Aristotle
1,936 words
Many people on the populist right are cynical and dismissive about “the rule of law.” They’re not simply bemoaning the failures of politicians, judges, and bureaucrats to follow the law. They dismiss the very idea of the rule of law. They aren’t saying we need to rid ourselves of arbitrary rule, they are saying that our arbitrary rulers need to drop the pretense that they are anything else. The solution they envision is not returning to the rule of law but simply rooting for a new set of arbitrary rulers.
I have no objection to replacing our current elites, but I do object to discussing a serious issue in political philosophy in a superficial and ignorant manner.
The rule of law is contrasted to the rule of men. This doesn’t mean that laws write themselves. Obviously, they are written by men. Moreover, the rule of law not men doesn’t mean that laws can interpret and enforce themselves. Obviously, men must do that too. But there are different ways that men can perform these functions. Basically, they can be guided by justice or by their own private interests. They can try to be objective and impartial, or they can indulge their emotions, prejudices, and partisanship.
For instance, a judge can sentence criminals to jail based on just standards of punishment, or he can sentence people to jail based on kickbacks from the firm that runs the local prison. In the first case, the judge is ruled by the law. In the second, he is ruled by his private interests, which he is pursuing under the guise of justice.
The idea of the rule of law vs. the rule of men goes back to Aristotle’s Politics. Aristotle believed that every being has an intrinsic and objective good that it strives to achieve. This is true of individuals, and it is true of communities as well. Aristotle believed that ultimately the highest law of any polity is its common good. So for Aristotle the rule of law at root means rule by the common good. Rule by men means the rule of private interests at the expense of the common good. Basically, rule by men means corruption: pretending to serve the public while merely serving themselves.
The common good is the standard of legitimacy. Many different systems of government can be legitimate. Thus Aristotle claimed that rule by one man is lawful if he pursues the common good but unlawful if he is looking out for his private interests at the expense of the common good. The first regime is monarchy. The second is tyranny. Ruled by a small elite can be lawful if it looks out for the common good, unlawful if the rulers pursue their private interests at the expense of the common good. The first regime is aristocracy. The second is oligarchy. Finally, rule by the many is lawful if it looks out for the common good, unlawful if it serves their factional interests at the expense of the common good. The first regime is what Aristotle called polity. The second is democracy. Aristotle favored a mixed regime with monarchical, aristocratic, and popular elements, each with separate functions, because he believed that the common good is more likely to be attained if different groups are empowered to block their rivals from corrupt practices.
The common good is the fundamental law that generates all lesser laws (nomoi): the statutes passed by legislatures, enforced by police, and interpreted by judges and juries. Aristotle contrasts laws in this sense to decrees (psephismata). A decree is a government decision that addresses unique and timely circumstances. Thus decrees mention particular persons, places, and times. They are not formulated as general rules to be followed in the future. Laws, by contrast, are formulated in general terms and are meant to bind us in the future. Laws, therefore, try to anticipate future events, whereas decrees respond to current events on the spot.
If decrees are more responsive to unique and contingent circumstances, then why be ruled by laws at all? Why bind ourselves with general rules when we can just make up decrees as we go along? There are basically four Aristotelian answers to this question.
The first answer is metaphysical: the world is mostly orderly, with some contingency and unpredictability, but it is not completely chaotic. Thus general binding laws are the best way to implement the common good. Accordingly, Aristotle observed that unjust regimes tend to prefer rule by decree rather than by law.
The second answer is more epistemological: decrees are extemporaneous, meaning that they are creatures of a particular time and place, often made with a sense of urgency. Thus they are more likely to be irrational, subjective rather than objective, based on partial information rather than well-informed, emotional rather than logical, and corrupt rather than impartial. Laws, however, are made in a more leisurely and deliberative fashion. They are thus more likely to be based on facts, logical, objective, impartial, and conducive to the common good.
The third answer is practical: living under fixed laws allows people to take individual initiative, whereas living under decrees encourages waiting around for the next deliverance of the oracle. Living under fixed laws makes possible long-range planning, while living under decrees discourages it, since one’s money, time, and efforts are more likely to be wiped out with the next shift in policy.
The fourth answer is that the imperfections of general laws can be corrected on the fly without reducing all government to decree. Aristotle recognized that even the wisest legislators can’t anticipate every contingency. He gives an example of this in his Rhetoric. The Athenians legislated special punishment for striking people with metal objects. Obviously, they were thinking of weapons, but they didn’t specify that because they wanted to leave the law open to the development of new weapons as well as the possibility of using other things as weapons, for instance tools. But when a man’s metal finger-ring struck his enemy, it was obviously not what the lawgivers had in mind.
At this point, one faces a decision. One can follow the letter of the law and produce an unjust result. Or one can pursue the spirit of the law—which is to produce justice and ultimately to serve the common good—by modifying the letter of the law. Aristotle calls this “epieikeia,” which is translated as equity or fairness. It is a form of prudence or practical wisdom (phronesis). Equity presupposes that we all have the ability to see justice in individual circumstances. Since the world is mostly orderly, general laws usually suffice to secure the common good. In exceptional cases, we can appeal to equity to find the just solution.
From the very beginning of the second Trump administration, the left began bleating about the “rule of law” and “due process” to protect criminal aliens from arrest and deportation. Of course, they had been silent about the rule of law when these people invaded America. But observations like that are cheap. The question of substance is: Do you think they were wrong to ignore the law or not?
Let’s be generous and assume that the “due process” rights being recommended are real to begin with. If the Trump administration follows “due process” as envisioned by the left, then we cannot apprehend and punish tens of millions of criminals, which means that the nation has no borders, crimes can be committed with impunity, and America will perish through mass immigration. By following the letter of the law, we produce evil. Anyone with a shred of prudence can see this. The advocates for the invaders certainly see it. They want this evil. They think we deserve it.
Thus we face a choice: follow the letter of the law to destruction, or set aside the letter of the law to affirm its spirit. There is a hierarchy of laws. Rules binding police and courts to due process are less important than laws banning substantive crimes like invading the country, but the ultimate law is the common good. Destroying the nation out of piety to due process is a complete inversion of proper political priorities.
Dealing with tens of millions of invaders facilitated by a treasonous political machine is a textbook state of emergency. Trump has every reason to suspend certain procedural rights to save the nation. And while he’s at it, he should arrest the politicians and activists who created the invasion. He should also simply ban the Democratic Party and the organizations conspiring with it to facilitate this invasion and to prevent it from being reversed.
But when the letter of the law is set aside to pursue justice, isn’t this the rule of men not of laws? No, not at all. Setting aside the letter of the law to pursue the spirit of the law is still all about the law. Indeed, it is about the highest and deepest law, namely the common good.
An act of equity would only be the rule of men rather than laws if the person empowered to decide the issue didn’t actually concern himself with justice but instead decided the matter on some other basis: whim, luck, financial corruption, political partisanship, etc.
There are moments of decision at all levels of society, from the cop on the beat to the highest legislatures, courts, and councils of state. But we can be ruled by law the whole time, as long as each decision-maker is pursuing justice, not his own private interests. In such a society, rule by men happens only through dereliction of duty.
Corrupt politicians, police, judges, and jurors are always possible. Thus there is a sense in which laws and institutions are only as good as the people who staff them. But this doesn’t mean that ultimately laws and institutions are ruled by men. This is to assume that public virtue and corruption are independent of laws and institutions. But in fact, laws and institutions shape the moral qualities of the citizens. This is why for Aristotle, moral education is central to a well-functioning political regime.
The folly of modern political theorists like the American Founders or Immanuel Kant was thinking that a just society does not depend upon public virtue, so society need make no provision for public education and that even a “nation of devils” can flourish with the right laws.
But government is not a machine. It requires human decisions at every level. Thus good government requires good deciders, basically people who are able to put reason before emotion, facts before feelings, and the common good before private interests.
But what about the men who set up new political orders? Do they not stand above the laws? Again, that depends upon their goals. If their goal is to secure the common good, then they are ruled by the highest law—even before a single constitutional law or statute is set to paper—and the highest law rules through them. We have the rule of men only if a founder’s goal is something other than justice: glory, plunder, imposing his whims upon society, etc. These are the same sort of corruptions that all officials are susceptible to, just on a larger scale.
Aristotle’s defense of the rule of law not men is the source of all later defenses of this idea, for instance by Locke and Montesquieu, and it has never been bettered. Aristotle both anticipates and answers all later objections, both from those who think he offers too much latitude to decision-making and those who think he offers too little. He deserves to be taken seriously.
37 comments
(Edited by the commenter.) OK, since the comment was not useful then let it be gone. I do not want to distract from the article, which is excellent.
What you are imagining here has almost nothing to do with my actual article.
Excellent article. Should be required reading!
I know that Aristotle’s is a fine philosophical argument, but what would we think of a mother who, in a serenely philosophical spirit, agreed that she would feed her baby or let it starve to death depending on what the most silver-tongued lawyers said and what the ruling legal opinion was? We would say that this monster had put herself outside of nature and her children needed to be protected from her. (At least I would say that.)
There are, theoretically, arguments that phrases like “the common good” might protect Whites as a race, though everyone with charge of phrases like “the rule of law” and “the common good” says not.
I am saying that we shouldn’t be willing to pay the price of this sort of argument, which is agreeing that if we lose it our race can die with our consent.
Our attitude should be like that of a good mother who will feed her baby if she can, and damn all the courts and laws in the world if they say not.
I largely agree. One might ask “The common good of whom?” After all, if humanity as a whole – those billions of Africans et al – decide that oppressing whites is necessary for the common (global) good, then we must reject that, even if they’re right! That’s because we have a higher duty to our “private” white interests than we do to the global community.
But I agree with Greg that if we are talking about the common good of whites, or of Englishmen, then we should seek it through the rule of law.
But someone may ask “if we’re right to reject the global common good in favor of our local white good, then why should the English not reject the common white good for the local English good, the English good be rejected for the local London good, and the London good be rejected for the good of one’s family, all based on the same principle of greater duty to one’s closer kin than more distant relations?”
I’d like to hear Greg’s thoughts on this. I anticipate that he might reply that the thief should submit to the rule of law because even the thief knows that stealing is wrong, but it’s less obvious why a family should know that nepotism is wrong, and even less obvious why England should seek the good of whites globally rather than the good of the English. He might say that the bigger the sub-community, the greater claim it has to its own, local good over the wider, more global good. The principles behind it seem fuzzy, but it’s crucial to understand in order to know whose good should be served in America: ethnic Americans, American citizens, American residents, or all of humanity?
In any case, Socrates drank the hemlock out of respect for the wider community’s judgement, but we whites must not do the same.
Laws can be more or less in harmony with nature, and by default when they are more in conformity with nature they are better. This should support blood partiality, at least to some extent.
For example, a law that says that a wife may not be required to testify against her husband is good. The law encounters something more fundamental and necessary than itself and rightly steps back.
Again, you have a vivid imagination, but this is hard to discuss because it is does not engage the argument.
Sorry. It seemed to me that it did, but apparently I was wrong.
I think it touches upon the argument at least tangentially. If we imagine an ideal, unified polity then there is no difficulty, but if the society has distinct groups whose goals conflict to some degree, and the overall common good is being pursued at your group’s expense, then that sets up a conflict between supporting the good of the entire society versus supporting the good of your group. Is supporting the common good of your group the ultimate law, or is supporting the common good of the larger society the ultimate law? Where do we draw the line between pursuing self-determination for your group versus corrupting the overall society with your group’s “private” interests?
You’ve touched upon a weakness in the discussion, which is that something called “the common good” exists, and can be recognized. What is the nature of “good”, and what are the boundaries of “common”?
Intellectually, it all goes back to ethics and before that metaphysics. But given rival conceptions of the “good”, pragmatically, it finally goes back to power (ie, the power to impose some conception of the “good”). This is not to imply that I’m a relativist. I believe in objective truths and moral values. But amongst humans with radically different psyches, there is no way to reach reasoned agreement about these ultimate matters.
Our task is to convince sufficient numbers of brainwashed whites that taking hard, coercive measures to ensure white racial perpetuity is morally justifiable, which to me means compatible with Christian moral theology (as I am of the No God, No Ethics school, though also because many of the conservative whites already closest to us ideologically, and therefore most persuadable, are Christian).
The strength of the “common good” is the weakness of any rival proposal.
Let’s consider a law. If we institute this law, our society will go from broad property ownership, relative equality, and a high degree of political/civic participating to increasing concentrations of money and power and a dwindling public sphere. Yea or Nay?
Obviously, a multiracial, multicultural society has very little that could be called the common good, and it basically reduces to infrastructure for pursuing individual goals. That’s basically all that modern liberalism, including libertarians, can offer. But it has become clear that you can’t even maintain, much less produce that, without sufficient unity.
It is meaningful to talk about the global “common good” if there are threats to global survival, thus it makes sense to have global intergovernmental organizations to deal with problems like migration, environmental issues, and planetary defense.
But the natural unit for a workable sovereign entity is an ethnically defined people.
“Obviously, a multiracial, multicultural society has very little that could be called the common good, and it basically reduces to infrastructure for pursuing individual goals.”
A homogeneous nation sees its survival as the common good. But a multiracial group has no future because it lacks a common identity to protect and preserve. Non-white hostility toward us could make us think that their common interest is to replace us, but that idea doesn’t really make sense.
Dr. Johnson:
Your essay is a fine one, and hard to argue with in the abstract. But I don’t think it’s all that relevant to our current crisis, which is obviously existential (will our race exist or not?). We need a new political philosophy. It hardly needs to reject or abjure all that men of the West have thought about the problems of political organization and civic life from the ancients to now. But the lacuna in past thought was the lack of incorporation of the implications of human biodiversity into political philosophy, particularly of the close (and I would argue, necessary) relation between liberty (and here I would include civic republicanism) and at least racial (if not also ethnic) homogeneity.
We need the great treatise demonstrating that rejection of diversity is a foundational principle of political thought. But because diversity has become such a dominant and existentially threatening feature of the contemporary white world, our primary theoretical tasks are, first, formulating how, realistically, we can rid ourselves of it, and second, because the first task will inevitably necessitate coercion (and perhaps war), formulating that task’s moral basis, and this perhaps in multiple ways to appeal to different types of moralities (eg, those deriving from Catholicism, Protestantism, Mormonism, scientific materialism, etc).
The white race is more ethical than others; this is our glory, though it may also be our doom. Our racial enemies, along with our own race’s fools, have captured the “morality of race”. Either we change this status quo amongst a sufficient number of our people to secure one or more Ethnostates, or our cause is lost. I think prowhite philosophers therefore should shift their focus to this aspect of our intellectual struggle.
Thank you, Greg, for this excellent and stimulating article.
Thanks, it needed saying.
In my humble opinion, the establishment of strong families should be prioritized before decisions regarding the best kind of government, style of leadership, for an ideal White ethnostate. I have such enormous faith that White men are innovative and spirited enough to solve societal problems if everything in their own home is completely satisfactory.
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
– Socrates
Very good and very interesting article,
“The common good is the standard of legitimacy. Many different systems of government can be legitimate. Thus Aristotle claimed that rule by one man is lawful if he pursues the common good, but unlawful if he is looking out for his private interests at the expense of the common good.”
Today’s leadership can be perceived by this philosophy from its many existing variables presently in practice. Some weigh accomplishments or violations on un-calibrated scales (Good / Bad,, Earth shaking actions… or a fleas bite on an elephants ass). Of course if all leadership actions were executed with the same measures applied to everyone, everywhere, the results would be shocking to all who perceive themselves “in the right” or above the rest. (Perhaps by an unbiased extraterrestrial force)
“there is a sense in which laws and institutions are only as good as the people who staff them / Laws and institutions shape the moral qualities of the citizens”.
Or, “States (and laws) are as the men (and woman) are; they grow out of human characters.” —From Plato’s Republic
Even “Universal suffrage or the right to decision by majority vote does not guarantee justice fairness or equality in a society when the vote can be manipulated by financial and political forces, (ignorance, emotional immaturity in the wake of rising personality disorders, and of course, greed). Corrupt state leaders depend more on fools, than fools on state leaders (Cato the elder).
Now then, Does Morality plays a major role in Governing?
“The level of civility in any civilization is measured by the level and the quality of its mercy, or the level of empathy embodied within it. This environment will define how well all work together in harmony as one for the betterment of all.”
Aristotle’s logic is clearly expressed and designed to open ideas on proper government. How we use or misuse it for our own purposes is another reality.
Enjoyable reading. My take is there are altogether too many laws to begin with. Federal, state, county, city, HOA, etc… I feel that America would be so much better and easier to keep in line without all these invaders. In this way every country would rightfully focus there laws on their own common good. Simpler laws that don’t require lawyers to interpret would be a service to all, except maybe the lawyers. Think about even the user agreement for the most basic of apps and it might be 20 pages of microprint. Give me a constitutional monarchy over a democracy any day. We are frequently told ignorance of the law is no excuse. But what if we truly had no knowledge of the law? How can we be held accountable? This is what bothers me most about laws and their enforcers. It seems like they enjoy making us squirm about breaking this or that law. Such as a seatbelt sign blaring “Wear your seatbelt. It’s the LAW.” Makes me want to not wear one. I wear it for perceived safety value. But playing on fear of breaking the law is a pathetic way to gain compliance.
If there is only one ultimate law, the common good, we do need some explanation for the US Federal and State Codes, don’t we? How many volumes do they run to? How many millions of words? Or is it billions now?
Aristotle is right to criticize rule by decree. The world is nowhere near chaotic enough for that to make sense, and it in effect creates social chaos/stultifies social order because it discourages the initiatives and plans of everybody but the guy issuing the decrees.
But when the number of laws grows to the point that no single mind can comprehend them, then the assertion that “Ignorance of the law is no excuse” is ridiculous. It also allows political insiders and judges to basically rule by decree, simply by picking and choosing laws like a painter dipping his brush into one color then another until he creates the picture he envisions.
At this point, we need to have a third branch of the national legislature to repeal laws.
When I was in tenth grade, we were given a project in American history class to design a constitution. I argued for electing legislators by lottery (which would be genuinely populist, promote the circulation of elites, eliminate political parties, and obviate the necessity of term limits) and for a House of Repeals. I stand by those ideas to this day.
Very good article, Greg. I always appreciate your lucidly clear writing. Regarding the Aristotelian checks and balances, I have always believed that an independent judiciary is of fundamental importance, and is one of the true blessings of classical liberalism (amidst its many curses), and part of the heritage that the American colonists inherited from their British ancestors. It is also one of the main reasons that I am skeptical of conjoining White Nationalism with National Socialism (going back to the Woods/Davis debate). Do we really want something like the German People’s Court and someone like Roland Freisler in our future White states? Neither was independent. I would much prefer an honest, independent judiciary on the model of pre-WWI Britain and America, which I believe is compatible with an overall authoritarian, paternalistic political structure.
Other than being a little histrionic with traitors who had been given every opportunity to straighten up and fly right until they plotted to kill the Head of State, I fail to see any serious fault with Roland Friesler ─ other than that Hitler himself had to admonish him to get on with it and stop showboating.
Like it or not, Judges are often moral pontiffs as the day is long. This sometimes plays well to the public and it often falls flat. I’d like to see a lot less bench bloviating and a lot more death sentences imposed for richly-deservant riffraff.
The truth is that most people ─ from criminals, the innocent, the victims, and the witnesses ─ do not brush anywhere close to the legal system without getting some significant abrasions in the process.
Right now, the corporate news media is endlessly bleating about the “rule of law” being in danger and implying that some kind of Fascist or Redneck coup is just around the corner, Charles Lindbergh style. The TDS is truly a wonder to behold.
I am not huge fan of fifty-year veteran Harvard Law Professsor Alan Dershowitz ─ now retired and doing an octogenarian legal podcast where he has mentioned that he does support the 2nd Amendment as Consitutional Law, but otherwise doesn’t really believe in it.
And he also implies on his “Dershow” that the LAPD planted evidence in the 1994 O.J. Simpson double murder case ─ a proposition that requires a standard deviation or two on the left side of the bell curve (hello inner-city jury!) to actually believe without blinking.
But anyway, the Dersh scoffs mightily at the Libtarded notion that we are somehow in a Constitutional Crisis right now.
Dersh says there is a big difference in Due Process for U.S. Citizens and for Illegals.
(Yeah! Sort of like “Citizens of the State” and “Subjects of the State.”)
Prof. Dershowitz explains that deportees can easy get their full due-process via something as simple as a Zoom call with a judge at the customs office of whatever Banana Republic the ICE plane takes Javier and his friends home to.
The point being that I disagree with a lot of what Dersh finds admirable (like Zionism) but the old professor knows how to make an argument regarding Constitutional Law.
Going on a tangent here… The 1935 Nuremberg Laws attempted to clarify who was a citizen of the state via the lines between Jus Sanguis (legal Blood) and Jus Solis (legal Soil).
After 1935, Jews were not German citizens if they had three full-blooded Jewish grandparents or two Jewish grandparents if they also personally practiced either Judaism or Communism or married a Jew. There was also an anti-Race Mixing component to the law, just as there was in the United States between Negroes and Whites until 1967.
By contrast, the United States never property settled its Citizenship or Negro question until after the Civil War when the 14th Amendment was imposed upon the South when their White elites were disfranchised for “Rebellion.”
Founder Alexander Hamilton would have preferred a stronger national State to begin with, as the idea of sovereignty is a little binary like being pregnant. It could be argued that a Federal system that was in really a Confederacy of “sovereign” states would not have lasted long from one Nullification crisis to another with or without the gunboats and gunpowder of an imperial messiah like Mr. Lincoln.
In 1790, when immigration legislation was passed in the new Republic, it seemed a given that “free White persons of good character” were the very definition of U.S. citizens, born or naturalized.
Apparently the 1790 law was not indelible enough because certain issues were kicked down the road past an eventual bloody civil war, and now we live with the nightmare of “GPS citizenship” and the myth of “a nation of immigrants.”
How we got here is a fascinating question. That is why I welcome such perspectives at Counter-Currents.
I am not sure if it is truly possible to have an “independent judiciary.” The judges either serve the Race and Nation or they are the dross that must be scrupulously poured off. There must be some sensible and reliable process of judicial accountability.
🙂
An “independent judiciary” does not mean an unaccountable judiciary. The entire political system is accountable to the constitution and ultimately to the common good of society. Independence means that the different branches of government are somewhat independent of one another. And the whole point of divided government and checks and balances is that they are supposed to make one another more accountable, i.e., better servants of the common good.
The idea of the separation of powers and checks and balances is today associated with the classical liberal “brand,” but it owes more to the classical republican tradition, as theorized first by Aristotle then by writers like Polybius and championed in modernity by writers like Machiavelli, Harrington, and Montesquieu.
Yes, and today’s “conservative republicans” have discarded the ideals of the conservative forefathers who like Jefferson (even Hamilton) wanted economic philosophies in place that molded the moral character of the individual. Modern “conservatives” now embrace liberalism, or “liberty” for the purpose of using it, for unrestricting methods of enhancing their personal wealth at any cost to the common good. Enhancing power and aggressive action in openly immoral global displays as we now witness with every new day. The gaps between power and wealth are growing astronomically.
Everybody in politics claims to be working for the common good. Has there ever been a politician who claimed he’s in it for self-aggrandizement and perks?
Everybody in politics who actually works for the common good will be accused by his rivals of pursuing his private interests — as opposed to the rivals themselves, who claim to be the true servants of the common good.
Beautifully written, as usual. But not very useful, as usual.
OK, yes to the rule of law, but it won’t solve the basic problems of the human condition.
Basically your argument is: everything can be lied about so truth doesn’t matter. The underlying assumption is that things should be easy, but defending the truth is hard, especially in politics. Still, it is worth the effort.
Disagreement and dishonesty are the beginnings of philosophy, not an excuse for never starting.
“Basically your argument is: everything can be lied about so truth doesn’t matter.”
People seldom lie, even politicians seldom lie. They take up a position for whatever reason — material interest, career, image, self-image — and they instantly start to come up with complex justifications, in which they believe with all the passion of their heart.
Politics isn’t about truth vs. lies, it’s about my truth against your truth. It’s a kind of fight in the mud and fog.
“The underlying assumption is that things should be easy”
Actually I’m saying that it’s much harder than you make it look like, that’s all.
One of the foremost dictators in Europe has said to me:
“If I quit work I will be called a traitor and a coward. If I stay at work, I will continue to be called a seeker of power and even of wealth. No one would take my place if I offered it to-morrow. Assassination stares me in the face and would put an end to my worries, and would, at this moment, make me immortal. But they surround me with protection as if I were their sacred treasure and deprive me of a comfort of an end, before I weaken or stumble, as most men do”. – Richard Washburn Child, (1929).
It is also a cheap tactic to argue yes, the rule of law is important, but — newsflash! — it doesn’t solve ALL THE PROBLEMS.
It doesn’t solve the problem it purports to solve.
Plato’s Laws is the dialogue in which he stresses the importance of the transmission of knowledge as being from the elder to the younger. Law should never be re-assessed by any new regimen without consulting the opinions of the elders. It’s why there is a constitutional requirement for legal precedent. Your point about “two views” of what the law actually is strikes home.
Wow, this was such a well-written article. I like how Greg first starts with a sort of account of our own. On the one side he makes a serious point about not being superficial about rule of law but on the other side you’re worried if he’s going to cuck. “We have to respect our institutions! Even if we disagree with them!” There’ this sort of suspense but you see the direction he is going with the mention of Aristotle and the varying forms of government and whether it serves the common good. I think Greg really knocked this one out of the park. I would have loved to have heard this gem read out loud in the recent arguments about birthright citizenship and nationwide injunctions at SCOTUS, “Thus we face a choice: follow the letter of the law to destruction, or set aside the letter of the law to affirm its spirit. There is a hierarchy of laws. Rules binding police and courts to due process are less important than laws banning substantive crimes like invading the country, but the ultimate law is the common good. Destroying the nation out of piety to due process is a complete inversion of proper political priorities.” We saw the cynical court ruling years after Obama declared DACA where it was ruled unconstitutional yet the same ruling if I recall correctly there was nothing to do about it.
In any case, I think the issue of due process is a moot point. Deportation is different than imprisonment. I think habeus corpus and due process should apply for imprisonment but deportation is another matter entirely. You are not imprisoning someone when you deport them.
Thanks, I really appreciate this.
I was surprised to see that this comment I’d made on 14 May, prior to all of these subsequent comments, had not appeared. I had a very busy day yesterday, pumping and finishing 49.6 cubic yards of concrete, among other real-world duties, and failed to finish the commenting process. Fortunately, for what it’s worth, I found I’d saved what’s below in my email drafts.
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Greg: I have no objection to replacing our current elites, but I do object to discussing a serious issue in political philosophy in a superficial and ignorant manner.
The rule of law is contrasted to the rule of men…
The idea of the rule of law vs. the rule of men goes back to Aristotle’s Politics… Aristotle believed that ultimately the highest law of any polity is its common good. So for Aristotle the rule of law at root means rule by the common good. Rule by men means the rule of private interests at the expense of the common good. Basically, rule by men means corruption: pretending to serve the public while merely serving themselves.
The common good is the standard of legitimacy…
Aristotle was correct, but I doubt that his thoughts 3,000 years ago about the ‘common good’ extended much beyond that for Greeks of his race. It’s good to analyze Aristotle’s philosophy intellectually, but difficult to apply his rule of law vs rule of men to terminally racially-mixed, anti-White America today — for me, anyway.
I recently found this 50-year-old essay by Dr. William Pierce: The Law of the Land | National Vanguard. He doesn’t mention Aristotle, or certainly not Donald Trump who was in his mid-30s in 1975 and didn’t write his Art of the Deal until 1984.
I’d been watching how federal District Court judges have been illegally blocking President Trump’s will to overturn his anti-White predecessor’s Executive Orders with their injunctions, and saw where Pierce had seen this coming 50 years ago. I asked a volunteer to transcribe this essay digitally so it can be shared, then we placed it at the link above. [Edit: if the link doesn’t work, it’s “The Law of the Land” at nationalvanguard.org.]
The concept of “a rule of laws, not of men” is a myth, a fiction maintained by America’s rulers to deceive those who are ruled. The politicians and the media masters understand this… it is not what the Constitution says that is important, but what the political appointees in black robes say it says.
Pierce concluded:
To defy a tyrant, to refuse to obey his edicts, to kill him or his enforcement agents, while it may be “illegal,” is not contrary to the law of our land, in the truest sense of that phrase. Indeed, it is in harmony with that higher law to which we are all subject, the higher law under which obedience to tyrants and collaboration with their agents are themselves crimes.
Our “current elites” are not ours. They do not represent our common good at all, but the common good of our racial enemies. We must withdraw with determination our consent to be governed by them and physically separate racially from them and their collaborators, whether they want us to, or not.
I also think that Aristotle’s conception of man and society is probably the best foundation on which to build a functioning state.
However, the question of what is the common good is one where the answer is ultimately based on the current zeitgeist, which itself of course can be influenced (as has happened in the culture war). As we have seen, people and factions with power (e.g. media and entertainment) can influence the minds of people, including their conceptions of the common good.
Even among white nationalists, you have a range of opinions. On one extreme, there are people who wish for a large welfare state to treat whites equally and take care of everyone (egalitarianism/social democracy for whites). Then on the other end you have people with an aristocratic ethos (who often happen to like Nietzsche!) who see the common good as ruthless pursuit of excellence and greatness and for whom the ordinary white is of very little value.
I suppose as long as there are some common first principles in place (like the idea of the common good), the pragmatic answer is a balance (golden mean) that guarantees a stable and functioning society.
“Many people on the populist right are cynical and dismissive about “the rule of law.”
They should be. Jewish power has trampled the rule of law for so long.
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“the left began bleating about the “rule of law” (…) / Of course, they had been silent about the rule of law when these people invaded America. But observations like that are cheap.”
Cheap or not, it’s a valid point. We shouldn’t show respect for stupid laws while the anti-White side is trampling every moral principle in its efforts to destroy us.
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“They want this evil. They think we deserve it. Thus we face a choice: follow the letter of the law to destruction, or set aside the letter of the law to affirm its spirit.”
They want us dead and are deliberately destroying us. The Jews don’t care about Aristotle and the spirit or the letter of the law. They choose whichever is more destructive. As long as they are in power, there won’t be a return to the real rule of law.
It’s sad to think that some naive White people have ridiculous pangs of conscience about breaking laws that prevent the deportation of third-world criminals. If not for Jewish control of the media, they would hear the White point of view and realize that our institutions have been hijacked. Their pangs of conscience would soon vanish.
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