When Rules Should Be Broken
By Sam Weaver (01/07/04)
Every liberty-loving person has a deep respect for the rule of law. I, for one, do not adhere to the old adage, “Rules are made to be broken.” Absent law, there is only disorder and anarchy. Without rules of personal and civil behavior, there can be no liberty and no justice. Several recent cases, however, have caused me to reflect perhaps more profoundly than ever upon the whole concept of the rule of law.
Judge Roy Moore
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy S. Moore was relieved of office recently after he defied a federal judge’s order to remove a monument displaying the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the state courthouse in Montgomery. Even a handful of conservatives supported the decision to remove Judge Moore from his elected office based upon their understanding of the “rule of law”. After all, the judicial ethics panel that voted unanimously to evict him stated that he had “placed himself above the law.” Oh yeah? Who’s law?!
Anyone who thinks that removing Justice Moore from office was the proper course of action should take a closer look at the U. S. Constitution—and certainly the First Amendment. When the constitution says “Congress shall make no law...” it really means NO LAW! If congress is not allowed to make a law concerning the establishment of religion or the free-exercise thereof, then surely no federal judge can either enact or enforce such a mandate!
Lt. Col. Allen West
U. S. Army Lt. Col. Allen West “failed to maintain discipline in his unit and failed to uphold [the] values [of the United States armed forces].” He violated “three counts of UCMJ [The Uniform Code of Military Justice] Article 128, aggravated assault, and one count of Article 134, communicating a threat.” Yet most people who are familiar with Colonel West’s story rightly revere him as a true hero. He is a hero not in spite of these infractions; Colonel West is a hero because he had the courage and the dedication for the safety of his men to put himself in jeopardy by making these infractions! He quite possibly saved the lives of several of his troops because he knowingly and willingly bent the rules.
In his own defense, Colonel West reportedly said, “I would walk through hell with a gas can for my troops.” That was not just a bunch of rhetoric to save his hide. He had backed up his words with actions. Those actions qualify him as a genuine American hero.
Zero tolerance policies
It seems almost every week there is a new story in the media about the suspension of a public school student based on some ridiculous technical violation of his district’s “zero-tolerance” policy. With the coarsening of society over the past few decades and the prevalence of drugs, weapons and violence in our schools, there MUST be policies employing high standards and effective discipline. It seems to me, however, that these policies should and must be administered with common sense. I’ll go even further and assert my firm belief that the need for these harsh new zero-tolerance policies is the direct result of removing strict discipline and high moral standards from our schools in the first place!
These and many other cases raise several deep philosophical questions. “Exactly what is the Rule of Law?” “Do ends justify means?” “What IS common sense and how can it—or even SHOULD it—be applied to the law?” These are just three of the questions that I want to briefly address in this article.
The Rule of Law
Back in 1775, the citizens of the thirteen British colonies of America were unique among the peoples of the world. They despised the tyranny of King George III and understood the meaning of the Rule of Law so intensely that they were willing to go to war with the most formidable power on earth with only the slimmest of hopes that they could establish a nation governed not by the absolute rule of one monarch, but rather according to the Rule of Law with the consent of the governed. This hatred of tyranny and this sincere devotion to—and understanding of—the Rule of Law was rooted primarily in two sources: The Holy Bible and Sir William Blackstone’s “Commentaries on the Laws of England.”
The word “law” that is contained in the phrase, “Rule of Law”, was never intended to refer specifically to legislation enacted by a body of men. It did not mean regulations mandated by some bureaucracy. It certainly was never imagined by the colonists of 1775 to at any time reflect the “interpretation” of some judge or panel of justices!
As Blackstone said in the late 1760’s, and as Henry Campbell Black reasserted as late as 1891, the word “law” that is found in the uniquely Anglo-American phrase, “Rule of Law”, refers categorically to the Law(s) of Nature and of Nature’s God. Evidence for this can be seen in the very first sentence of America’s Declaration of Independence.
Limited time and space will not allow me to cite the volumes of evidence that support the following claim. Please allow me to quote Thomas Jefferson in the Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom as only one tiny example:
“To suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own…”
My claim is that the brave and sagacious men who founded the United States of America absolutely rejected the rule of man as tyrannical rule. America was established—as no other nation had been before—upon the Rule of the Law of Nature and of Nature’s God. This was the key to true liberty and justice! It was both the duty and the responsibility of every parent or guardian to instill the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God (i. e., religious, political, economic and scientific truths) into his children. It was both the duty and the responsibility of every legislator to enact law according to the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.
Parents, teachers, legislators, judges, etc. do not need some established (i.e., government-sponsored) church to teach them the laws of Nature and Nature’s God. Establishments of religion are run by human beings. They tend to indoctrinate rather than to inform. They are always tyrannical. The Law(s) of Nature and Nature’s God is/are written into the heart of every sane human being. It is called the conscience. Whenever conscience is violated; so too are the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.
Relativism, by its very nature, obscures the line between right and wrong; between good and evil. Relativists imply that if you adhere strictly to your own conscience, then you will certainly be judgmental of another’s “lifestyle choice”. Relativists tend to indoctrinate rather than to inform. They are often tyrannical. Relativists and secularists always place the rule of man and of “learned (or, ‘enlightened’) human philosophy” above any “superstitious (or religious) notion” of the rule of the Law of Nature and Nature’s God.
Do ends justify the means?
The GOD that I know and serve is both omnipotent and omniscient. He gave every human being absolute free will, yet He knew even before the Act of Creation every decision that every person would make. Even the most trivial human decision and natural detail was a part of GOD’s Plan from the very beginning. In the end, every human action works precisely according to GOD’s Purpose and Plan.
Does this mean than any human action or decision is justified if it results in some desired conclusion? Absolutely not! Even though GOD is able to use them for ultimate good, the desires, goals and purposes of selfish, finite humans are most often opposed to the Will of the loving and infinite Creator and Author of Law. The end results of human actions and decisions are ONLY just when they are made with clear conscience using common sense and sound judgment.
Common Sense
My edition of “Webster’s New World Dictionary” defines common sense as “ordinary good sense or sound practical judgment.” Common sense is inextricably bound to human conscience. Common sense is that trait that every rational person who has not destroyed his conscience through abuse or neglect possesses which informs him to bend or to break the rules of man when they are in direct conflict with the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.
Roy Moore, Allen West, and the kid who gave his friend his inhaler when she was having an asthmatic attack all technically broke the rules. They all used conscience—common sense and practical judgment—to place the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God ahead of the rules (or the “law”) of man.
Far too many Americans today have forgotten the meaning and the origin of the Rule of Law. We put aside conscience, common sense and good judgment when we accept as “the law of land” the judicial tyranny of five relativists on the Supreme Court. Some of us even want our foreign policy decisions placed in the hands of the United Nations! Conscience, common sense and practical judgment should make it quite clear that the UN is nothing if not a body of secularists, relativists and anti-Semites. The rules and resolutions of the UN seldom have any basis in the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God. Rather, as Robert Meyer has eloquently stated [See: www.americandailycom/item/4089], the UN is a modern-day Tower of Babel that neglects the Laws of God and ineptly attempts, at times, to enforce the will of man.
The rule of man is always a prescription for tyranny. The Judeo-Christian (Anglo-American) concept of the Rule of Law assures liberty—but only if conscience and common sense are employed both by society’s leaders and, generally, by the people. Liberty demands a generally moral, educated and informed electorate. Relativism clouds any true concept of morality and leads to an indoctrinated and misinformed populace.
If America is to remain the “shining city upon the hill”—the bastion of liberty that our Founders bequeathed to us—then we must once again fully acknowledge and understand the Rule of Law. We must reject every aspect of tyranny. Whenever people of decent character, acting in good conscience and with sound practical judgment, are forced into a situation in which they have no choice but to break the rules of man, Americans must rush to their defense.
Knowing, understanding and living according to the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God is the very essence of liberty. Bowing to the mandates, dictates and the rules of man is sheer tyranny. Decades of relativism and the widespread abuse and neglect of individual conscience has lead to the near death of common sense and rational judgment. Liberty can only exist where common sense and sound judgment thrive.
It is not too late for Americans to start willfully and courageously breaking the rules of man and the shackles of tyranny! It is not too late for America to revert to the rock-solid base of her foundation—the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. On the very day that it does become too late, the American Experiment will have become a dismal failure. True liberty will have been vanquished from the face of the earth.
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