A lawless nation cannot stand...

[kentuck]

When we have the President of the United States break the laws and the Congress is willing to turn its head, then we are not long before the dam breaks. If there is one person we expect to obey and uphold the law, it is the President of the United States. When he does not obey the law, it is a crisis. When our Congress ignores the breaking of the law, we are beyond crisis. It is an emergency. When the people lose faith in their laws and their government, it is only a matter of time before there are consequences. No one can be permitted to be above the law. It is not healthy for women and children.

[existentialist]

1. You got that down pretty well

and nicely stated at that.

[magellan]

2. Right on

We're already seeing the consequences, and I see no reason to think it's going to get better before it gets much, much worse. I'm past despondent on this matter.

[ladjf]

3. You have accurately stated an immutable natural law.

The only question is "how long before the fall"?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

4. You've already fallen.

The question is: Can you get up?

[ladjf]

5. My only question is , what are you talking about?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

7. lol

You said "How long before the fall?"

I'm saying: "The fall has already happened." I'm also referencing a famous commercial whose tag line was "I've fallen and I can't get up!"

Does that answer your question?

[ladjf]

8. Yes. Thanks. And if and when the fall happens, the joke might

be real. We might not be able to get up.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. Agreed.

Osteoporosis* is already settling in.


*Osteoporosis
n : abnormal loss of bony tissue resulting in fragile porous bones attributable to a lack of calcium; most common in postmenopausal women (I don't want you to wonder wtf I'm talking about, again :hi: :D)

[TahitiNut]

6. "It is not healthy for women and children."

... and other living things. In a Police State, those who write and enforce the laws are exempt - others are mere subjects. :shrug:

[jean]

10. Rep Harry Hyde's mantra was 'The Rule of Law' during Clinton's

blue dress debacle. The rule of law seems defunct these days.


Aliens and the Rule of Law
by Mike Kress
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0509-05.htm

"The phrase "rule of law" is no pious aspiration from a civics textbook. The rule of law is what stands between all of us and the arbitrary exercise of power by the state. The rule of law is the safeguard of our liberties. The rule of law is what allows us to live our freedom in ways that honor the freedom of others, while strengthening the common good." - Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL); Sept. 11, 1998




A Plague on Their Houses
12/19/98
http://www.salon.com/news/1998/12/cov_18newsf2.html


Next, we consider Rep. Henry Hyde, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who has spearheaded the effort to impeach the president. In explaining his vote in favor of impeachment, Hyde solemnly stated: "We are fighting for the rule of law. I think it is our constitutional duty under the law to pursue impeachment. I'm frightened for the rule of law."

Apparently, however, Hyde came to his appreciation for the law late in life. Almost a decade ago, as a member of the special Iran-contra congressional investigating committee, Hyde was an outspoken and craven apologist for the Reagan administration's often illegal and extraconstitutional foreign policy toward Iran and Nicaragua.

Hyde did not lie awake late at night fearing for the fate of the rule of law then. Unlike Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky affair, Iran-contra involved lawbreaking and abuses of power by the president and his most senior national security advisers that were central to the governance of the nation. They included illegal arms sales by the Reagan administration to Iran, a terrorist state, as well as the covert funding of the contras, despite the fact that such assistance was also illegal.

...

As a ranking Republican on the Iran-contra committee in 1987, Hyde had this to say at the time about the massive lawbreaking within the Reagan White House: "All of us, at some time, confront conflicts between rights and duties, between choices that are evil and less evil, and one hardly exhausts moral indignation by labeling every untruth and every deception an outrage." Hyde also excused the conduct of National Security Council aide Oliver North by asserting that during previous presidencies, the White House had long been "a palace of pragmatism where dishonesty flourished."