The Law Versus Orders

by Walter Williams - June 20th, 2007 - Townhall.com

Suppose a person is raped and we arrest the rapist. Should his status, whether he's a senator, professor or an ordinary man, play a role in the adjudication of the crime and subsequent punishment? I'm betting that the average person would answer that the law against rape is general and non-arbitrary and one's status should have nothing to do with the adjudication and punishment for the crime. That's precisely what is meant by "rule of law." Or, as English jurist A.V. Dicey put it, "Every man, whatever be his rank or condition, is subject to the ordinary law of the realm and amenable to the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals."

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Twenty-five years ago, during a dinner conversation with Nobel Laureate economist/philosopher Friedrich A. Hayek, I asked him if he could propose one law that would restore, promote and preserve liberty in our country, what would that law be? Hayek answered that the law he'd propose would read: Congress shall enact no law that does not apply equally to all Americans. Hayek's suggestion for full equality before the law was both simple and profound and would do untold wonders in fostering the liberties envisioned by our Founders.

A law such as this would find enemies in both our political parties. I wonder if we could find anyone to propose the law?

Can you really envision anyone in the black leadership of the Democrat Party tolerating a reduction in the favored status of blacks? Affirmative action is making millionaires of some blacks who get preferential treatment over poor whites who are being taxed to provide this preferential treatment. They claim it is their due.

Or how about the rich businessmen and investors in the Republican Party who demand special lowered taxes on their capital gains. If you make $100,000 from investments, how can you claim that you should get lower taxes than a plumber who works 80 hour weeks and makes $100,000. Do you not believe that free enterprise works? Do you not believe that the marketplace has rewarded each according to his contribution to the business exchanges they participated in? If you believe in free enterprise how can you believe in unequal taxes?

Both parties have become a process by which they provide unfair laws for their favored "base". I think socialism is evil so I am not concerned with how corrupt the Democrat Party has become, but it infuriates me when people like Dennis Hastert destroy the image of the Republican Party by selling republican votes for pork based on campaign contributions. Hastert's name should be forever linked to corrupt pork. I am delighted he is gone from our party. He should be in jail.

However he is not since the court system has become corrupted by the same problem. Equal protection under the law has become a joke. Like all things in our court system, free speech, eminent domain, innocent until proven guilty, jury of peers, etc, etc, etc . . . . equal protection has ceased to mean anything.

There is no "rule of law". The courts are corrupt.