Right now, if you want to claim that the government is overstepping the limits placed on it by the constitution that created it, you have to make that claim in court.
Dan Hynes recently did exactly this, filing a suit to challenge the constitutionality of the governor’s recent emergency orders outlawing, among other things, gatherings of more than 50 people.
But think about that for a moment. As much as people try to pretend they’re not, the courts are part of the government. (You can look it up. It’s right there in the federal and state constitutions. The judiciary is a branch of government.)
So if you want to establish whether the government is in the wrong, you have to ask… the government.
Substitute any other entity for ‘the government’ in that description, and anyone can see immediately how crazy it is. It’s like asking the abusive partner in a relationship to admit that he’s being abusive. It’s like asking a company that made a defective product to admit that it should be liable for damages caused by that product.
Can you guess what the government’s reply to Dan Hynes was? Would it surprise you to learn that the government decided that the government isn’t exceeding its constitutional authority?
Wouldn’t you like to have the ability to be the judge in your own cases? Were you speeding? Of course not. Did you pay too little in taxes? No way. Are you following all the rules for licensing in your profession? Of course! Isn’t that substance you’re ingesting illegal? Let me think about that… No, it’s fine.
In the science fiction movie They Live, the world is controlled by aliens, and filled with subliminal messages (manipulating people to spend money, breed, and accept the status quo) hidden in mass media, but it’s all invisible unless you’re wearing a pair of special sunglasses. Without those glasses, you’re blind to what’s going on; and since you can’t see what’s going on, you can’t even begin to think about changing it.
I think about that movie whenever I see people asking the government to decide whether the government has exceeded its authority. To think that’s going to work, you have to suffer from a special kind of blindness… and I wish I could find some sunglasses that would let people see what’s going on.
