-Caveat Lector-
> Subject: Destroying the Rule of Law
>
>
> Destroying the Rule of Law
> by Thomas DiLorenzo
> .
> The hordes of lawyers that Al Gore has employed to
> help him try to
> overturn the presidential election through voter
> fraud are the latest
> example of how the rule of law is being destroyed.
> Florida election laws
> are clear as a bell in disallowing hand recounts
> unless there is fraud
> or machine failure, which Gore is not claiming is
> the case. The election
> should have been certified as over with George W.
> Bush the winner after
> the overseas absentee ballots in Florida were
> counted on November 18, as
> required by law. But in America today our rulers are
> increasingly above
> the law.
> This has ominous implications for freedom and
> prosperity, for the rule
> of law is arguably the most important constraint of
> all on arbitrariness
> in the exercise of government power. A rule of law
> that is based on the
> concept of natural rights to life, liberty, and
> property minimizes the
> misuse of governmental coercion for private ends.
> Unchecked by the rule
> of law, certain politicians over the past century
> have looted their
> nations? treasuries, enslaved their people, and
> murdered millions of
> their fellow citizens. As John Locke wrote in his
> "Second Treatise on
> Government", the end of the law is "to preserve and
> enlarge Freedom." In
> recent years Americans have sat idly by while their
> government waged a
> full-scale assault on the rule of law in its quest
> for unlimited power.
> The Clinton administration acknowledged no
> constitutional limits on
> governmental power whatsoever, and met barely a peep
> of protest from the
> Republican Congress (Ron Paul is the lone
> exception). Clinton proposed a
> federal program for virtually every "problem," real
> or perceived, that
> one can imagine, from such monstrous schemes as
> socialized medicine to
> federal micromanagement of school uniforms, school
> building repair, the
> length of hospital stays, and the hiring of children
> to conduct sting
> operations on cigarette vendors. Former Surgeon
> General Joyclyn Elders
> even advocated a federal masturbation education
> program (ostensibly to
> reduce the incidence of AIDS). When Congress balked
> at Clinton?s
> unconstitutional power grabs, he simply issued
> hundreds of "executive
> orders" that were a way of raising his middle finger
> to the
> Constitution. As Clinton flak Paul Begala described
> these orders,
> "Stroke of the pen, law of the land. Kind of cool."
> The Constitution requires the advice and consent of
> the Senate for many
> executive branch appointments. Clinton ignored this
> by making dozens of
> "temporary" or "recess" appointments of persons who
> remained in their
> jobs for years thanks to the acquiescence of the
> Republican Congress,
> which apparently has no more respect for the
> Constitution than Clinton
> does.
> The federal government has confiscated millions of
> acres of land by
> declaring it a "national monument" or part of its
> "American Heritage
> Rivers Initiative," a program to nationalize
> America?s rivers and the
> land surrounding them. There were a few protests by
> local politicians,
> but once again the American public was largely
> unconcerned and so were
> their congressional representatives.
> The Constitution also requires a declaration of war
> by Congress, yet
> Clinton waged a war on Kosovo, bombed Afghanistan
> and the Sudan,
> continues bombing Iraq on an almost daily basis, and
> militarily
> intervened in numerous other countries without
> asking for or receiving
> authorization by Congress. This too is as much
> Congress?s fault as
> Clinton?s. Ultimately, it is the fault of the
> American public. The
> American public has also slept while the federal
> government over the
> past eight years has waged an assault on the First
> Amendment. First
> there was the collection of over 900 FBI files
> including sensitive
> personal information on former Republican executive
> branch officials.
> This information has undoubtedly been used to
> blackmail some of them
> into remaining uncritical of Clinton.
> The administration has never given up its quest to
> get its hands on
> private medical records of all citizens; it has
> sought to put "Clipper
> Chips" in all computers so that the government can
> spy on all computer
> communications; and it took advantage of the
> Oklahoma City bombing of a
> federal building to enact a "Counter-Terrorism Act"
> that greatly
> expanded the government?s ability to spy on all
> private communications.
> The Clinton administration ignored the Fourth
> Amendment by asserting a
> "right" to conduct warrantless searches and
> mandatory drug tests in its
> prosecution of the disastrous war on drugs under the
> guise of "national
> security concerns." Drug police have conducted
> warrantless searches of
> entire apartment buildings and have confiscated
> private property without
> due process under the "asset forfeiture laws." The
> Constitution also
> forbids ex-post facto laws, but in their quest to
> plunder the tobacco
> industry federal, state and local governments have
> enacted legislation
> or asserted in court that the common law principle
> of the assumption of
> risk (i.e., that smokers themselves know they are
> taking a health risk)
> should be ignored retroactively so that governments
> could sue the
> tobacco industry for decades of "damages." Once the
> legal precedent is
> established that individuals are not responsible for
> their own
> consumption choices, the state is free to attempt to
> plunder virtually
> any manufacturer of any product while chipping away
> at our personal
> freedoms. Most Americans seem completely unconcerned
> about this trend as
> well and support the "war on tobacco." Most
> Americans are probably
> unaware that the political assault on the Second
> Amendment is largely
> funded by the federal government with research
> grants to anti-Second
> Amendment university researchers. The federal
> Centers for Disease
> Control has even gone so far as to declare gun
> ownership a "disease" to
> justify its expenditure of tax dollars on seminars
> that train lobbyists
> how to lobby for gun-control laws. Once the
> government takes sides on a
> policy issue it has the ability to drown out all
> other voices.
> The absurdly-named "Justice Department" has been
> staffed with political
> hacks who can be relied upon to look the other way
> while executive
> branch officials commit all kinds of high crimes and
> misdemeanors and
> behave unconstitutionally. Janet Reno is Exhibit A
> in this regard, as
> are convicted felon Webster Hubbell, who was
> Clinton?s first choice to
> run the Justice Department; Eleanor Acheson, Hillary
> Clinton?s Wellesely
> College roommate; Sheila Anthony, the late Vince
> Foster?s sister; Frank
> Hunger, Al Gore?s brother-in-law; and Kent Marcus,
> former chief of staff
> of the Democratic National Committee.
> With this crew in place the Clinton administration
> was able to violate
> campaign finance laws with reckless abandon; shake
> down Indian tribes
> for campaign contributions, Mafia style; cover up
> myriad other illegal
> shakedown operations run by the late Commerce
> Secretary Ron Brown and
> his successors; exercise claims of "executive
> privilege" without legal
> challenge; use the taxpayer-financed Justice
> Department as its own
> private law firm for its impeachment defense; cover
> up the mass murder
> at Waco and the cold-blooded killing of a mother
> holding her newborn
> baby at Ruby Ridge, Idaho; pardon 16 Puerto Rican
> terrorists just to
> help Hillary out with the New York Puerto Rican
> vote; and myriad other
> crimes. As the New York Times editorialized on May
> 10, 2000, "Janet Reno
> has consistently failed to enforce the law against
> top Clinton
> administration officials."
> Clinton is now a convicted felon, having been found
> guilty of multiple
> felonies by a federal judge in Arkansas, a
> conviction he did not
> contest. He faced no consequences of this
> conviction, however, other
> than a $90,000 fine which likely was paid indirectly
> and surreptitiously
> by a campaign contributor.
> He was impeached but not convicted, which truly
> placed him above the
> law. Is there any wonder that his understudy, Al
> Gore, brazenly attempts
> to commit vote fraud in broad daylight, in front of
> television cameras
> for all the world to see? Most Americans, in their
> ignorance and
> laziness, have become indifferent to the rule of
> law. If such
> indifference continues the tyranny and criminality
> of the Clinton years
> will pale in comparison to the destruction of
> freedom that is yet to
> come.
> ----------
> Thomas DiLorenzo is a professor of economcs in the
> Sellinger School of
> Business and Management at Loyola College in
> Baltimore.
>
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