The Search for Kings

Fran Porretto pens another superb essay at Eternity Road:

In my adult life I've become acquainted with thousands of men, from all walks of life and all the nations of the world. I've gotten to know perhaps a hundred of them very well. That's enough, I think, to form a sample of Mankind sufficiently representative for some tentative conclusions about human quality.

In brief, most people are fit to govern their own lives, if only barely, but nothing more. A few plainly aren't even up to that; if not looked after by wiser and more capable others, they'll kill themselves ignominiously and, quite likely, take a few innocent bystanders with them. But there are a very few whose wisdom, ability, and passion for justice are demonstrably great enough that others should take their advice, even if they find it humiliating to hear and painful to follow.

One of our fondest secret wishes is that a person of that kind should rise to the rule of our nation, free of encumbrance by legislatures, judiciaries, and regulatory bodies with contrary inclinations. The wish, though unarticulated, is so strong that we attribute monarchic powers to our presidents, permit them far more latitude than the Constitution grants them, and hold them accountable for every rise or fall in our national fortunes.

Though he'd never admit it, the typical American voter goes to the polls every four years to elect a king.

***

We wish for a king so powerfully because of the failure of the premier American political innovation: "a government of laws, not of men."

If that sounds bizarre coming from a self-described libertarian, please remember that the notion of "a government of laws, not of men" was a reaction to the hostility of European royal and noble houses to individual freedom and international peace. Though the record of the European monarchies is mixed, it is nevertheless a warning that to repose unchecked power in a man, or a small group of men, is to gamble everything valuable in life on the whims of the powerful. The Founders cemented the supremacy of the law over the ruler into our political system to forestall exactly that. They trusted in written law -- words of clear and specific meaning, pondered by men of acknowledged good judgment, and ratified by the majority thereof -- to restrain the whims and rapacity of rulers.

They overlooked a few things.

First among the under-considered aspects of the matter was this: Every string of words, no matter how carefully crafted, is subject to "interpretation." The appellate judiciary, which was entrusted with this power de facto, collaborated in the destruction of the postulate beneath "a government of laws:" that a law once written would be stable in meaning, and therefore in application. That's the true import of the hideous phrase "living Constitution."

Second was this: Men who seek power over others regard "a government of laws" as a challenge, not an insuperable obstacle. There have been very few persons who've sought public office, here or anywhere, whose ambitions have stopped short of absolute mastery of their nation. Given time to work, the availability of allies, and the dynamics of demagoguery, they'll undermine the knowability of the law, and the constraints the law imposes on them, as surely as the Sun will rise tomorrow.

Third was this: Once the law has been breached to make room for arbitrary power in the service of injustice, the great majority of those who respond will strive, not to restore the proper bounds on the power-wielders, but to gain control of the State and use it in their own interests. That readiness to subordinate freedom and justice to personal and provincial interests is the engine of special-interest politics. It raised its head with the first public-works projects, and it's only grown stronger over time.

John Randolph, one of the more pragmatic of our Founders, wrote that "You may cover whole skins of parchment with limitations, but power alone can limit power." Nor was he incorrect. The Second Amendment to the Constitution tacitly acknowledges that fact. So does the Sixth, which reserves to a jury of private citizens the ultimate power of the State: the power to punish. But note how badly power-wielders have abraded those guarantees. Today a man needs government permission to own or carry a firearm, and even then he's almost certain to be harassed by the gendarmes if he carries it openly. Today, government bodies staffed by hundreds of thousands of unelected functionaries impose fines and confiscations with neither legislative direction nor a jury's ratification. Two such, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Internal Revenue Service, are permitted to confiscate a man's whole property on their sole authority, and compel him to sue for its return.

Clearly, men who desire power are but poorly impeded by written law.