Can We Keep Our Republic?

by Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny

With all the heated rhetoric, misinformation, pandering to gain a step up in the power struggle, and general misunderstanding with respect to our form of government I went searching for some refresher information. There certainly is an abundance of it out there if one is interested in looking.

Getting away from what I am rapidly beginning to view as nothing more than posturing and intentional misrepresentations by candidates of their records (Ron Paul excluded from the group) I decided to post something informational and positive about our system of government. Not only does this give me a break from the negative, hopefully you enjoy the change of pace as well...

aliunde's Channel - There is a reason we refer to "the rule of law and not of men" when discussing the American political system. It is because a republican form of government seeks to restrain the unbridled and quixotic passions of pure democracy, rather than yield to them. It also rejects the desire of the majority in favor of individual rights. Democracy seeks to assert the right of the group, but so does a mob with a hangman's noose.

There's also a reason why lady justice is blindfolded: She is not to see the individuals, interest groups, race, or any characteristic at all of those that plead before her--her proper concern is not directed towards them; her care is to decide the law. It's also why the question of justice as presented before judges is not one of mercy (that belongs in the will of the people as expressed through their representatives in law), but one of exacting only what the law requires be exacted.

The rule of law is all about the removal of arbitrary will from its application. A judge who seeks to apply his own notions of justice and mercy (as opposed to those notions being defined by the people through law) is a judge who seeks to impose arbitrary will in opposition to the rule of law. And it is arbitrary will that is the very definition of tyranny.

If well received I will continue to find and bring to Rational Nation USA more informational material such as this one day each week for awhile.

In closing I leave with a very apropos quote from Thomas Jefferson...

"It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression ... that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, 1821

Via: Memeorandum