What is meant by “the rule of law”? For the answer I’ll refer to the book “The Quest For Cosmic Justice” by Thomas Sowell. In the last chapter titled “The Quiet Repeal of the American Revolution”, Dr. Sowell says:
“All societies proclaim duties and prohibitions which they are prepared to enforce, but not all societies have the rule of law. Neither the individual tyranny of a despot nor the collective tyranny of a totalitarian political party under communism of fascism represents the rule of law, even though there may be many individual laws under both forms of government. The rule of law -“a government of laws and not of men” – implies rules known in advance, applied generally, and constraining the rulers as well as the ruled. Freedom implies exemptions from the power of the rulers and a corresponding limitation on the scope of all laws, even those of democratically elected governments. ….Democracy implies majority sanction as the basis for laws, but democracy by itself implies nothing about either freedom or the rule of law.”
Volumes have been written about the subject Dr. Sowell sums up in this short paragraph. His ability to explain complex concepts with clarity and conciseness, allow us to spend less time and mental effort to gain understanding. We are going to focus on the part about the rules “constraining the rulers as well as the ruled” as we look at Hillary Clinton’s e-mail transgressions.
DOES IT MATTER IF POLITICIANS BREAK THE LAW?
I’ve talked to many true believing Democrats who are not interested in looking at the facts of the case. They say it’s just a Republican witch hunt (right-wing conspiracy). When I tell them that the FBI and the Justice Department are being run by their Democratic President, they don’t even pause to “think” about that fact. At that point I have some fun by saying I agree with the “witch” part in their assessment.
Although the facts we present will fall on many deaf ears, these aren’t the people we are trying to reach. We are trying to talk to people who are willing to listen to the facts and then decide what to think. We call them ‘the people on the margin’.
If you look at the Hillary email scandal through the lens of the R and D political paradigm, the facts don’t matter. If you look at Hillary’s email scandal through the lens of the rule of law, there is no doubt that the case should have been taken up for prosecution. Would a jury have convicted her? That would be a roll of the dice since it would be tried politically. Lets take a look at some facts.
LET’S LOOK AT THE FACTS
Lets start here: U.S. Code Title 18-793-Part I- Chapter 37 -Section – Gathering, Transmitting, or Losing Defense Information. Here is what the law states:
“ (f) Whoever, being entrusted with of having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, codebook, signal book, sketch, photo, graph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information relating to the national defense, (1) THROUGH GROSS NEGLIGENCE permits the same to be removed from its property place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
The highlighted area – GROSS NEGLIGENCE – is the standard that has to be met. Section (f) says nothing about intent. The definition of Gross Negligence is – extreme carelessness that shows wilful or reckless disregard for the consequences to the safety or property of another. Section (f) says nothing about intent. The definition of Intent is – the will or purpose which one does an act. Now lets look at what the FBI director said.
STATEMENT BY FBI DIRECTOR COMEY
On July 5th FBI Director James Comey made his statement on the FBI’s investigation into Hillary’s use of a private e-mail system (read the full text here).
He started by stating the purpose of the investigation:
“Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities.”
He said that it is a felony to, either ‘intentionally” OR in a “grossly negligent” way, mishandle classified information on a personal system.
He then went on to lay out the evidence they found which showed the mishandling of classified information on her personal system. You can read it by clicking on the link to Comey’s statement above.
Then he uses verbal sleight of hand to try to change the law to mean the standard for prosecution is intent and not gross negligence. Here is what he said:
“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information”.
By starting with the word although, “Although we did not find clear evidence that …. intended to violate laws….”, he makes you think that intent is the standard that has to be met. He then finishes off the although by saying “there is evidence that they were extremely careless in ….”. By using the phrase “extremely careless” he erases “gross negligence” (the standard for this law) from your mind. This is the verbal equivalent of making a coin disappear in front of your eyes. Politicians and bureaucrats make a living performing this kind of verbal magic. But by definition extremely careless is gross negligence (look at the definition above). That’s all you need to know.
This next statement tells you all you need to know about our ruling aristocracy being more equal than the serfs.
“To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now”
Why did they go through this exercise if they were not deciding whether there should be consequences for illegal actions? He is essentially saying that even though Hillary got away with illegal activity, don’t you try doing the same thing because you will face the legal consequences that she escaped.
COMEY ANSWERS QUESTIONS
Congressman Trey Gowdy asked Comey questions about the FBI investigation. Here is the short video. It is very good. It sums up what we talked about. Even Director Comey agrees with Gowdy.
THE RULE OF LAW
Does it matter to you that the laws don’t apply to the ruling aristocracy? If “your guy” breaks the law can you rationalize it because he is on your team? What are the results of continual law breaking by our government betters?
When we see government officials at every level getting away with breaking the law, they can’t help but think the legal system is set up for the politically connected and it pisses us off. As I have said before, there will be a push back by the benighted masses.
What we are witnessing in our country right now is the break down of the rule of law, or the erosion of a civil society. This didn’t start last week. What happened last week with Hillary, the cops shooting citizens in Minnesota & Louisiana, and the cops getting shot in Dallas was built on a foundation of decades of onerous rules imposed by our ruling elite and law breaking by the ruling elite with no consequences.
Most of us want to be left alone. We don’t need all this government intervention in our lives. Our ruling elite shouldn’t make many rules that go beyond dealing with a person physically harming another or stealing their property. I think we can all agree that our government bureaucrats have driven far past that exit. There are so many rules and regulations on the books I bet you have probably broken a law today without even knowing it. You will get dinged for breaking laws you didn’t even know existed, while Hillary was let off for breaking laws that she absolutely did know existed.
The next time you get pulled over for a traffic violation try saying this and let me know how it turns out: “Officer, Hillary Clinton didn’t intend to break the law and neither did I. There is no clear evidence that I intended to violate the law, and although I was extremely careless, no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case to court.”
If I was the cop I would say, sir you’re right. Here’s your license, have a good day.
Related Article – If you want to see Hillary’s pattern of covering up and law breaking read, Hillary And Benghazi: Call In The Cleaners, at austrianaddict.com.
Related Article – Why Do We Give Politiclal Power To The Economically Ignorant, at austrianaddict.com.
AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT 