Justice for all or justice for none

August 24, 2003

In establishing the Constitution of the United States of America, our Founding Fathers set out to do what no nation had ever done before, or ever has done since: establish liberty, justice, and order for all.

It became readily apparent to these men that to do this, rule must be by law ― a constitutional republic, rather than rule by man according to his own passions and opinions ― democracy; that the rights of the minority must not be at the whim of the majority but the rights of each and all, whether part of the majority or the minority, must be equal under the law.

These men also knew that in order for rule by law to continue to exist as a governance structure, man must choose to govern self, as an individual, according to a morally acceptable and socially responsible creed finding basis in and acceptance in not only the immediate community of which the individual is a part, but the larger community as well.

With all due consideration of the aforesaid, John Adams wrote:

"Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people; it is wholly inadequate for any other."

James Madison expanded on the words of John Adams when he wrote:

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."

James Madison made apparent the morally acceptable and socially responsible creed upon which man must base self-governance if the constitution was to be maintained as the supreme law of the land.

At the state level, every individual, elected by secret ballot to represent the people, before taking office, takes an oath to uphold the state constitution, U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. As such, every elected representative of the people has taken an oath to uphold the law, to provide equal access under the law, and to provide equal protection under the law. Thus it is that every individual is guaranteed equal rights and equal protection under the law.

Today, we are bombarded daily with the notion that our nation is a "democracy."

Speaking of democracy, James Madison had this to say in Federalist No. 10:

"... Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths."

Why is this? Because, in a democracy, rule is by the majority with the rights of the minority at the whim of the passions and opinions of the majority. Under such a governance structure, rights become arbitrary and capricious, civil unrest ensues, leading to revolution and civil war between those of the majority and those subject to the passions and opinions of the majority: the minority.

No where in the transformation of America from a constitutional republic to a democracy is this more apparent than in the justice system. Very few people have any conception or understanding of how corrupt the American justice system has become.

Rule by law and equal protection under the law no longer exist. Whether the law is enforced has become arbitrary and capricious, at the whim of the passions and opinions of those wielding power.

In this same vein, it is doubtful that our Founding Fathers intended justice to be at the mercy of the almighty $$$. Justice in America today is not dependent on facts, justice in America today is dependent on whether people have the money to pay an attorney.

At the same time, the people can only pray that the attorney they hire will represent them and not the state bar association of which they must be a member, and the court of which they are an officer.

Too many people have learned the hard way that too many attorneys are beholden to the state bar association and the court, a stacked deck making justice impossible to attain under any circumstance.

Not only this, but the court system has become so convoluted that no man can adequately represent himself as facts, the law and the constitution are not the basis of proceedings and justice is not the goal. The system is there to make money for attorneys and increase the power and position of the courts.

Unfortunately, when justice is not the goal and facts, the law, and the constitution are not the basis, the result is the loss of rights which, over time, undermines the rights of the people.

Justice for some results in justice for none and tyranny prevails just as it did in the time of the Declaration of Independence. James Madison spoke of the necessity of the Declaration of Independence as follows:

"The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences of the principle, and the avoided the consequences by denying the principle."

In other words, the freemen of America realized where the policies of King George would inevitably lead, and they denied where it would lead by forging the Declaration of Independence leading to the American Revolution and the establishment of the union of the several states.

The conditions in America today are far worse than those at the time the Declaration of Independence was forged. Do Americans have what it takes to avoid the consequences by denying the principle? If not, the words of John Adams in 1787 speak to the consequences:

"The people in America have now the best opportunity and the greatest trust in their hands that Providence ever committed to so small a number ... if they betray their trust, their guilt will merit even greater punishment than other nations have suffered, and the indignation of Heaven ..."