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The Only Way To Win The Game Is To Play By The Rules

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

          This week, when we should be celebrating our county’s independence, I am, instead, very concerned about its future.  Our founders gave us a Constitution and rule of law, which have protected us from tyranny for many years.  Unfortunately, several recent events indicate that we are moving even further away from that rule of law and closer to an arrangement in which any means can be used as long as most people like the outcome.  This is very dangerous, and I fear we are quickly approaching a “tipping point”, where we will descend into a “might makes right”, “law of men”, “ends justify the means” tyranny.  In fact, just this past week, Dick Gephardt promised that, if he is elected president, and if the Supreme Court makes a decision with which he disagrees, he will simply make an executive order to overturn that decision.  That certainly is a far cry from the balance of powers established by our founders to protect the people.

          The U.S. Congress is about to impose a nationwide prescription drug plan for senior citizens, which will move us a giant step further down the road toward socialized medicine.  If we were playing by the rules of the game, we would first ask, “Where does the Constitution give Congress the authority to pass such a law?”  There is no authority in the Constitution by which the federal government is given the power to regulate our health care or to require us to subsidize the health care of others.  However, Congress has been allowed to overstep its bounds in the health care and other fields for so long, that the question is not even asked, and so we move a giant step toward fewer choices, more regulation, and rationing of our health care. 

          The Supreme Court recently decided the University of Michigan case, in which it said it is alright for states to discriminate on the basis of race as long as they do it subtly and do not use a clear, objective plan.  Of course, this decision violates the equal protection clause of the 14^th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act.  In this decision, the Supreme Court has ignored the rule of law in order to obtain the politically popular outcome it wants.  Sandra Day O’Connor’s opinion essentially says, “The ends justify the means, and as long as there is a compelling interest, we can safely ignore the rule of law.”  While the talking heads worry about this decision in terms of how it will affect discrimination in the future, they ignore the fact that it is undermining our basic legal system and rule of law on which we depend for our security against tyranny. 

          The Supreme Court also decided the Texas sodomy case, enlarging the “right of privacy”, which it has pretended to find somewhere in the “emanations and penumbras” of the Constitution, to the point that it gave the federal government the right to prevent states from outlawing sodomy.  While I think privacy is a very good thing, and I do not like the Texas sodomy law, that should not be the point.  The point is that the Supreme Court has taken away the power of the citizens of Texas to enact the kinds of laws they want, and it has done so without any authority in the Constitution giving it that power.  If the Supreme Court justices were doing their job correctly, their opinion of sodomy and the opinions of the rest of us outside of the state of Texas should be irrelevant.  The only question should be whether the Texas law violates something in the U.S. Constitution.  There is no right of privacy in the Constitution to be violated by the Texas law, so the Supreme Court should let the Texas law stand.

          In reading commentary on the Texas sodomy case, it is clear that the commentators are happy with the outcome (overturning the Texas law), and they don’t even think about the fact that the means used for that purpose undermine the rule of law and its protections.  They ridicule those who have said this decision will be used to prevent states from having laws against prostitution, bestiality, and other consensual sexual activities, treating the opponents of the decision as unsophisticated, bigoted yokels.  In this case, we are likely to find in the near future that the so-called yokels are right, and, more importantly, we will find that this decision is further eroding the foundation of our legal system, moving us further toward its eventual collapse. 

          We ignore the destruction and deterioration of our country’s legal foundations at our peril.  We have had the advantage of our system’s protections for many years and have come to take them for granted, thinking that Americans are somehow immune from the tyranny that has befallen other people.  But we do not have any immunity.  We have the same human failings as any other people in the world.  And when we have allowed the legal system that has protected us for so long to deteriorate far enough, I am afraid we will learn that sad, terrible truth.

          If the citizens of the U.S. appreciated the protections our rule of law has given us over the years, we would not allow the Supreme Court, Congress, or the President to overstep their bounds unchecked.  We would demand that they play by the rules, because we would know that, when the rules of the game are ignored, we all lose.

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