This is the Wilsonian legacy, finally achieved after a century of waiting: the Big Man (or Woman), unanswerable to the law, approved by the population without regard to equality under the law. We now elect our dictators. And they are unanswerable to us — except, presumably, once every four years. The commonfolk, on the other hand, find themselves on the wrong side of the government gun every day.
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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In a perfect world, viable candidates for office could be tried in some parallel universe that would not affect elections in this universe unless they were actually found guilty by solid, unexciting adjudication. In this actual world, a choice of consequences must be made. There are consequences to the republic from prosecuting every act that could arguably be illegal. There are different consequences from allowing voters to choose leaders without interference from their civil servants. We cannot have both.
The American way of elections is for the civil service to be seen and not heard, and for the electorate to base its choices on its own grassroots concerns. These are seldom the ones that Beltway bureaucrats or excited partisans care about. That is how democracy works.
Until the inauguration of the next President, I trust that all viable candidates for the office will be speaking to voters, not juries. Frustrating as this may be to each party’s moralists, the electorate will give the power of the office to an imperfect human being who seems able to wield it wisely.
“In the waning days of the Soviet Union, the goings on of the nomenclatura were shrouded in mystery. We gossiped about the families of Politburo members, but didn’t know who they were for sure. The only thing certain was that they were above the law, or whatever pretense at law the USSR managed to stage. This produced a culture of cynicism and hopelessness and an epidemic of alcoholism.” Ex-Soviet Edge of the Sandbox
http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/07/those-who-lived-under-communism-understand-exactly-what-just-happened/
I don’t fully understand the allusion to “Wilsonian”. I assume it is a reference to President Woodrow Wilson but I do not understand what the reference means.
Here’s a start.
Very clarifying. Thank you.
I too am unsure about a “Wilsonian legacy”, but people have always gotten away with things or received special treatement due to their money and/or political connections. Nixon in the past and his presidential pardon by Ford, or even up to the present with Scooter Libby having his sentence commuted by G.W. Bush, while Cheney was actively supporting a pardon. Even Petraeus received special treatment for his actions, and some conservatives sure do seem willing to continue supporting and elevating the man to government positions. Or consider the recently convicted Dennis Hastert; he was found guilty of bank fraud that was a result of his past sexual molestation of boys. Even when clearly guilty, former political colleagues took the time to vouch for Hastert.
There are many unkwown judges that abuse their power and receive special treatment. Some of them behave like you should kiss the ground upon which they walk.
I think conservatives are more motivated by their general dislike (hatred?) of the Clintons and their desire to see them gone for good, rather than the actual careless activites. I’m not saying the Clintons are wonderful people, or that her actions don’t merit some consequences , but some of these complaints are a little too much at times.
Amazing… What would it take? Assuming of course your mind could be changed?
I asked a Pastor once, how many exceptions a man could take before it was obvious he was outside the confession? He couldn’t (or wouldn’t) give me an answer. The inability of people to stand up and simply call right and wrong, differing instead to celebrity or political party, saddens me nearly to the point of despair… Until I go back to resting in the sovereignty of God, and the knowledge that He raises up and puts down both leaders and nations.
Some famous Christian once reminded the Church that when God judges a nation He gives them wicked rulers.
“The only thing certain was that they were above the law, or whatever pretense at law the USSR managed to stage. This produced a culture of cynicism and hopelessness and an epidemic of alcoholism.”
Had civil servants decided that enforcing their regulations trumped the Constitution’s requirement that the nation elect a President, that would have been the act of a nomenklatura.
Despite all of our legal system’s imperfections, it seems to be more than a staged pretense.
By all accounts, our system for classifying state secrets is much more imperfect, but few sane people are driven by it to cynicism, hopelessness, or alcoholism.
“Amazing… What would it take? Assuming of course your mind could be changed?”
A verdict of guilty in a court of law that rebuts every defendant’s presumption of innocence.
“I’m not saying the Clintons are wonderful people, or that her actions don’t merit some consequences , but some of these complaints are a little too much at times.”
The Clintons have the liberal virtues and the correlative liberal vices. Some love that, some accept it, and some hate it. It is fair to say that their willingness to explore gray zones is a constant irritant to those for whom it is very important to believe that there are only black zones and white zones.
Prosecutions can be useful, but they are not ends in themselves. The prior questions would seem to include questions like– what should we consider to be secrets?; who should decide this and when?; should political appointees be bound by civil service rules?; who should apply whatever rules apply to evolving IT?
“I think conservatives are more motivated by their general dislike (hatred?) of the Clintons and their desire to see them gone for good, rather than the actual careless activities.”
It might be more fair to say that some kinds of Americans viscerally hate other kinds of Americans, and even take a sort of pleasure in the righteous indignation with which they do their hating. Pleasurable hating requires an object, and the candidates of the hated are natural targets. But some candidates exemplify the very qualities that haters hate in their supporters, and so conservatives especially enjoy hating Hillary Clinton while liberals are warming to a similar hatred of Donald Trump. Haters of both persuasions show a strong *confirmation bias* when they evaluate news reports.
Do conservatives hate differently from liberals? Yes, liberal hating tends to be anchored in some prior concern about policy or its consequences, while conservative hating reflects a distinctive concern for values of order, obedience, loyalty, and solidarity. At the extremes, liberals hate conservatives for not being liberals, and conservatives hate liberals for not being conservatives. The hate porn that gratifies these two appetites tends to reflect this.
Personally, I find intentional recreational hatred of either sort impossible to reconcile with a profession of Christian faith according to the scriptures. But there are some who profess the faith as a further expression of their recreational hatred– “religion is the politics of eternity”– and others who do not distinguish their political appetites from their religious affections. The Lord will sort this out at his return.