Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.
Again, this is big picture, and I’m not a lawyer. Laws only mean something – they only have real authority – when powerful entities are held to account. If only the weak are subject to laws, whereas (for example) powerful countries can commit or enable genocide with impunity, there is no justice. In this case, the law is a fiction, a chimera, a ruse, even another tool of oppression.
Justice often isn’t blind, and those scales may be tipped
The U.S. is supposed to be a constitutional republic where the law of the land applies equally to all. We are far from that today. We are more of a corporatist-imperialist enterprise in which the “law” of the land is full-spectrum dominance and the unbridled pursuit of profit. In this land, a “lawful” order may indeed be what powerful entities say it is, irrespective of the Constitution and international law.
And Trump may know this grim reality better than almost anyone.
The second comment suggested that Trump’s peace plan for the Russia-Ukraine War shows how he’s “owned” by Putin. I had this reply:
Appreciate your response and critique.
I’d point out that the U.S. has provided Ukraine roughly $200 billion in weapons and aid since the war began almost four years ago, and that the Trump administration has continued that support. This suggests Putin doesn’t “own” Trump.
I don’t understand how it’s “sedition” against the U.S. to propose a peace plan for Russia and Ukraine.
I’m also skeptical that the U.S. can claim to be a principled democratic leader of the free world – just look at the genocide in Gaza that the U.S. has enabled, to cite only one example.
Also, was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine completely unprovoked? Don’t get me wrong: I’ve denounced Putin’s invasion. But “unprovoked” suggests Putin just woke up one morning and decided to invade Ukraine for no reason other than his own greed and megalomania.
For the sake of consistency, one could argue the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was “unprovoked” (no WMD) and that it too represented a betrayal of democracy.
Speaking of the rule of law, consider the Iraq War again. Note how senior leaders in the U.S. like the recently deceased Dick Cheney were never held responsible for torture and other war crimes. Recall how President Obama, a constitutional lawyer, said America had to look forward, effectively absolving Cheney and crew of any violations of the law.
Where the rulers are above the rule of law even as they make the laws in their favor, you don’t have democracy. Injustice is not justice.
Where grift and graft are celebrated as greatness, even “lawful,” backed up by the coercive power of heavily armed police forces, super-max prisons, detention centers, and the like, you do not have a land of the free.
What this suggests about America’s future is grim indeed.
