Drinking Muddy Water

September 7, 2009 5:28 PM

I'll have to admit that the idea of the Rule of Law appeals to me mostly above the eyebrows, where the thinking part of my brain resides. Below the eyebrows, the realm of jaws and teeth, fists, a beating heart and grinding guts, there little interest in impartial enforcement of objective legislation, the honoring of contracts, and an exclusive government monopoly of force. If I wish to indulge my body below the eyebrows, I watch movies of the genre called "Action," where hot lead flies, things are blown up, and heads are blown off. Even so, my beating heart knows that the reasonable above-eyebrows-part of me is right. Without the rule of law, I don't have a chance. There are people trained to deal with lawlessness, not only the US Marines, but the Red Army, the People's Liberation Army, the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran's Basiji, and they are all much better at every kind of combat than I am.

For that reason, I now ask myself about the current status of the Rule of Law in the United States of America. If I think of the Rule of Law, as conceived by our Founding Fathers, as a glass of pure water, free of toxins, contaminants, and filth, the Rule of Law today, at local, state, and federal levels, is analogous to a rusty mug full of muddy water from a polluted stream of dubious origin: certainly not healthy, but what choice does the dehydrated patriot have? As the blues classic says so clearly, "I'd rather drink muddy water and sleep in a hollow log." Rather than what? Than fight a civil war, or surrender to the tyranny of the majority. There are worse places to sleep than hollow logs.

Well, then, what about the muddy water that all American patriots are drinking during the Obama era? Let's start with the Constitution. The Second Amendment, the amendment which appeals the most below the eyebrows of patriots, is under attack but holding the fort. Of the other nine of the Bill of Rights, the one I am most concerned about is the Tenth: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Most of the muck in our political well results from the failure of legislators, Presidents, and Supreme Court justices to pay attention to it, and to do their jobs properly.

I could go on and on with detailed descriptions of the poisonous grunge that is the state of US law today, but rather than do that, I have a two more points to make. First, there is the oft-repeated statement by people on our side, patriots, that if the Constitution is not honored in full, it is useless. Get real, folks. That's like one of those cartoon men crawling through the desert refusing a drink from a cowboy's canteen because it's not filtered pesticide-free water from the Whole Foods Market.

I'm saving my best point for last. That has to do with the question of what we must do after Obama is out of the White House, and advocates of the Three C's are running the Congress? Do we just sit there with the status quo, the way Congress did during the Bush era? Do we filter some of the mud out of the legislative drinking water while leaving most of the rest? Or do we clean it all up? Specifically, very specifically, that means, do we start enforcing the Tenth Amendment, which means, do we start repealing many laws, including some popular ones, that go all the way back to FDR, and even farther? Yes, repealing. Getting rid of them. Ending them. Finishing them off. It won't be easy, with a free press and the natural tendency of politicians to compromise.

Why? Because if we don't, it's time to start looking for a comfortable hollow log, because sooner or later we'll be sleeping in it.