Williams: What's Rule of Law?

Creators Syndicate ^ | December 10, 2014 | Walter E. Williams

[jazusamo]

President Barack Obama said just before the recent Ferguson, Missouri, riots, "First and foremost, we are a nation built on the rule of law." Most Americans have little or no inkling of what "rule of law" means. Many think it means obedience to whatever laws legislatures enact. That's a vision that has led to human tragedy down through the ages. Historically, it sanctioned the divine right of kings, whereby a monarch was subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God. More recently, it's a vision that included the Nuremberg laws, which led to the genocide of European Jews, and the brutal laws of the regimes of Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, which led to tens of millions of murders.

Let's ask ourselves what the characteristics of laws in a free society should be. Let's think about baseball rules (laws) as a way to approach this. Some players, through no fault of their own, hit fewer home runs than others. In order to create baseball justice, or what's sometimes called a level playing field, how about a rule requiring pitchers to throw easier pitches to poorer home run hitters? Alternatively, we could make a rule that what would be a double for a power hitter is a home run for someone who doesn't hit many homers.

Some pitchers aren't so good as others. How about allowing those pitchers to stand closer to home plate? Better yet, we could rule their first two pitches as strikes, regardless of whether they are or not. In the interest of baseball justice, we might make special rules for some players and not for others. That would level the playing field between old players and young players, black players and white players and fast runners and slow runners...

[Olog-hai]

A while back, I looked on a Wikipedia page about kings of England, and they had the phrase “by the grace of God” linked to another Wikipedia page titled “Divine right of kings”. Shows the deep, deep misunderstanding over at that “encyclopedia that any (fool) can edit”.

Obama by his “pen and phone” doctrine shows that he cares nothing for the rule of law, but instead the opposite—the rule of man, which causes all the desolation indicated in this article.

[jazusamo]

Agreed...And 0bama making his “pen and phone” statement shows just how blatantly in-your-face and juvenile he is.

[cotton1706]

Res publica - the public thing - the law

Anarchy - rule by none; monarchy - rule by one; oligarchy/aristocracy - rule by few; democracy - rule by many; republic - rule by law

We shall be ruled by men or by laws - laws created by the authority of all of us, that we vest in a representative body, called a legislature.

[stephenjohnbanker]

There is no longer a rule of law in America. It is whatever Obama can get away with.

[wastoute]

Or anybody else.

[stephenjohnbanker]

How true.