Dear Friends,
It seems to me, what limit to the law if the lawmakers are not held to it, furthermore, if the lawmakers do not follow whatever constitution they are supposed to, then what limit on government? Law then must become mere usurpation and government must serve the elite not the people. It is a self evident fact that when a class serves only it’s own narrow interests, economic destruction ensues, social upheaval follows and violent revolution comes shortly after. History is unambiguous about this. In fact, there are names for the various wrong forms of government enumerated by Aristotle, Tyranny when a monarch serves only his own interests, oligarchy when the aristocracy (elite) serve themselves and democracy when the polis is tyrannical. Everyone is served best when everyone serves everyone.
The class warfare theory of human history is undeniably false, at least as it pertains to economic classes since most of human history has seen tension between factions of the elite, and only rarely between the elite and the people, but when class is defined as faction then it holds some truth. Faction is like fire, it consumes a nation, leaving it in ashes. Every great nation, city state and empire has seen this happen to it. At the outset all the people work together to build a great society. Once the society has been built, the people split into factions, each vying for themselves. The more prosperous the nation becomes the more factious the people become. Naturally, the faction that has the most power is the one to come out on top, these are almost always the lawmakers.
Those who write the laws may be the people as in ancient Athens, the aristocracy as in Venice or a monarch as in feudal Europe, but in all cases there is a defined group that writes the law. When a monarch writes law that benefits all of society, that society flourishes, and when he or she writes laws to serve him or herself, then the country crumbles. The same holds true if the lawmakers are a class, faction, heirs, elected or appointed. The type of government is also irrelevant. Monarchy can have liberty, private property and prosperity while democracy can be illiberal, usurp private property and be filled with poverty. What generates wealth, liberty and prosperity is that the factions, classes and groups work for the benefit of the whole.
Lawmakers usually are not constrained in their actions. There is no overriding legal authority to hold them to their laws or constitutional limits, except the police and military, which they have total control of. If the lawmakers choose not to hold themselves to their own laws then why would they limit the law? They could freely use law to advance their personal self interests with impunity. Passing laws that move ever more of the national wealth into their own hands would be a snap. Money isn’t the only thing that can be usurped. If they sought sexual gratification rather than wealth then they could molest interns as they wanted, if they wanted to never be criticized they could pass laws to jail anyone who criticized them and if they desired godhood they could merely have statues made at the public’s expense and placed in city centers. If those who make the law are not held to those laws there is no limit to the usurpations they can engage in.
Constitutions were an invention to constrain those who write the law, but even under a constitution, if the lawmakers don’t hold themselves to it, no matter how well written, how insightful or how intelligent the framers were, it is moot. Since people are usually unwilling to hold themselves to a rule that limits their self interest, especially egoists, then constitutions cannot function alone. To argue those who make law are somehow not human but angelic is to argue up is down. Especially in the light of past human governments, where the lawmakers were not held to their own laws, or indeed the constitutions that were designed to constrain them. Until the lawmakers are forced to follow every law and letter of the constitution, there can never be real liberty, true prosperity, no one’s private property or person is safe from usurpation. Until there is a NUMA or Fourth Branch, creeping tyranny will ever hold mankind in it’s cold selfish clasp.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
