Nation of Laws?

08/02/2010

Many of us have gotten speeding tickets…right? You driving along at a few miles per hour over the speed limit and you get nabbed by the radar gun. You pay your fine and that's it. A few days later you're driving along at the speed limit in the right lane and you notice a police cruiser traveling in the left lane clearly going faster than the speed limit. The officer is not speeding to an emergency or to support another officer because he comes to a stop just like everyone else at the next stop light. When the light changes he speeds along again until the next light. And, after all this you think about the ticket you recently received for basically the same action.

There are many people surrounding the president and in political office these days that skirted around paying their taxes until they were exposed and had to pay. It wasn't the IRS that discovered these problems, but investigations from outside organizations. You can bet though that if you made a mistake on your tax return or did not report certain income, the IRS would be sending you a letter informing you of this. And, the letter would demand payment of not only the back taxes, but the penalties and interest also.

Recently, a federal judge ruled that because the federal government doesn't want to enforce its own immigration laws, the state of Arizona CAN'T enforce them either. Here the federal government has decided that the laws that it has already put in place should not to be adhered to. And, they are pressing states to force them to not uphold the law either.

We're supposed to be a nation of laws. That's one of the things which set us apart from many other countries. We're constantly hearing lawmakers and politicians tell us "we're a nation of laws…blah…blah". But, it seems like more and more they only apply to the regular citizen. The politicians and other government officials are telling us that these laws don't really apply to them. And, governments at all levels can ignore whatever it wants to.

There are many other instances where governments ignore laws for their convenience and very little is done about it. For example, there are cities around the country that have their own medical Marijuana laws despite the fact that the federal government considers most of what is going on illegal. Or, how about the sanctuary cities around the country that proudly pronounce that they will ignore federal immigration laws?

Back in 2005 the federal government passed the Real-ID act, which is an attempt to standardize drivers' licenses in each state so that the feds can electronically read the license and obtain common information about anyone. About 20 states told the federal government to 'take a hike' as they are not going to comply. While many believe that Real-ID is 'big-brother' in action and it is good for states to resist, it is yet another case where laws on the books are ignored by governments.

Executive signing statements are yet another instance of this. A signing statement is a written pronouncement issued by the president of the United States upon the signing of a bill into law. In July 2006, a task force of the American Bar Association stated that the use of signing statements to modify the meaning of duly enacted laws serves to "undermine the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers". Yet, presidents have been doing this for quite a while to either modify the meaning of the law or to ignore certain provision of the law they are signing. This is significant because it is the executive branch that is responsible for executing all federal laws. There is no provision in the US Constitution that allows the use of signing statements. The president must either veto the law or sign it. And, if the president signs it, he/she must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed".

Since when is it OK for governments (federal, state, and city) or individuals in the government to ignore laws because they are inconvenient or they simply don't want to abide by them? Yet, the ever burdensome and restrictive governments demand that its citizens abide by all laws or punitive actions will be taken.

This commentary is not written to encourage civil disobedience or to encourage us to just ignore whatever laws we want to. It's written to hopefully provide some food for thought on where we are headed as a nation if the law enforcement only applies to the citizens and our governments are allowed to ignore what they wish to ignore…the end result won’t be pretty.

Staff