The rule of law is the guiding principle on which democracies are built. Fair, equitable, and just laws, their enforcement, and application give confidence to citizens that will be treated fairly; no one is more important than the other.
It is a noble concept, but even those who claim to be the best at formulating such concepts of fairness and justice have failed miserably, not just in the enforcement and application of such laws; they fail at the very conceptual stage because they are unjust, immoral and hateful.
That said, absent God’s laws, we are stuck with the rule of man-made laws as the best system of government to date.
Even when the formulation process is extensive and exhaustive, if the objective of the laws is immoral and nefarious, the consequences are severely injurious to those they are intended to hurt.
For those reasons, despite having more laws than any other nation, the United States falls woefully short of being a just and free society because its laws have generally been formulated to exclude segments of the American people from certain benefits.
Americanbar.com writes; Even before the United States was a nation, there was talk among colonists that laws should govern a new nation, not individuals, including kings or queens, as they’d seen in Britain and other countries. One colonist, Thomas Paine, produced a booklet in 1776 called Common Sense, and it became a bestseller by today’s standards. In it, he detailed how, “in America, law is king.”
That rosy assessment was not exactly true, as the laws were designed not only to be exclusionary to Black Americans but in many cases to be deliberately injurious to them.
Joe Biden will get his chance to nominate his first Justice to the supreme court; not a fan of the supreme court myself because of how much it has gotten wrong throughout its history and how much harm it has brought to Black Americans as a result of its rulings. Nonetheless, during his presidential campaign in 2020, Joe Biden was reportedly convinced by South Carolina African-American Representative James Clyburn to pledge to nominate a Black Woman to the highest court as a means of reviving his fledging, or should I say dying campaign.
Biden eventually did so, and Black Women turned out in droves to give him the win In the Palmetto State, a win that catapulted him into becoming the nominee for his party and beating Donald Trump for the presidency of the United States Of America.
Biden will get a chance to name a justice to the court because centrist Stephen Bryer, the oldest justice at 83-years-old has decided to step aside. Whether Breyer decided to retire because of progressive pressure or he made the decision because of his age, we may never know. However, it may be a safe bet to imagine that Breyer was pushed to the door because progressives demanded that he step aside and allow the president to choose a younger liberal successor.
(1)To understand exactly why it is crucially important that justice Bryer step aside now, one has to go back to two events that occurred surrounding the nation’s highest court and how those two events shifted the balance of the highest court arguably for generations to come. It is also important to understand that when you hear the term “conservative” used in the American construct, be reminded that it irrefutably means “Racist.”
During the presidency of Barack Obama, one of the most conservative Justices on the court passed away. Antonin Scalia’s death would allow Democrat Barack Obama to choose his successor, flipping the court’s 5 – 4 conservative majority to a 5 – 4 liberal one.
Scalia died more than ten (10) months before the 2016 presidential elections. Although the president had a right to replace him with his choice for the court, Republican senate majority leader Mitch Majority declared that the president would not replace Scalia.
Constitutionally the president is empowered to nominate a jurist to the court. The Senate is supposed to advise and consent-meaning hold hearings and give the nominee an up or down vote.
Mitch McConnel created a new rule that it was close to an election, and so the people should decide which president selects the next justice to the court.
This was never a rule, just one created by McConnell, and so the seat was held vacant for the better part of a year. Brack Obama did absolutely nothing.
http://Brett-Kavanaugh-Donald-Trump-Anthony-Kennedy
Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, and he quickly nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Court, maintaining the court’s 5 – 4 conservative majority.
Trump would replace moderate Anthony Kennedy, who abruptly announced his retirement in June 2018 with Brett Kavanaugh. Many insist there was something fishy about Kennedy’s retirement and surmise that Donald Trump held some kind of trump-card (pun intended) over Kennedy that forced his retirement.
Mitch McConnell would later reverse his own rule to ram Amy Coney-Barrett through the process weeks before the 2020 presidential elections slanting the court dangerously to the right, which will have devastating consequences for the country in literally every area of life.
Mitch McConnell’s maneuvers so corrupted the process that many now look at the highest court with a less than a favorable eye. How the court is ultimately viewed may be tame to the true reality of what happens behind the scenes.
(2) Liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s decision not to retire even though her health was failing will be one of the most consequential decisions of our lifetime.
Added to the monumental wrong that a single US senator could stop a president from putting his choice of a jurist on the court-and the murky circumstances under which Anthony Kennedy stepped down allowing Donald Trump to place Brett Kavanaugh on the court; Justice Ginsberg’s decision will forever negatively impact the country.
On September 18th, 2020, Ruth Baader Ginsberg died six weeks before the presidential elections.
Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell who previously declared that Obama should not replace Antonin Scalia ten (10) months before a presidential election, immediately declared that Trump’s pick Amy Coney-Barrett would be quickly added to the court, and so they did.
A single corrupt United States Senator was able to subvert the process and change the country’s trajectory for generations.
So much for the rule of law when the ones with power who are supposed to ensure its equitable application are corrupt to the core.
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.