No Western Culture Without the Rule of Law

[Joe Cooper]

The major news events of the past few weeks (and longer, frankly), have a
common theme: our culture matters. And we’re losing our grip on it.

I don’t just mean American culture; I mean western culture – that which
has produced Greek philosophy, Roman political theory, the French
approach to diplomacy, the magnificent British legal system, and so much
more.

One of the west’s greatest contributions to human governance is the idea
of the rule of law. Dictionary.com defines it as “the principle that all
people and institutions are subject to and accountable to law that is
fairly applied and enforced.”

Any culture grounded in liberty and limited government is dependent upon
citizens who voluntarily abide by the law, and most do. Additionally,
most citizens of western nations believe in their systems and expect them
to work. At least historically, we have also believed that those we have
elected to represent us believed in those systems a well.

Increasingly, however, it is apparent that we have a class of elites who
no longer believe in the systems of governance that have made our nations
strong, powerful, and adaptable. They no longer hold to the values that
the rest of us thought we all shared. They do not believe that they are
subject to the same rules or the same laws as the rest of us. They act
with audacity and impunity, and when we dare to object, they are
indignant.

And, oh, are we objecting.

Great Britain just dealt a body blow to the European Union by voting
democratically to leave it. Free trade is peachy, but a majority of
British citizens object to their laws being handed down to them by
unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. They resent their industries being
crippled by an incessant barrage of regulations. And they are irate that
a literal handful of politicians have opened Europe’s borders to
literally millions of unscreened people, some unknown number of whom are
terrorists and criminals ripping European cities apart with bombs, gun
rampages, beheadings, rapes, and other physical assaults.

Thus was there Brexit. Britain said, “Enough.”

We are seeing similar sentiments in the United States, and they are
bipartisan. Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has shocked
the political establishment with his popularity among voters that heir
apparent Hillary Clinton assumed would be hers for the plucking. Sanders
has capitalized on left-wing voters’ widespread discontent with income
inequality, political corruption, revolving-door lobbying and crony
capitalism.

On the right, billionaire newcomer, brash reality TV star, and
presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is already in
the history books for his having knocked out 16 other GOP candidates.
Trump, too, is a product of voter outrage; in his case, Republican and
conservative outrage with a GOP-controlled Congress that cannot muster
the will to rein in government bloat, with a federal deficit of $19
trillion, and with the ongoing culture wars.

How does our government respond to the rising tide of anti-elitist
populism? By refusing to press charges against Democrat presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton.

The circumstances of this decision are nothing less than a flagrant
rejection of the rule of law, and at the highest levels of government.
Consider just a few points:

1. All attorneys are bound by the Model Code of Professional
Responsibility, which prohibits conduct that creates even just “the
appearance of impropriety.” Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General of the
United States certainly knows this. But she met with Bill Clinton, alone,
while his wife was the subject of a pending FBI investigation. This was
not some casual conversation at a beltway cocktail party. It was a
deliberate, carefully orchestrated conversation on a private airplane.
That is not the mere appearance of impropriety, it is impropriety.

2. Lynch protested that they just discussed “grandchildren and golf.”
That is implausible. But who cares? Days later, FBI Director James Comey,
right on cue, announces that there will be no prosecution of Hillary
Clinton.

3. In his public statement, Comey effectively admitted that Clinton
actually violated federal law by using an unsecure email system for
classified government materials, thus subjecting top-secret information
to hackers and foreign agents. We already know that she deleted tens of
thousands of non-personal emails. And now we know that she lied about it.
But, Comey demurred, Clinton really didn’t intend to hurt the U.S.
government, she was just “extremely careless.”

4. Except that the statute doesn’t require “intent”; it only requires
“gross negligence.” What does “gross negligence” mean, you ask? “Extreme
carelessness” is a pretty good definition.

5. Here’s the worst part: Comey further stated, "To be clear, this is not
to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this
activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals
are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is
not what we are deciding now."

Translation: "Anyone else would be prosecuted. But not Hillary Clinton."
Comey is speaking in a code that is easily decrypted. This decision was
preordained. The fix was in.

That the government could hand down a decision like this, amidst the
phenomena of Trump, Sanders and Brexit; and that Hillary could dare to
invoke Martin Luther King in her legal “victory,” means that these people
are even more divorced from reality and more dissociated from the public
mood than I thought possible.

Clearly, they are confident that there will be no reckoning. But
undermining the rule of law does not always grease the wheels of the
politically connected the way they think it does. Voters are already
irate. If Hillary Clinton thinks that a public statement of her wrongful
actions, coupled with an admission that anyone else would be prosecuted,
means that Americans will catapult her into the White House, she's
smoking crack.

We want our culture back. And that starts by electing someone who
understands that the law applies to us all – not just “the little
people.”

Source: http://bit.ly/29ktiqv

--
"It's ironic that Donald Trump, hailed as the anti-establishment savior,
has supported and funded establishment and liberal causes much of his
adult life, and to this day is getting less opposition from the
establishment than bad boy Ted Cruz."--David Limbaugh

"Never underestimate the willingness of white progressives to be offended
on behalf of people who aren’t and to impose their will on those who
didn’t ask for it."--Derek Hunter

"I understand where Obama is coming from with his newest order that
hospitals and doctors that accept federal dollars must provide abortion
and sex change surgery. I get it. After he leaves the White House, he
wants to make sure they will have to give him sex change surgery so he
can become a man."--Steven Ahle