The nature of law, as we have always recognized it, was to create a peaceful harmony amongst people living in close proximity. While freedom is manifest from the Almighty, laws are created by man to create a social construct. Succinctly, in an organized society, you are and should be free to do whatever you want, so long as it doesn't hinder someone else's same right to do whatever THEY want. You can walk around you house naked, if you want. Going to Walmart that way, on the other hand, will get you arrested. You desire to do without clothes gets trumped by everybody else's rights NOT TO HAVE TO LOOK AT YOU THAT WAY. See?
That was the structure on which this nation was founded and established. Why does it seem that it's no longer that way now? Most people wander aimlessly around today shouting about what their "rights" are while, simultaneously, having not clue what their so-called "rights" actually are, from whence they come, or how they are being diminished every single day of their lives. In the beginning, it was kinda obvious to early Americans. If you followed the rules set forth the in the Judeo-Christian tradition, you were probably gonna be OK when it came to following the laws of the newly formed nation. There was precious little need to dictate, down to the smallest minutiae, how people were allowed to act. We pretty much governed OURSELVES. If a disagreement arose over a particular behaviour, the most local level of government usually acted to resolve it by passing a local ordinance. If the scope needed to be a little bigger, then states might pass a law in this regard. For an example of this, look at this link that describes so-called blue laws.
The role of the federal government, as set down in the Constitution, was to resolve any disputes BETWEEN the states. One need not look any further than the Interstate Commerce Clause to see how this was SUPPOSED to work. This system chugged down the tracks from the outset of the nation until about the time of the Civil War. Before the war, the United States were just that, a united group or collection of states operating independently, but under one banner and one Constitution. After the war, the Federal Government took on a more overarching and sole power OVER the states. Now, I won't waste the time of the dear readers of this tome in arguing why and how the Civil War was fought. At least not within the confines of this article, but suffice to say that we were one nation before the war and one nation after it. The resultant form of government we were left with has been anything but "Of the people, by the people, and for the people..."
Once the supremacy of the federal government was ensconced, everything about how the people were governed (ruled) changed, and not for the better. The very idea that we couldn't have a one-size-fits-all set of rules was relegated to the ash heap of history. The people of Missouri were no longer allowed to have a different set of rules (laws) to live by than the people of Mississippi. The Power Elite were overjoyed. No longer would they have to try and control all of the individual state houses, senates, and governorships. They could just concentrate their efforts on controlling the 2 Houses of Congress and the Presidency. This new arrangement (Reconstruction, if you will) allowed for a consolidation of power and authority on many levels, along with greasing the tracks for the runaway locomotive that is the situation we have today.
It's the EXACT circumstance the Framers strived to avoid. The idea of a single, centralized government was an anathema to them. They knew, intrinsically, that such a thing would inevitably lead to the exact type of tyranny they had rebelled against with King George III. Why? Because it would become a fate accompli that the freedoms of the individual would be the first sacrifice on the new altar of centralized power. And so it has become that very thing. Why and how is this important to you, my faithful readers? Simple. As I said in a previous piece of this article, the best government is centered closest to the governed. The people of Utah know best the rules by which they want to live their lives. They know that, to be an organized people living in close proximity to one another, a certain set of rules need to be enacted into law for them to live in harmony. I doubt very highly that the folks that live in Brooklyn, NY have the same values and tenets as the folks in Provo, UT. But after Reconstruction, it made it all too easy for a VERY SMALL group of people to dictate what would and would not be a CRIME for EVERYBODY.
With the advancement of ONE GOVERNMENT, the power elite began to enshrine THEIR values, THEIR judgements, and THEIR principles into federal law. The views of the few now supplanted the best interests of the many. The very idea of the enumerated powers of the Constitution were scrapped in favor of the "we know better than you what you need" philosophy that centralized power ALWAYS brings. In a previous piece to this article, I described how the Power Elite then extended their powers of usurpation by creating agencies, departments, bureaus, and commissions to develop even more still complicated "rules" and "regulations" that carry all the power of law without the actual task of enactment. What is and is not a CRIME is so pitifully misunderstood by the average American as to be laughable and sad. The scope of this newfound power of the "reconstructed" centralized government is so far reaching that it defies explanation by even the most educated legal scholars.
Adding to the morass created by the alphabet soup of departments and agencies of the Federal cabal was the newly deemed absolute power of the Supreme Court. In the machine that is centralized government, the Supreme Court's power to issue edicts over how Americans live their lives SHOULD have been the canary in the coal mine that liberty was being eroded, but alas it was not. Time after time, the Court issued mandates under odious references to unrelated aspects of the Constitution (once again: the Interstate Commerce Clause) that became the "law of the land" without so much as a single vote of the citizen. When the Supreme Court of Georgia decides the legality of something brought before it regarding a state issue, the people of Georgia could relate to it and respond accordingly because it would have been a decision about a law PASSED in Georgia regarding the behaviour of the people of Georgia based on the values, tenets, and principles of the people of Georgia. The people of Ohio were completely unaffected. When the Supreme Court of the United States decides the legality of something brought before it regarding the an issue of the state of Georgia, the people of Ohio (and every other state) are just herded in like sheep.
Do you see where this is going? The decisions of what is or is not a CRIME are being designed, decided, adjudicated, and enforced so far away from the "governed", that the "governed" are being treated as nothing more than serfs to be ordered about by their "betters". In the next (and perhaps last) installment of this article, I will attempt to close out the "how did we get here" argument and posit a potential path of return toward the people deciding what is a crime, how a crime should be enforced, and what the punishment should be FOR EVERYONE.
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