There is a common misconception regarding the term “the rule of law.” Lots of people, including U.S. officials, believe that it means that people should obey the law. But that’s not what it means. What it means is a society in which people have to answer only to the law and not to the edicts or orders issued by government officials. A society in which people have to respond to edicts and orders issued by politicians and bureaucrats is what is called “the rule of men.”
We are supposed to follow the requirements of our Constitution and statutes even when they yield results we don’t like—say, freeing a person who appears guilty.
Generally, that famous phrase—a government of laws not men—is taken as being a safeguard against capricious or arbitrary rule by individuals. Even the sovereign, it was said, is subject to the law.
But the response to Trump and the negative media and political responses to his election—reminded me that there is another, just as important side to the desideratum “a government of laws not men.
What does it mean that several hundred thousand females converge on Washington, D.C., in pink hats and vagina costumes to whine that Donald Trump is “not our president”?
What does it mean that on college campuses across the country, students, often aided and abetted by faculty and the occasional outside agitator, protest that Trump is “illegitimate”?
That various media pundits, on the Right as well as the Left, warn against “normalizing” Donald Trump?
And most worrisome, what does it mean that a smattering of judges across the country argue that the president’s executive orders are illegitimate, unconstitutional because (cutting to the chase) they are THIS president’s orders?
Thus we see another way in which the principle of “a government of laws not men” can be violated. It used to be that we were on the lookout for individuals arrogating to themselves the power of the law. Now we find individuals denying our lawfully elected representatives the legitimacy to exercise their rightful authority.
Ironically, this is the way that things used to work under the old European monarchies. It is what led to the anarchy of the French revolution. It is what led to the Russian revolution that eventually resulted in the rule of Stalin. It’s also the way things work today in Russia under the Putin regime. Government officials issue their edicts and orders, and the people and businessmen are expected to obey them without question.
The difference, however, is that Putin and Russia don’t pretend to operate under the rule of law while unelected U.S. bureaucrats do. Given this truth, who are the bigger hypocrites?
Now available on Amazon…”A Republic, if you can keep it.”
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