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I am no longer posting on this blog. I have a new political blog called The Burning Itch, which is updated regularly.

July 16, 2007

No Man is Above the Law

"No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it."
-Theodore Roosevelt
Do we adhere to this simple doctrine in our society? No. President Bush is a perfect example of this. For some reason our politicians and many Americans seem to think it is okay that a president be above the law.

"The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
-Article II, Section 4; United States Constitution
President Bush has clearly ignored or incompetently misinterpreted many laws throughout his presidency. You can find books and material all over the Internet that lay out the case for impeachment on Mr. Bush, so I won't bother repeating them here. My main point is that nobody, including the president, should be above the law.

I understand the idea that impeaching our president may hurt the country. Gerald Ford thought this, and pardoned Nixon so we could just move on (or at least that was part of his reason). But we need to understand that holding our public officals under the fire of the law makes our country stronger. Thomas Jefferson once said that if the government fears the people, there will be liberty.

If government officals know that we are willing to impeach them for their breaches in the law, perhaps they will think twice before unlawfully destroying haebus corpus, or spying on law-abiding Americans. For once I would like to see some integrity in the people we elect into congress to do their job.

In the end, it is our duty to make sure our elected officals are following the Constitution and the law. If you believe your president is breaking the law, insist our lawmakers in congress to begin impeachment proceedings (I already know there is a bill gaining cosonpors in the house as I type this). If your congressperson is not willing to impeach those who break the highest laws of our country, than look into their record. Find out if your congressperson has been breaking the law and perhaps impeach them as well.

No person should ever be above the law, including those who make the laws and enforce them.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm still trying to understand why Clinton was impeached for lying about a blow job; yet Bush is still in office.

Steve Ritter said...

It really doesn't make any sense does it? To me it just seems that our leaders on Capitol Hill (except for the few intelligent representative that have cosponsored the impeachment bill) are completely weak and timid to stand up for their country. They bitched and moaned about how difficult it was for them to stay up all night debating Iraq (which they seemed to do very little of), while our president continues to void the constitution and kill thousands of our people and others.

I also heard a nifty slogan the other day: ICE Bush. Impeach him for the treason, bribery, high crimes, and misdemeanors he has accumulated. Convict him of those crimes. Execute him for those crimes. Some may say, calling for the execution of the president is treason in itself. It's not though if you are calling for a fair trail for the president and allow the system to properly deal with his crimes. If he is proven to have committed treason, it is an executable offense. I am not a strong supporter of execution of anybody, though. Instead, I'd rather see Guantanamo Bay kept open just for Bush, so that he may sit in a cell there for the rest of his life.