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Quote of the Day: Abuse of Power
“Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.” —James Madison
It’s unsettling to read a quotation from a Founding Father that so closely resembles the United States today. With far-left groups wreaking havoc in our streets, the irresponsibility of Congress pursuing feckless investigations, and the illegal actions of our FBI, we don’t have to look much further (but could dive much more deeply) to witness the excess of power. People ruin public buildings and private businesses with graffiti; statues and monuments are defaced and torn down with no consideration of the rule of law. And to say that no citizen is safe, I believe, is not an understatement.
Twitter has become a morass where people are attacked and lose their jobs. Tiny children are being shot in the streets. Our sensibilities and beliefs are ridiculed and degraded. We can’t even protect our own homes (as the people in St. Louis are learning) without being charged with a crime.
James Madison tried to warn us. Astute people tried to point out the signs in recent years of a society in trouble. Now, some people are finally speaking up about taking our country back.
I just hope it’s not too late.
Published in Culture
Rule of law has been taking a beating in the United States for decades.
Under the rule of law, people are treated equally regardless of race, creed, position, or wealth. In addition, people have basic protections such as the assumption of innocence and the right to counsel.
Equality under the law is now considered “racist,” and basic protections have been shunted aside by an administrative state that creates, polices, and adjudicates law and that dictates punishment.
State of Nature: The strong pursue their ends by forcibly taking the lives, liberty, and property of the weak.
Capitalism: People pursue their own ends by freely exchanging goods and services in peaceful cooperation under the rule-of-law.
Socialism / Crony Capitalism: The politically strong achieve their ends by using government to forcibly take the lives, liberty, and property of the politically weak.
Tipping Point: The rule-of-law is so riddled with exceptions that it effectively ceases to exist, and the state-of-nature is reestablished (see, for example, Venezuela).
It is obviously an elegant residence they have come out to protect after having witnessed mobs burning buildings without even a second thought and absent police protection. Look at how they are dressed – or half-dressed. They must of had barely time to arm themselves and show that they were going to defend their property. I hope DoJ goes after the local Soros backed DA.
The DoJ and the FBI are supposed to be under the control of the Executive branch. They haven’t been. That is a huge problem, and we have no idea how far down the rot has spread. I used to want to see perp walks. Now I want to see heads bouncing down the steps of the FBI headquarters atrium.
All true, @richardfulmer. And the foundations have been eroding for a long, long time. I know that it will be very difficult to re-establish all those things which allow human beings to thrive and reach their full potential. I don’t know if it’s possible.
That’d work for me, too, @percival. With Comey going first.
So much for the rule of law.
I don’t expect to get it. But as a great moral philosopher once said “If you try sometimes you might find, you get what you need.”
And lopping off heads will lead us back to the rule of law?
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try, sometimes,
You get what you need
What you want /= what you need.
I’m good with that.
Dead right. The founders notions were revolutionary and worked well until the 20th century. Wilson was the main culprit but it just grows and always did, as interests accumulate and learn how to exercise ever more power.
@iwalton, I wonder if it’s possible to have a revolution back to the old truths? It would indeed be a paradox, but maybe that’s what is needed: a revolution to pursue traditional values!
Revolution means we have to undo government power. Their revolution was to not build such power in the first place. Maybe we have to remove Federal money from the states, which when the inflation hits and we try to raise taxes maybe first we can just cut. Well run states will figure things out and cut as well. I fear not many people see the whole thing as an existential threat to what made us what we are, or were. None were alive when it was run the way it was designed.
It would really be neat if we could elect a Congress that would look at it this way.
Human nature has not changed. That is what he was talking about then and we are talking about now.
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Like @arahant I do not find it at all eerie to see a quotation from a Founding Father as particularly on-point today. Human nature has not changed, and the concerns that led the Founding Fathers to become Founders of this republic are still with us. Not until my children were in elementary school did I start taking an interest in the Founding. I was initially surprised, and then began to expect, that much of what I read from the time of the Founding would be directly applicable today.
As to the topic of power, with the photo in the post I did immediately think of the obvious abuse of power by the District Attorney being applied to the couple because they are at least momentarily the “wrong kind of people,” but only because they dared to challenge the privileged people of the moment. One of the ironies is that (as I understand it) they are not among the “deplorables.” They apparently support some of the stated goals of the protestors, and as lawyers have represented people alleging abuse by the police department. But, because they challenged the mob that is privileged at the moment, they are subjected to abuse at the hands of the power of the state.
A thousand likes.
Earlier today elsewhere on the site, I mentioned that we have only ever fought one war: the American Revolution. It continues to today. It was not a war where treaties were signed and it was done. It is a war of ideas that must be waged with each new generation.
Okay, I changed “eerie” in the OP to “unsettling, ” @arahant and @fullsizetabby; you may both disagree with that word choice, but it more closely represents my own experience.
Well said, and we have to acknowledge that we have permitted out children to be more and more educated by the “crown” against which this Revolution was fought: the idea that we should be ruled by individuals selected by God to rule over us rather than by ourselves; that there should be nobles and patrons favored by this elect of God who then subjected us to sub-rule regionally; that we should labor on the lands of the Lords and enrich them rather than ourselves; that would should be thankful that we are kept by our keepers. The Progressives stand up an elite who are to rule by “divine right” based on whatever criteria they choose. Skin color is particularly of the moment, but it could be anything so long as power only runs to the “right people”.
And, take notice, the abuse is at the hands of the person in the position of state power, not coming from any authority lodged with the state by the people. We all know that the action for which the McCloskey’s are being threatened with criminal charges was legitimate, legal, and justified. This nature of this abuse is the same as that applied to the Trump presidency in the DoJ, the FBI, and other components of the federal government. People in those ‘positions’ do it because they can.
An insightful expansion on @arahant‘s comment, @rodin. And so the Progressives aren’t so progressive, after all.
Well, you have to go with your own experience in what you write. My experiences are different. To me, this is as if Madison said, “If you jump off a cliff to the rocks below, your landing is going to hurt.” I have seen the signs that we jumped off the cliff long ago. It does not surprise me that the landing hurts. What you seem to be saying is, “I can’t believe we jumped off that cliff!” But it was a very long drop. We didn’t just do it.
Point taken, @arahant. I’ve only started to understand the Constitution in recent years, and it was mostly intellectual understanding, not a relationship with it. I’m learning the unpleasant lessons it has to teach me in real life.
Truth. Their ideas have always been the regressive overturning of the American Revolution.
Don’t forget, Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, and communism is the opposite.
The biggest abuse of power in this country today is the press abandoning its role to report facts and the truth, and instead support a political agenda. What makes it worse is the agenda they support is destructive of the very foundation on which their right to publish is guaranteed . . .
Ricochet is not a place of free speech either.
You know the drill. A speedy trial and a fair hanging.
It turns out to be a more humane means of execution than our modern examples of overthinking the problem.
They were never progressive any more than they were liberal. Woodrow Wilson? Seriously? Euthanasia, pre-frontal lobotomies, sterilization of undesirables, segregation of the armed forces, Jim Crow,….