But as The Scripture says, the letter of the law kills. The Spirit brings liberty.
The law can be used to be brutal, even merciless. And, as we saw with BILLDO AND SHRILLERY, used very manipulatively by clever people. Human systems are human flaws amplified.
Nazi Germany also had rule of law--perhaps even more religiously followed than our own grand land.
NO! The answer lies in another area as some of our best known founders knew full well and stated very candidly.
Freedom and democracy can only be secure and functional when a people are governed INTERNALLY, INTRINSICALLY--as modern research has discovered and difined it, INDIVIDUALLY in the dark alone as well as in the the bright light of a Sunday afternoon church picnic--Freedom and democracy can only be secure and functional when a people are governed by a higher law of right and wrong which derrives from a relationship with Almighty God who knows all, sees all and insures that we reap what we sow.
There will never be enough policemen, courts, free press organs of balance and integrity . . . and watchers of such; and watchers of the watchers--to insure a functional, free society apart from a mostly virtuous populace.
As the Judeo-Christian substrate/foundation has been wholesale dilluted, fractured--lawlessness has increased; neighbor and neighborhood has arisen against neighbor and neighborhood; race against race; interest group against interest group. . . .
But it is not overly logical to be otherwise. If the "American Way"--in and of itself in terms of law--was utopia, we wouldn't need God. The reality is all of the universe from sub-atomic to galactic needs the sustaining active Power and Glory of God to continue in existence from moment to moment. Some are deluded otherwise. Our era will end with vivid demonstrations of the truth of His sustaining as the light gets lighter and the dark gets darker . . . as He illustrates with more overt sustaining and more overt withdrawal of sustaining HIS VERY ACTIVE PART in the affairs of man.
Thankfully, HE IS ALSO ALTOGETHER GOOD; ALTOGETHER LOVE AND HIS MERCY TRIUMPHS OVER HIS JUDGMENT.
Others are possible.