Courts without law

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Lawlessness usually conjures up images of a wild frontier or mobs in the streets. But the painful reality is that the supreme examples of lawlessness in our times are in the august and sedate chambers of the Supreme Court of the United States.

If you think the issue in the recent Supreme Court decision upholding campaign finance legislation is whether campaign finance reform is a good or a bad idea, you have already surrendered the far more important and fundamental idea of constitutional government.

There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States that authorizes Congress to regulate what is said by whom, or under what conditions, in a political campaign. On the contrary, the Constitution says plainly, "Congress shall make no law" -- no law -- "abridging the freedom of speech."

The merits or demerits of this particular law, restricting what you can say when, or how much money you can contribute to get your message out, are all beside the point. Just what part of "no law" don't the Supreme Court justices understand?

The sad -- indeed, tragic -- fact is they understand completely. They just think this legislation is a good idea and are not going to let the Constitution stand in their way.

Moreover, they know from experience that if they can snow us with huge amounts of pious rhetoric, saying the kinds of things the mainstream media will echo, their willful exercise of power will go unchallenged. In short, the Constitution be damned, we're doing our own thing.

At least the people who engaged in Wild West shootouts or lynch mob violence spared us the pretense they were upholding the Constitution. Whatever horrors these lawless and murderous people might inflict at particular times and places, they never had the power to undermine the very basis of the government of the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court does -- and is in the process of doing just that. Other courts, taking their cue from the top, have likewise behaved like little tin gods, imposing their own notions disguised as law.

One of the tragedies of our time, and a harbinger of future tragedies, is that court decisions at all levels have come to be judged by whether we agree or disagree with the policy being upheld or overturned.