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The concept of law lacks a universally accepted definition, but it is safe to say that in the construct of society it is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior and maintain order. Obviously there are members of any society that find fault with specific laws for a variety of reasons, but because laws are for the common good, most people are inclined to follow them as responsible citizens; unless they are conservatives and specifically Republicans. The past four-and-a-half years have demonstrated that Republicans have no respect for the law on myriad levels, and it is in part based on the premise they are destined by god to rule America, and in part because they believe they are fundamentally above the law like common criminals. It is not a new development for Republicans, and conservatives in general, to disregard laws that are contrary to their ideological bent they have spent decades ignoring, circumventing, and blatantly subverting to impose their despotic ideology and rule America.
There is a definite pattern among Republicans of finding some means to ignore, break, and subvert laws by spending millions of dollars to fear-monger, pose legal challenges, change terminology, or insert unrelated, and constitutionally aberrant items into legislation unrelated to their original intent. Unsurprisingly, many laws Republicans undermine have been settled time and again in the courts, and yet they blatantly violate even decades-old Supreme Court rulings with impunity. Even though Republicans’ practice of undermining the law has been going on for decades, they ramped up their efforts since Barack Obama has been President to take advantage of racial animus permeating American society. What makes their efforts all the more despicable is that nearly all the laws of the land they are undermining or violating have little to no effect on their existence or rights as Americans; it is all about control.
For example, the Supreme Court ruled forty years ago that it is a woman’s Constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy up until the time a fetus is viable outside the womb, and for forty years Republicans and the religious right have used every means possible to violate the Court’s ruling. In just the past two weeks, Republicans redefined pregnancy with a personhood law in Ohio’s budget, inserted abortion bans into anti-Sharia legislation in North Carolina, devised disgraceful means to prevent physicians from having access to medical facilities in Texas, and mandated forced transvaginal ultrasounds to dissuade women for exercising their Constitutional rights. The Roe v. Wade decision has no impact on any woman, or man, who is not making a personal reproductive health choice, but Republicans are violating the law with impunity to force their ideology on every woman in America.
Conservative groups could not comport a campaign law requiring them to reveal their donors, so they illegally used social welfare designation to conceal dark money in campaigns, and to circumvent the law they committed perjury and then had the temerity to complain when the IRS followed the letter of the law governing tax exempt organizations. Religious tax-exempt organizations cannot tolerate a law that prohibits them from campaigning from the pulpit and still keep their tax-exempt status, so they videotape themselves violating the law daring the IRS to revoke their tax-exempt status. Their goal is overturning the Separation Clause in the Constitution’s First Amendment they have been violating for the past three decades.
There have been myriad court rulings prohibiting public schools from teaching the bible’s Genesis story as science because it is religious dogma that violates the first Amendment, and yet in nearly every state in the Union religious groups, school districts, and evangelicals violate the Constitution and teach creationism by renaming it, citing academic freedom, and in many cases encouraging teachers to violate the Separation Clause. It is another case of long-established Constitutional law conservatives refuse to abide under any circumstances, and it puts them in the same class as any other criminal who believes the law does not apply to them.
Despite the Supreme Court ruled the ACA is constitutional and John Boehner admitted it is the law of the land, Republicans have used every means at their disposal to thwart the law’s implementation. It was revealed this week that the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity belief-tank is spending over a million dollars to cast doubt on the law despite the millionaires and billionaires AFP and the Kochs represent are unaffected by it. There are still Republicans in states that claim the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, and with their criminal cohort in Congress, ALEC, and Americans for Prosperity they are resorting to fear-mongering to delegitimize the law of the land.
Former Confederate states are still angry African Americans were given the right to vote in the 15th Amendment in 1870, and even though the Voting Rights Act has been in effect for 58 years, they spent the past two years passing unconstitutional laws restricting the right to vote to white middle class Southerners. When the Justice Department prohibited them from violating the law by suppressing minority votes under the Voting Rights Act, Republicans appealed to racists on the conservative Supreme Court to give them permission to legally suppress minority voting rights. The VRA had no effect on any Republican’s right to vote, but their racist ideology drove them to violate other Americans Constitutional rights; specifically African Americans with blessings from racist on the High Court.
The list of laws, regulations, Supreme Court rulings, and Constitutional rights Republicans and conservatives circumvent, subvert, and violate is endless, but it demonstrates one simple premise; they believe they are not beholden to follow the law of the land under any circumstance. They specifically target laws that guarantee Americans the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness and no group is immune from their blatant disregard for the law save their precious corporations, the rich, and the fanatically religious. They have ratcheted up their assault on legally passed legislation since extremist teabaggers helped them gain control of state legislatures and the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections, but they began their crusade 80 years ago with the New Deal and escalated their assault on regulations thirty years ago when a b-movie actor became president.
The level of Republican abhorrence for the law has reached a point that government is at a standstill and it is exactly what they have worked for during the past four years. Republicans in Congress and states have made eliminating laws protecting the people their prime objective and no demographic has been left untouched by their crusade to erase regulations off the books while passing laws restricting democracy and personal liberty. America is alleged to be a nation of laws to maintain order and protect the rights of all the people, but when one party’s primary goal is destroying the laws, the result will either be government by dictatorial fiat, or open anarchy and it is apparent that Republicans are working diligently to establish either one.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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