A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS OR POLITICS - WHICH ARE WE?

By Edwin Cooney

As Jerry Ford moved into the White House forty-five Augusts ago while informing us that "...our  national nightmare is over," millions of Americans were reassured. Triumphantly we declared that after all, "America is a government of laws and not of men." Thirty-nine days later when President Ford (some insist justifiably so) pardoned Richard Nixon, we weren't  sure. Millions began wondering all over again: are we really and truly a government of laws?

Last Wednesday, while listening to Robert Mueller proclaim that we couldn't prosecute President Trump while he was still in office, I thought he was describing a government of laws. Then, without losing stride, without using the exact word, he asserted that the only way we could hold President Trump accountable would be through impeachment or political defeat. In other words, it's all up to you and me; the law can't help us.

I've lived a lifetime drawing a distinction between government and politics. That's why while I was in college, I decided to major in history rather than in political science or sociology. I thought history would give me the broadest perspective of our society. Now, however, a lifetime of citizenship has forced me to draw much broader sociological and political conclusions.

Join me in this ever so brief trek through our past.

Without the instrument of a political system, we elected our most trustworthy man, George Washington, as our first president. Trustworthy George Washington who abhorred politics, warned us of political party evil. Despite his warning and our respect and admiration for him, free men and women, enticed by their own ambitions for property, money and power, listened to the cries of at least three other good but lesser men, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson, to fulfill their ambitions using the most potent instruments of political power.

Here's still another traditional American truth. Americans historically care less for law than they do for their personal interpretations of liberty. We defied well established British law to fight for and gain our independence between 1775 and 1781. During the 1920s, we defied the 18th Amendment of the American Constitution itself, because it prohibited our insistence on drinking intoxicating beverages.

The reality is that Americans will defy and ultimately destroy law, and even order, if either offends their personal rather than their national sense of purpose.

Thus the question: what kind of a government are we? Are we a government of laws or of politics?

Here is the answer as I see it:

We're only a government of laws when laws benefit the powerful. Since the powerful largely rule politics, therein exists the 21st Century’s most startling American reality.

We're primarily a government of politics!  

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY