I guess the only thing more
ridiculous than our constant prattling about our “Exceptionalism” is our oft
repeated claim that we are a “Nation of Laws.” The only thing accomplished by such claims is to prove our exceptional
arrogance and stupidity. I guess the claim about laws is true in the sense that
we do have some codified laws, but we apparently are not very conscientious
about enforcing them and seem to lack them in other areas of importance.
Furthermore, laws in the United States seem to be applied differently depending
upon who ignores them and who does not. For example, do laws always apply to
Congress?
If you order a meal in a
restaurant, consume it, and then refuse to pay for it, you are apt to end up in
jail. But if Congress spends money on something and then refuses to pay for it,
what happens? Actually we don’t know because Congress has always, in the end,
however kicking and screaming, eventually agreed to pay their bills (as they
probably will do again). But what would happen if this time they refused? Would
those leading the refusal go to jail? Very doubtful, probably the worst that
would happen to them is they might not be re-elected when the next election
comes around, but even that cannot be depended upon.
One might think that surely
there must be laws against shutting down the government, but apparently there
are not. Or if there is they are obviously being ignored. It would seem that
there certainly ought to be a law against shutting down the government, and
those responsible for doing so and thus harming millions of their fellow
citizens should have to be held accountable. I suspect there is no law about
this because no one from the Founding Fathers up until recently ever assumed
such a thing would happen, that a few politicians would shut down the
government because of their personal obsessions or ideological beliefs. Of
course there are laws against extortion and blackmail but they don’t seem to be
considered worthy of attention. Similarly, we have laws against hate crimes. As
there seems to be no real explanation for why some want to do away with “Obamacare,”
other than it is called that, and Obama is our first Black President, perhaps
this, too, might be considered a hate crime.
Of course when we have known
war criminals still walking our streets boasting of their crimes, that involved
not only constitutional violations but also international law, and they have
never been held accountable, perhaps that sets a precedent for other such
crimes as are still going on at the present. Then there are also the known
crimes of Wall Street, blatant violations of law that do not get punished.
Indeed, we seem to have evolved a mutual agreement between Wall Street and
Government such that if they egregiously violate the law and make huge illegal
profits they simply pay a relatively modest fine and stay out of jail.
It is also the case that, although
Obamacare is the law, there are those who are trying to kill it by defunding it
or by any other means they can. They are, in short, violating the law. None of
them will go to jail for doing so. There are states that are blatantly violating
laws respecting voting rights, they, too, will not end up in jail. Still others
violate abortion rights, but unless they actually kill an abortion provider
they rarely if ever end up in jail.
Israel violates international
law with such regularity it has apparently just become “just the way it is.”
The U.S. supports these flagrantly illegal acts no matter how terrible or
illegal, and this situation goes on year after year with nothing done about it.
And we, the U.S., violate international law with such regularity there might as
well not even be international laws.
I find our claims of
exceptionalism and being a nation of laws absolutely hilarious in their
dishonesty and hypocrisy. They go hand-in-hand with our absurd claim to be “spreading
democracy around the world.” The situation has gone so far by now that no one
even expects us to follow the law, we have become, along with Israel, rogue
states, the greatest threats to peace and prosperity that currently exist.
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