Word of the Month for April 2025: Rule of Law

 

You know what I think is funny?  It's how many people in law (and the general public) think so little of the rule of law until it smacks them upside the head.  

What is [the] rule of law?  

The phrase the Rule of Law comprises a number of principles of a formal and procedural character, addressing the way in which a community is governed. The formal principles concern the generality, clarity, publicity, stability, and prospectivity of the norms that govern a society. The procedural principles concern the processes by which these norms are administered, and the institutions—like courts and an independent judiciary that their administration requires. On some accounts, the Rule of Law also comprises certain substantive ideals like a presumption of liberty and respect for private property rights.  Waldron, J., 2011. The rule of law and the importance of procedure. Getting to the Rule of Law, 3, pp. 4-5.

Why this all bothers me is that politicians roll out the "rule of law" gig when they don't get what they want.  Remember Biden and all those millions of illegal immigrants he bused/flew into the United States (Rector, R. (2024, January 17)?  See The Biden Administration Has Brought an Additional 6.7 Million Illegal Aliens into the U.S.: Fiscal, Economic and Social Consequences. https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116759/witnesses/HMTG-118-IF02-Wstate-RectorR-20240117.pdf).

Turns out that what I suspect Biden et al. did was that he/they/it ignored the rule(s) of law by bringing in a whole lot of immigrants by conducting an illegal end run around the laws of these here United States.  Wait, what?!  How?  Well, if for no other reason, because Biden et al. ignored the immigration laws Congress had heretofore established.  See, to get into the United States LEGALLY, you have to do a few things.  According to the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 USC 1101-1537 et sec), to avoid being considered an "illegal alien," or unauthorized immigrant, when entering the United States

• Individuals must enter the U.S. through designated ports of entry and present themselves to immigration officials for inspection.
• If entering for a specific purpose (tourism, work, study), a visa must be obtained and the individual must comply with the terms of their visa.
• To become a permanent resident, individuals need to be sponsored by a U.S. citizen or employer, or qualify for other immigration categories like refugee status or humanitarian programs.
• Once a lawful permanent resident for a certain period (usually 5 years or 3 years if married to a U.S. Citizen), individuals can apply for naturalization to become a U.S. citizen.

Now, that's the watered down version but, essentially, the Biden regime ignored Title 8 and just bused in a whole lot of "undocumented" aliens (aka illegal aliens).  Essentially, Biden et al ignored the Rule of law where it came to immigration.  

Why is this important?  Easy answer is because if the people in a country fail to follow the Rule(s) of Law, anarchy abides.  I mean, what's the point of making laws if no one is going to follow them (see also all the gun laws put in place and criminals don't follow them, do they)?  

What is scary here is that the POTUS and the rest of the democrat politicians sanctioned this action by ignoring the Rule of Law as it relates to immigration and flew in a whole lot of illegal aliens (presumably to sway votes to their side, I'm guessing?).  Ultimately, if government won't follow the Rules of Law, why should we the people follow the laws?  Hence, failure to follow the Rules of Law results in anarchy.

So, fast forward a couple years and Trump is trying to reverse all that mess and deport those illegally imported into the United States and democrats are freaking out because why?  Oh, right, because, they say, Trump is violating the Rules of Law by deporting all these illegal aliens that were illegally injected into the United States in the first place.  I think the meme is, if you didn't follow the Rule of Law on the way in, you can't expect the Rule of Law to apply to you on the way out (or, it shouldn't).

There's probably a whole lot more to this but this is a blog and blogs aren't supposed to drone on and on and...