithal, the time, reason, sources, knowledge, experience, etc., to parse everything they read. I do it out of habit. One example is the “reciprocity” Bill they are trying to pass. There is no need for it. We have the 2^nd Amendment, which does the same thing. So why create another Bill – “reciprocity”? At least two reasons: 1. too make the ignorant happy and 2. It’s a feather in the politician’s hat or pat on the back at reelection time, all the while screwing his constituents and laughing about it.

So the next Bill or Act you hear about, think to yourself; “What freedom are they taking away now?”  ”.  What freedoms did we lose with the USMCA? What freedoms did we lose with the Pact Act? What freedoms did we lose with the NDAA? What freedoms did we lose with the Patriot Act?