Originally posted at Liberal Street Fighter
The bile rises in the throat of any thinking person when confronted by statements like this, from Lou Dobbs:
We are a nation of immigrants, and there is no more diverse and welcoming society than ours. But we are first a nation of laws, and upholding those laws and our national values makes this great country of ours possible.
Since when?
We’ve shredded every treaty we signed with the original inhabitants of this country, despite the fact that our Constitution states that ALL treaties have the force of law. After that, we fail to fulfill promises made to protect the assets due the people who hold what little wasn’t stolen.
A nation of laws?
We have invaded a sovereign nation, AGAIN, in violation of international law. We have an Attorney General who oversaw legal memos justifying the torture of human beings, again in contravention of treaties this nation signed and ratified. We use the power of the state to spy on citizens without warrants.
We built into our law at the beginning of this nation the enslavement of human beings, then fought a bloody war over it. Since then, we’ve used both legal and extra-legal mechanisms to trap the descendents of those slaves in second class status. We have some of the highest incarceration rates in the world, locking people up for victimless crimes using evidence obtained by bending or ignoring Constitutional rights against unreasonable search-and-seizure. We maintain a “justice system” which metes out its processes with little or no help for those without resources to defend themselves. Sometimes, we bloodthirstedly call for the execution of those self-same under-represented people.
We celebrate a culture of cheating, where corporations and the wealthy support an entire industry of lawyers and accountants who exist only to help them avoid taxes. A culture where we look the other way when our children cheat on tests to get into a good school. We cheat on our own taxes, drive over the speed limit … maybe you’ve pocketed something when no one was looking at sometime or another? We cheat and lie and steal and look at anybody who doesn’t as suckers. We elected a President who made a career out of insider trading and favors, and who lied his way into the Presidency, and lied this country into an illegal war.
A nation of law?
What does it mean to have a nation of law? One would guess that this means a nation that systematically works toward achieving some measure of justice:
The proper administration of the law; the fair and equitable treatment of all individuals under the law. A title given to certain judges, such as federal and state supreme court judges.
Have we ever, in any way, shape or form been anywhere CLOSE to fulfilling that definition? The rightwing of this country, chests swelling with pronouncements of the importance of the rule of law, is once again seeking to cloak it’s insularity, racism and ignorance in righteous rhetorical clothing.
We are a nation of arbitrary law, which is by definition a nation without justice. Depending on your race, or even on your gender, you may or may not have any hope of a fair and equal hearing. A sizable number of us, confronted by migrants seeking a way to make a living, seeking to give their children food or themselves hope for a better future, demand that those arbitrary laws be aimed squarely at these “invaders”, despite the fact that many of our very own parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were reviled themselves when they came here to escape hopelessness in their own lands. We can hide behind the skirts of the argument that they came here “legally”, but that is only to deny that laws to control immigration were established to keep out unwanted racial groups. One could argue that we’ve looked away much of the time from the undocumented workers from latin america because we’ve been unwilling to confront the problem of racism and unemployment amongst black Americans, preferring to play one unliked group off against another unliked group, ESPECIALLY if there is profit to be made.
So spare us the righteous indignation Mr. Dobbs. As has happened over and over again in the history of this country, the nativists and the greedy amongst us launch appeals for the application of the “rule of law” when it suits them. It isn’t the application of arbitrary rules that is the problem here, Mr. Dobbs, but rather the lack of “fair and equitable treatment” under a system of law that applies equally to all, that is respected by all. Perhaps you could devote more time to talking to Americans about holding themselves accountable for following the laws we already have, and for holding our elected officials accountable to the foundations of our system of law, rather than politically driven demogoguery and thuggery.
You say you want a country that respects the rule of law? Lets start with ourselves, first.