Should We Obey All Laws?

Townhall.com ^ | May 16, 2012 | Walter E. Williams

[Kaslin]

Let's think about whether all acts of Congress deserve our respect and obedience. Suppose Congress enacted a law -- and the Supreme Court ruled it constitutional -- requiring American families to attend church services at least three times a month. Should we obey such a law? Suppose Congress, acting under the Constitution's commerce clause, enacted a law requiring motorists to get eight hours of sleep before driving on interstate highways. Its justification might be that drowsy motorists risk highway accidents and accidents affect interstate commerce. Suppose you were a jury member during the 1850s and a free person were on trial for assisting a runaway slave, in clear violation of the Fugitive Slave Act. Would you vote to convict and punish?

A moral person would find each one of those laws either morally repugnant or to be a clear violation of our Constitution. You say, "Williams, you're wrong this time. In 1859, in Ableman v. Booth, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 constitutional." That court decision, as well as some others in our past, makes my case. Moral people can't rely solely on the courts to establish what's right or wrong. Slavery is immoral; therefore, any laws that support slavery are also immoral. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, "to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions (is) a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy."

Soon, the Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of Obamacare, euphemistically titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. There is absolutely no constitutional authority for Congress to force any American to enter into a contract to buy any good or service. But if the court rules that Obamacare is constitutional, what should we do?

State governors and legislators ought to summon up the courage of our Founding Fathers in response to the 5th Congress' Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. Led by Jefferson and James Madison, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and 1799 were drafted where legislatures took the position that the Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional. They said, "Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government ... (and) whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force." The 10th Amendment to our Constitution supports that vision: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

In a word, if the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare is constitutional, citizens should press their state governors and legislatures to nullify the law. You say, "Williams, the last time states got into this nullification business, it led to a war that cost 600,000 lives." Two things are different this time. First, most Americans are against Obamacare, and secondly, I don't believe that you could find a U.S. soldier who would follow a presidential order to descend on a state to round up or shoot down fellow Americans because they refuse to follow a congressional order to buy health insurance.

Congress has already gone far beyond the powers delegated to it by the Constitution. In Federalist No. 45, Madison explained: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." That vision has been turned on its head; it's the federal government whose powers are numerous and indefinite, and those of the state are now few and defined.

Former slave Frederick Douglass advised: "Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them. ... The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

[Kaslin]

Yes he is

[trebb]

If a member of the armed forces is issued an illegal order it is that service members duty to report the illegal order and TAKE ACTION to resolve the situation. This includes arresting that next upper chain of command for mutiny.

True, but if that service member does not carry out that order, he is still open to UCMJ action. The climate says to do the "right" thing by doing the "wrong" thing, then try to have the one giving unlawful orders taken to task. Military folks are in a catch-22 in this area.

[dagogo redux]

Here is a post I made as a vanity a while back:

On Re-reading Sophocles’ Antigone

I have long admired Robert Fagles’ translations of the classics, and was re-reading his rendition of Antigone by Sophocles a few nights ago. I was inspired to do so by recent events. I thought I’d post this vanity to encapsulate my mental ramblings and see if they resonate with anyone else out there.

Antigone is the first of the three “Theban” plays written by Sophocles, the Greek playwright most famous for his second Theban play, Oedipus Rex. The story of that play tells of the tragedy of Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother, Jocasta. Although he did so in ignorance, the fate of his lineage and their city state of Thebes was then cursed, and the drama in Antigone is a continuation of that curse: Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta.

The play opens with Creon, the king of Thebes, and uncle of Antigone, having put down a rebellion by Polynices, the brother of Antigone. Creon has decreed that the punishment for such treason is death, and that the body of this traitor is then to be left to rot unburied in public view, under pain of death.
In Greek culture of that time, burial was required by the gods, and was important for the soul’s fate after death, and female relatives had responsibility for the burial rites.

Antigone goes out and secretly throws a handful of dirt on the corpse of Polynices to fulfill her obligations to the gods. Creon finds out, and Antigone is sentenced to death.

Before she is led off for execution, however, she makes a speech to Creon that basically delineates two types of laws: Laws that are ancient and primal, Divinely decreed; and then laws that are merely decreed by rulers and governments.

That a sister should bury her brother is of the first type to Antigone, and this takes obvious precedence over Creons’ decree in her mind. And so she brakes Creon’s law in order to fulfill the more fundamental, Divine law, gladly accepting that this would result in her death.

In this play by Sophocles, there is a tension between these two types of laws. Creon is considered a good ruler, whose laws are rightly concerned with the practical good of the city state. And yet, these laws clash with laws that are deeper, the Divine laws whose purpose is somewhat shrouded, whose good is only known clearly by the gods.

The parallels are not lost on me regarding the rights stated in our Declaration of Independence - with which we are endowed by our Creator - compared to all the man-made Constitutional and extra- or post-Constitutional laws and regulations that have come down since then. These latter laws, while often well-meaning, are mere human attempts, similar to Creon’s.

These thoughts were going through my mind lately in the face of the way certain people and groups have tried to corrupt or coop our Constitution and Bill of Rights for use against the very Divinely granted rights and freedoms on which our country was founded in the Declaration, even to the point of going against the very survival of this country and its people altogether.

Specifically, it becomes clear that blind insistence on Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion - decreed (and later interpreted) by mere humans in the Bill of Rights - is being used in an insidious effort by Moslems and Leftists to destroy our very freedoms, our most fundamental rights - those ancient, primal, and Divinely bestowed rights - to Life, to Liberty, and to the Pursuit of
Happiness.

We, as a people, have basic rights to exist as a people, to live free of tyranny, and to pursue happiness - which is historically best done through the freedom inherent in Capitalism. No decree from OBAMA, Congress, the courts, the UN, Muslims, would-be global masters, academia, the media, etc, should persuade us to commit national suicide or enslave ourselves to would-be tyrants.

Deeper, Divine laws trump the human ones being corrupted for use against us. Antigone will not allow a mere human decree to keep her from her sacred obligation to bury her brother. And we should not allow a corruption of our well-intentioned - but human - Constitution to turn our God-given freedoms into chains or instruments for our destruction.

There are laws more ancient than those of mere humans.

[Former Fetus]

I don't believe that you could find a U.S. soldier who would follow a presidential order to descend on a state to round up or shoot down fellow Americans because they refuse to follow a congressional order to buy health insurance.

Remember the Oath Keepers . If you havent' done it yet, go to their website and read "Ten Orders We Will Not Obey". I don't believe you could not find a US soldier who would obey an unconstitutional order, but I also believe there are many more who won't!

[IronJack]

The answer is an unqualified and resounding NO!

Understand the concept of social contract and you will see that no law has any weight unless it is supported by the people. Prohibition failed because it was forced upon the majority by a vocal and strident minority that browbeat its opponents with superficially moral arguments (just like homos are trying to do today).

But we must always remember that We the People empower the Government, not vice versa. And that government that imposes on its people a will in conflict with their own is not legitimate. Nor are its fruits.

[tacticalogic]

In a word, if the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare is constitutional, citizens should press their state governors and legislatures to nullify the law. You say, "Williams, the last time states got into this nullification business, it led to a war that cost 600,000 lives." Two things are different this time. First, most Americans are against Obamacare, and secondly, I don't believe that you could find a U.S. soldier who would follow a presidential order to descend on a state to round up or shoot down fellow Americans because they refuse to follow a congressional order to buy health insurance.

There's another difference that IMHO is even more important. The law that that some of the States tried to nullify the last time was a Constitutional Amendment, properly ratified by a majority of the States. That was a war between the States over that amendment. This will be a war between the States and the national government over an attempted usurpation of power.

[EternalVigilance]

"An unjust law is no law at all." -- St. Augustine

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The Equal Protection for Posterity Resolution

A Resolution affirming vital existing constitutional protections for the unalienable right to life of every innocent person, from the first moment of creation until natural death. WHEREAS, The first stated principle of the United States, in its charter, the Declaration of Independence, is the assertion of the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, and that they are each endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, beginning with the right to life, and that the first purpose of all government is to defend that supreme right; and WHEREAS, The first stated purposes of We the People of the United States in our Constitution are “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”; and WHEREAS, The United States Constitution, in the Fourteenth Amendment, imperatively requires that all persons within the jurisdictions of all the States be afforded the equal protection of the laws; and WHEREAS, The United States Constitution, in the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments, explicitly forbids the taking of the life of any innocent person; and WHEREAS, The practices of abortion and euthanasia violate every clause of the stated purposes of the United States Constitution, and its explicit provisions; and WHEREAS, Modern science has demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that the individual human person’s physical existence begins at the moment of biological inception or creation; and WHEREAS, All executive, legislative and judicial Officers in America, at every level and in every branch, have sworn before God to support the United States Constitution as required by Article VI of that document, and have therefore, because the Constitution explicitly requires it, sworn to protect the life of every innocent person; THEREFORE, WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES HEREBY RESOLVE that the God-given, unalienable right to life of every innocent person, from biological inception or creation to natural death, be protected everywhere within every state, territory and jurisdiction of the United States of America; that every officer of the judicial, legislative and executive departments, at every level and in every branch, is required to use all lawful means to protect every innocent life within their jurisdictions; and that we will henceforth deem failure to carry out this supreme sworn duty to be cause for removal from public office via impeachment or recall, or by statutory or electoral means, notwithstanding any law passed by any legislative body within the United States, or the decision of any court, or the decree of any executive officer, at any level of governance, to the contrary.

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Sign the Resolution ...

[camle]

funny discussion. we talk about people disobeyiong laws that we don’t like, when there are millions of foreigners on our soil today doing just that. we call ‘em illegal immigrants.

[Boogieman]

What amendment was that? You can’t be talking about the 13th & 14th amendments, since those were passed after the war, so you’ve got me stumped.

[StonyBurk]

Wm Blackstone -as reflected by James Wilson— as summarized by
myself “when our laws violate the Laws dictated by God,Himself, either the laws of Nature,or the Revealed Law —
then our laws are invalid.I think even Marbury v. Madison declares any law the violates the Constitution is void. So if Congress passes a law that does not reflect our written Constitution—or that violates the laws dictated by God, Himself then such law ought be resisted-and opposed and considered no law at all.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Former slave Frederick Douglass advised: "Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them. ... The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

The TSA is a deliberate attempt to test those limits - and so far they haven't hit any significant resistance.

[JimRed]

In the military, one is required to obey all LAWFUL orders. But how does an 18 or 19 year old E-3 determine what is lawful, when courts even disagree on interpretations? Same goes for civilians and civil/criminal laws.

Doing what's "right" is not always an excuse. It would be "right" to assassinate Soros and Satan's other key minions, but if caught, you'd still pay the price.

Deep philosophy makes my head hurt!

[JimRed]

Walter Williams is amazing.

Amen. Just imagine the difference if he'd been the first black President of the United States!

[Sirius Lee]

But how does an 18 or 19 year old E-3 determine what is lawful

How can anybody? There are so many laws on the books, many that are contradictory, that it is possible for every person to be in violation of some law or ordinance at any time in the natural course of their day; enforcement of which then becomes a matter of whim.

Dictatorship lite. It's what's for breakfast.

[MrB]

The left, of course, holds no consistency except the advancement of their [communist] agenda.

I’ve had “discussions” with leftists about the constitutionality of federal level welfare programs.
Their response is that since the USSC hasn’t ruled them unconstitutional, they aren’t.

Of course, we’ll see what they have to say if/when 0bamacare is struck down.

Like I said, they are consistent in nothing except their agenda. They will disagree at the least, and openly criticize/deride the court as unauthoritative when it goes against their agenda.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

I did not realize that our wonderful Dr. Williams was still writing columns.

Thank you for the article.

[BenLurkin]

As do I Ms. Lucky. Our military has becoem dangerously infiltrated by non-citizens and members of criminal gangs. Or both.

Unfortunately, government won’t need US soldiers anyway. It will be some kind of SWAT team on steroids...always with positive coverage in the media.

Maybe a TV series...”Health Care Cops, Houston”.

[DNME]

But if those laws conflict with the laws of God, God’s laws must come first.

****************

And if one's version of God happens to go by the name "Allah" ... ?

[Dead Corpse]

No. Of course not.

Art 1 Sec 8 strictly limits Federal power. Anything not within those express limits should be ignored and fought in court. Any legislators passing such laws should be removed from office via the ballot box or again... the courts.

Any State laws violating the Constitutions express limits on their power, either by having ceded that power to the Federal government or made off limits by the Bill of Rights, should also be ignored as above.

Any court not upholding those limits needs to be shut down or said justice impeached and jailed.

Failing ALL of that... We need to revert to our first Right of defending ourselves via force of arms as is our inherent Right to do so.

And yes, we are at that "last line in the sand" period. Our system is no longer checking and balancing itself as it should. We are no longer in that Clair Wolf "awkward time"...

[Dead Corpse]

III%

This is all that is needed.