Paul Craig Roberts: The Rule Of Law No Longer Exists In Western Civilization
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
My work documenting how the law was lost began about a quarter of a century ago. A close friend and distinguished attorney, Dean Booth, first brought to my attention the erosion of the legal principles on which rests the rule of law in the United States. My columns on the subject got the attention of an educational institution that invited me to give a lecture on the subject. Subsequently, I was invited to give a lecture on “How The Law Was Lost” at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in New York City.
The work coalesced into a book, The Tyranny Of Good Intentions, coauthored with my research associate, Lawrence M. Stratton, published in 2000, with an expanded edition published in 2008. We were able to demonstrate that Sir Thomas More’s warning about prosecutors and courts disregarding law in order to more easily convict undesirables and criminals has had the result of turning law away from being a shield of the people and making it into a weapon in the hands of government. That is what we witness in the saga of the Hammonds, long-time ranchers in the Harney Basin of Oregon.
With the intervention of Ammon Bundy, another rancher who suffered illegal persecution by the Bureau of Land Management but stood them off with help from armed militia, and his supporters, the BLM’s decades long persecution of the innocent Hammonds might have come to a crisis before you read this.
Bundy and militiamen, whose count varies from 15 to 150 in the presstitute media, have seized an Oregon office of the BLM as American liberty’s protest against the frame-up of the Hammonds on false charges. As I write the Oregon National Guard and FBI are on the way.
The militiamen have said that they are prepared to die for principles, and the rule of law is one of them. Of course, the presstitute media is making the militiamen into the lawbreakers—and even calling them terrorists—and not the federal government’s illegal prosecution of the Hammonds, whose crime was their refusal to sell their ranch to the government to be included in the Masher National Wildlife Refuge.
If there are only 15 militiamen, there is a good chance that they will all be killed, but if there are 150 armed militiamen prepared for a shootout, the outcome could be different.
I cannot attest to the accuracy of this report of the situation (the resources required to verify the information in this account of how the government escalated a “crisis” out of the refusal of a family to bend is beyond the resources of this website) - However, the story fits perfectly with everything Lawrence Stratton and I learned over the years that we prepared our book on how the law was lost. This account of the persecution of the Hammonds is the way government behaves when government has broken free of the rule of law.
I can attest with full confidence that the United States no longer has a rule of law. The USA is a lawless country. By that I do not mean what conservative Republicans mean, which is, if I understand them, that racial minorities violate law with something close to impunity.
What I mean is that only the mega-banks and the One Percent have legal protection, and that is because these people control the government. For everyone else law is a weapon in the hands of the government to be used against the American people.
The fact that the shield of law no longer exists for American citizens is why, according to US Department of Justice statistics, only 4 percent of federal felonies ever go to trial. Almost the entirety of federal felonies are settled by coerced plea bargains that force defendants to admit to crimes that they did not commit in order to avoid “expanded indictments” that, if presented to the typical stupid, trusting, gullible American “jury of their peers,” would lock them away for hundreds of years.
American justice is a joke. It does not exist. You can see this in the American prison population. “Freedom and Democracy” America not only has the largest percentage of its population in prison than any country on the planet, but also the largest number of prisoners.
If you consider that “authoritarian” China has four times the population of the United States but fewer prisoners, you understand that “authoritarian” China has a more protective rule of law than the United States.
Compared to “freedom and democracy America,” Russia has hardly anyone in prison. Yet, Washington and its media whores have defined the President of Russia as “the new Hitler.”
The only thing we can conclude from the facts is that the United States Government and those ignorant fools who worship it are evil incarnate.
Out of evil comes dictatorship. The White House Fool, at best a two-bit punk, has decided that he doesn’t like the Second Amendment to the US Constitution any more than he likes any of the other constitutional protections of US citizens. He is looking for dictatorial methods, that is, unlegislated executive orders, to overturn the Second Amendment. He has the corrupt US Department of Justice, a criminal organization, looking for ways for the dictator to overturn both Congressional legislation and Supreme Court rulings.
The media whores have fallen in line with the would-be dictator. All we hear is “gun violence.” If only Karl Marx were still with us. He would ridicule those who turn inanimate objects into purposeful actors. It is extraordinary that the American left-wing thinks that guns, not people, kill people.
The position of the “progressive left-wing” in the United States is perplexing. Here are Americans, immersed into a police state, as are the Hammonds, and the progressive left-wing wants to disarm the population.
Whatever this “progressive left-wing opposition” is, it has nothing in common with revolutionaries. The American left-wing is totally irrevelant, a defeated force that sold out and no longer represents the people or the truth.
If protesting the murder of a young black American by Ferguson police is not legitimate and the protesters are “terrorists,” why aren’t the Oregon protestors terrorists for trying to protect jailbirds from their “lawful sentence”? This is the wrong question.
It really is discouraging that the American black community is unable to understand that if any American can be dispossessed, all Americans can be dispossessed.
It is also discouraging that RT decided to play the race card instead of comprehending that law is no longer a shield of the American people but is a weapon in the hands of Washington.
Why doesn’t RT at least listen to the President of Russia, who states repeatedly that America and the West are lawless.
Putin is correct. America and its vassals are lawless. No one is safe from the government.
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this guy Roberts makes Pat Buchannan seem like a genius
I guess morons could be your specialty
Forty years ago I came to America from USSR. I am not young any more.
I lived in Stalin's Soviet Union. It was something like ISIS. It was a sadistic and barbaric state where nobody was safe. It was one big concentration camp.
Post-Stalin USSR was not a democracy and people were not free to speak or even move around but if one did not violate the official rules of Law, this person was free from indiscriminate prosecution and torture.
I came to America in early 1970s. I liked people, the country, and I felt free. However, America today is not a country I knew even 20 years ago. As I see it, today America is moving closer and closer to Stalin's times when citizens were terrorized. Despotism, indiscriminate prosecution under false pretense, arbitrary imprisonment and torture were the norm.
I have a cousin who emigrated from Ukraine in the late 70's and is now in his early 60s. He has the same opinion as you do. The rule of law was always elusive but there were far fewer laws and far few regulations. Now every time you turn around you have to battle mindless orders followers constrained by rules and regulations. Using logic has no ability to gain any cooperation.
Romania here tovarisch! Absolutly the same feeling, I see a redo of the Soviet bloc collapse unfolding again. The scary shit is - everybody I know or I hear from the former
Eastern Bloc sings the same tune. I guess we got trained at the school of life and grew a nose for BS. So, the outcome it is clear, only the bozos can't see it. Prepare for the roller coster
again comrades!
If you have Netflix, view "Making a Murderer" for an update on America's legal system.
So, the outcome it is clear, only the bozos can't see it. Prepare for the roller coster
I appreciate the sentiment with which your comments are offered. We see it.
My opinion from afar: The Soviet Union collapsed when it lost the support of the apparatchiks, and when the average person finally stopped bothering to do...anything. The economy collapsed when everyone realized that working was a joke, and that it didn't matter. The political functionaries and economic directors loved the system because they had power, but the existence or non-existence of that system mattered not a whit to anyone else. And so it collapsed.
American is closer to this eventuality than many realize. Talk to people in the checkout line at grocery, etc. Everyone is pissed off. Everyone. The Gallup poll reported here is accurate: Americans know that corruption is rife. Americans know that the government doesn't work for them, that it has become a special interest group of its own, a ruthless armed gang. "The American Dream" slowly dies in the minds of the slowly dying middle class. It's happening, but I will admit not fast enough to suit me or others who are paying closer attention. There is no future until we throw off this system.
Beware the old lion, he is sick and hurts but still owns teeth and claws. With nothing much to lose, they get irritable and extremely dangerous.
Yep, try renewing your driver's license in Texas. It would be laughable if it weren't so awful. If you have an Hispanic surname and brown skin, you get fast tracked while a peckerwood gets to wait forever.
I am grateful for immigrants like you who come from places of tyranny and despotism. You offer us Americans a fresh perspective, a chance to be grateful for the freedoms we do have, and jealousy for those that are slipping away from us.
"...However, America today is not a country I knew even 20 years ago..."
Substitute 'Colonies' for 'Country' and the same thing was uttered many times in public houses in America 220 years ago (but the ale was much better back then and everyone had a .77 cal smoothbore handy).
Geography of one's oppressor is unimportant. The ideology of one's oppressor, their religion, their laws, their government or their mafias are unimportant. The first guy out the door with his long rifle is unimportant. It's always the thousandth guy out the door with his long rifle that matters. The ones before him and the ones after him are just noise.
The thousandth guy is going to effect change, nothing more. Not good or bad, just 'change'. The outcome is really dependent on the pencil-necked smart guys with the thick glasses that hammer out a new constitution with one thought in mind: "How do we keep the psychopaths out of government NEXT time? What did the old, dead guys get wrong?"
The oddest thing I've discovered in recent years is how EASY it is to explain that to Soviet-era Russian or East European guys, yet how difficult it is to explain that same concept to Americans. If your a psychopath and want to con everyone into being a slave for, you don't try to convince them that evil doesn't exist - you simply control HOW it's defined and have enough paid thugs to back up your logic.
I'm American and I agree with this 100%. The problem is the structure of government.
I would say the problem goes deeper. It is really a problem with the nature of man, and corrupt governments are a consequence of many individuals throughout history trying to rip off their fellow individuals without feeling guilty about it.
In other words, rather than take a gun and rob somebody and then feel bad about themselves, they work themselves into a sense of justice that says they have the RIGHT to take that person's money by force, and then they send somebody else to actually do the taking, and then they pat themselves on the back for being such good people. That utterly corrupt desire creates government, thus all governments will necessarily be corrupt, even if they pretend not to be (and fool a lot of people into believing it, for a while).
We are our problem. You want a government that doesn't rely on a 'moral' people? You are left only with totalitarianism, in one form or another.
Only a moral and religious culture would realize the long-term effects of those "producing erections" (pun intended), and then expecting or insisting that "consumers" of their product respect their subjective value judgement as "the market price" will produce a society where eventually "widespread depression" is the result.
@TonyRUs,
That's the long and the short of it. The Founders and Ratifiers never envisioned that the three branches of the federal government would be united in their pursuit of progressivism and oligarchy. They assumed there would always be a healthy, though inefficient, tension between the branches based on opposing institutional interests. Nor did they foresee that the American people would be so god damned stupid as to hand a blank check to the federal government in the form of the 16th Amendment. In 23 short years FDR perfected the art of using taxpayer money to buy votes.
That is all playing out with a vengeance now and the semi-literate, logic- and history-challenged electorate will vote for anything so long as it doesn't mean a change to the massive transfers, public debt, and evisceration of the constitutional scheme.
I came up with an interesting analysis of this phenomenon a couple of years ago. The structure of government in the last couple of hundred years has not changed much technologically, while the structure of entities trying to overcome the power of government have. The original structure of the US gov't. was intentially set up in many cases (like constitutional amendment) to slow the process down. Meanwhile, the factions intent on biasing the government have used technology to speed things up and end-run around the slow governmental processes.
I'm not suggesting that it would be a good thing to speed government up in its existing structure - that would be disasterous.
But yes, the founding fathers didn't anticipate the level of challenges the current government faces against the powers it is charged with controlling.
I think we need a new structure. We need a structure that is far more in tune with human nature that automatically amplifies wisdom (suppresses corruption and stupidity.)
I'd state this very strongly like this: Any government not based solely on morality is inherently immoral. It would have to be considered necessarily evil.
Well, you just exposed why the genuine socialism morphed so fucking fast in the former USSR into a statist fascist oligarchy. Same in USSA where the genuine socialism of 1930's trough the maleficent of McCarthysm morphed into a corporate fascist oligarchy. Same positive start same shitty end. All because the citizen lost their muzzle on their government to socio-economical minorities groups.
McCarthy wasn't interested in socialists or socialism. His point was that the U.S. government was full of communists working for the interests of the Soviet Union.
He had nothing whatsoever to do with the Supreme Court's enabling of the massive expansion of the federal government through its dishonest interpretation of the Commerce Clause of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The federal government then and there became untouchable by the people and the rush to the unitary state and oligarchy was thus inevitable.
You're absolutely right. Bravo!
It is always a "nature of man" issue.
Simply watch children at play to understand why government must necessarily be corrupt. It cannot be any other because it relies on the nature of man which is evident from early childhood.
It is always a "nature of man" issue.
And to get an understanding of that, consider where we came from. We are apes with car keys:
The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal
http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Ape-Zoologists-Study-Animal/dp/0385334303
No government can escape the ape. They all eventually turn to shit. Same for anarchy. There's a reason a group of apes is called a "troop."
While discussing the nature of Man as the core issue, the answer is actually easy. Change the Primary system in to a lottery. If you vote, you stand the chance of being asked to serve. If you choose to not serve, there are consequences. Limit to two terms. No more professional politicians with their bureaucrat minions.
With all historical government structures, I agree with you. However, it may be possible to structure a government such that the consequences of human nature (corruption and stupidity) are automatically suppressed. How to do this is not intuitive, but it is surprisingly simple. If you're interested, look at my profile here.
While I agree with you that the issue is the nature of man and not the nature of government... even a wise and just king can uphold freedom and justice... wealth stealing by fiat has nothing to do with avoidance of guilt... I assure you these folks are just as able to steal at the point of a gun and feel no guilt. To the contrary, grinding you under their heel is their source of greatest pleasure.
The system is designed to keep them safe and give them power over life and death... in other words, ultimate power.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - C.S.Lewis
It doesn't necessarily go deeper than the structure of government, although a deeper understanding is necessary. I believe you are right that it is a "nature of man" problem. I just state this with the common vernacular: "human nature."
It is possible to structure human governance such that deceit (corruption) and stupidity (anti-wisdom) are filtered out of the decisionmaking process. If you assume for a moment that this is possible, then the problem of "human nature" disappears. I believe I know exactly why this problem happens in contemporary governments: The human brain evolved to operate in groups at the size of a tribe. Right now we're dealing with groups in the hundreds of millions of people. Our brains just aren't optimized for such an environment.
This large environment cause a situation where as the number of people increases, it becomes exponentially easier to hide corruption and corruption is therefore more and more likely over time as any historical governance system becomes increasingly populated by ... assholes.
Overcoming this seems like an impossible task (as is evidenced by the many people here who constantly proclaim it so.) However, I believe I've found a way to do it. If you're interested, see my commentary at sapiocracy.com.
"How do we keep the psychopaths out of government NEXT time? What did the old, dead guys get wrong?"
"The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants, for that is its natural manure." There is no other way. People are people, they are what they are, there is always some percentage of psycopaths who will always climb over the bodies of others to get to the "top". The system must be occasionally purged. There is no other way. It is our turn, it is our time. Those are the facts, like them or not.
Benjamin Franklin:
Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence in the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice—the love of power and the love of money. Separately, each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but, when united in view of the same object, they have, in many minds, the most violent effects. Place before the eyes of such men a post of honor, that shall, at the same time, be a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it. The vast number of such places it is that renders the British government so tempestuous. The struggles for them are the true source of all those factions which are perpetually dividing the nation, distracting its councils, hurrying it sometimes into fruitless and mischievous wars, and often compelling a submission to dishonorable terms of peace. 2And of what kind are the men that will strive for this profitable preeminence, through all the bustle of cabal, the heat of contention, the infinite mutual abuse of parties, tearing to pieces the best of characters? It will not be the wise and moderate, the lovers of peace and good order, the men fittest for the trust. It will be the bold and the violent, the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits. These will thrust themselves into your government and be your rulers. And these, too, will be mistaken in the expected happiness of their situation, for their vanquished competitors, of the same spirit, and from the same motives, will perpetually be endeavoring to distress their administration, thwart their measures, and render them odious to the people.
3Besides these evils, sir, tho we may set out in the beginning with moderate salaries, we shall find that such will not be of long continuance. Reasons will never be wanting for proposed augmentations; and there will always be a party for giving more to the rulers, that the rulers may be able, in return, to give more to them. Hence, as all history informs us, there has been in every state and kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing and the governed; the one striving to obtain more for its support, and the other to pay less. And this has alone occasioned great convulsions, actual civil wars, ending either in dethroning of the princes or enslaving of the people.
4Generally, indeed, the ruling power carries its point, and we see the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied, but always in want of more. The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes, the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partizans, and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure. There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh—get first all the people’s money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever. It will be said that we do not propose to establish kings. I know it. But there is a natural inclination in mankind to kingly government. It sometimes relieves them from aristocratic domination. They would rather have one tyrant than five hundred. It gives more of the appearance of equality among citizens; and that they like.
5I am apprehensive, therefore—perhaps too apprehensive—that the government of the States may, in future times, end in a monarchy. But this catastrophe, I think, may be long delayed, if in our proposed system we do not sow the seeds of contention, faction, and tumult, by making our posts of honor places of profit. If we do, I fear that, tho we employ at first a number and not a single person, the number will, in time, be set aside; it will only nourish the fetus of a king (as the honorable gentleman from Virginia very aptly expressed it), and a king will the sooner be set over us.
caconhma,
A cyclical oligarchy repetitious rhyme.
Mind you, most people appear tone deaf.
Therefore, those with personal experience, or historical recognition capability;
Will be reminded, we are mute people screaming at deaf audience.
It is time to back our bags and walk, as waiting much longer will induce
running.
No longer amusing knowing the inevitable.
caconhma - I came to the US 30 years ago. Fully agreed with your comments. Today's US political, social and economic climate are very similar to what was going on in East Germany. Centrally planned economy, govt working with corporations instead of free markets, arbitrary enforcement of laws, adding thousands of pages to the law so that no one can stay on top of it so everyone pretty much commits 2 felonies a day without realizing it, no protection from police, people afraid of their governments, government no longer pretending to do anything for its citizens, borders closing down ($400 added to foreign airfare, arbitrary hour long shakedowns at immigration, can't move money around anymore).
And now there's a whole generation growing up of a bunch of pussies that are offering themselves up as easy to govern sheeple where the govt doesn't even have to do anything to contain them.
Can't speak for the USSR under Stalin, but what's going on here is pretty close to what was East Germany.
While the belief in the rule of law certainly existed, I'm not entirely certain the "rule of law' ever actually existed.
Rule of Market – The Next Leap Forward
History began with the Rule of Man, which is where those who make the law are not accountable to those under the law, and those who make the law are above the law. The law is thus likely to be inefficient, subjective, arbitrary, and applied unequally. Government under the Rule of Man is illegitimate because people only support it under duress, and no competing law is allowed. Government under the Rule of Man is also a monopoly on the right to initiate force or fraud within a geographical boundary.
A great leap forward from the Rule of Man was the Rule of Law, which is where those who make the law are accountable to those under the law, and no man is above the law. Unfortunately, government under the Rule of Law is still not legitimate because most people support it only under duress, and no competing law is allowed. Like under the Rule of Man, government under the Rule of Law has always been a monopoly on the right to initiate force or fraud within a given geographical boundary. These remaining drawbacks with the Rule of Law are harmful in their own right, but they are also the seeds of its inevitable regression back to the Rule of Man – unless we evolve further.
The next great leap forward will be the Rule of Market, which is where the law is a product like any other. An individual could produce his own law, or choose one of the products produced by others, or choose no such product at all. The market would be the judge. Government under the Rule of Market would allow competition, and few, if any, would purchase law that claimed the right to initiate force or fraud against them.
In the Rule of Market, the law is voluntary – just like any other product. In fact, everything is voluntary. Even money is just a product like any other.
...
You forget The Rule Of The LAND.
that was the most important and came just after the rule of The Man was abolished with the American and French Revolution.
The RULE OF THE LAND protects the inhabitants of a territory from abuses by Outsiders as well as Insiders.
Now with advancement in technology and almost free access to information, small guns and heavy guns will be easier to procure/manufacture in order to defend a small territory.
Sooner rather than later The Rule of The LAND will come back againd, and we'll see again sovereign city-states as in ancient Greece.
True law and justice is now extinct. The twisted remains are only to benefit a privileged self appointed few.
"People as uninformed and as gullible as Americans have no future. Americans are a dead people that history is about to run over." - Paul Craig Roberts
"Those that expect to remain ignorant and free cannot have what never was and never will be."
Help me out. Who said that?
Pee Wee Herman?
Come back in 5 years.
Thomas Jefferson
The USA, best justice money can buy.
I think it existed for a little while after Eisenhower and then Nixon. Not for everyone but authority's effects were reliable. Regular people had their corruptions, bias, racism, bullying and hate-crimes (although we didn't call them that). But there was a faith in law and its directness. It was what it was, for what it was worth.
After Kennedy was shot and the RFK and MLK killings things went south. No one ever managed to shake the suspicion that the PTB were perfectly fine with the way things went. If they were not behind those killings then They Let It Happen On Purpose... It has been trending down ever since (with upward "feel-good" points, like Clinton's use of various methods to keep markets humming - later expanded upon by Bushco).
Probably, if you add it all up, we had the decades (for the people) during and just after WWII, some of the fifties and sixties and decreasing ever faster through the seventies. Various Economic Hit-Men began over-seas "work-arounds" and our path became clear: American Exceptionalism. Once Reagan got in the whole thing exploded.
If I was to pin the acceleration anywhere, it would be on the operatives of the Reagan administration. They created most of what later became Al Qaeda through his "Freedom Fighters". The Iran-a-scam games and bait-and-switch with cutting taxes and spending, not to mention "trickle down" ! All of that was twisted reality, and only accelerated with later leaders.
What none of those "leaders" understood though was that people instinctively see through their lies. They know the thing is rigged. They know, long before they're willing to admit it, that they are becoming pawns in a power-monger's game. It makes men withdraw; in employment you can see it everyday. People will not risk their paycheck and tolerate a bad boss. Same with the government.
Corruption feeds on real life though, so there is a limited lifespan. Unfortunately, as our Eastern European friends know, the end of that lifespan is fucking bloody. Only when the results are clear will men and women be willing to suffer the slow, meticulous work that will result in real growth. And, real lawful enterprises.
Maybe next time we'll be more vigilant.
Read "JFK and the Unspeakable" by James Douglass and you'll never wonder again who was behind the events of Nov 1963 and you'll understand their motives. That was really the day that freedom died.
Thanks. I will put it on the list.
(It is a very long list...)
Rather than the belief in the rule of law was only the hope that some just king/courts could be obtained. In US courts you cannot argue what the law says, but rather only what "case law," aka as prior decisions of other judges.
It still does at the state level, CD. The courts I practiced in in Missouri observed the law of search and seizure, landlord-tenant, collections, real estate, divorce. Precedent was important and persuasive.
Federal criminal practice in federal courts is dominated by the hugely excessive penalties with which prosecutors can threaten defendants. An accused has to be a brave man to forego a plea bargain and take his chances before the jury in federal court. Something like a 95% conviction rate there. You take the deal. The U.S. Attorney rules.
Pat Buchannan is a real conservative. It's why the GOP ousted him.
It's funny how rank and file red teamers worship the gipper but say Roberts is a wing nut. They say the same thing about Ron Paul.
Yes, they do, and it's very telling.
That's right. You can tell what the Republican Party today isn't by looking at his central theme -- the interests of the white American majority and the interests of the U.S., primarily in not trying to rule the world. The Republicans hated him for that.
The rule of oligarchs is the only law of our once great land. Time for a revolution.