• live up to its constitutional obligations and cease the practice of delegating legislative powers to administrative agencies; legislation should be passed by Congress, not by unelected administration officials;
• before voting on any proposed act, ask whether that exercise of power is authorized by the Constitution, which enumerates the powers of Congress;
• exercise its constitutional authority to approve only those appointees to federal judgeships who will take seriously the constitutional limitations on the powers of both states and the federal government

      If history teaches anything, it is that human well-being and progress—indeed, civilization itself—depend on the rule of law. For when the rules of human conduct are unjust, arbitrary, or ever changing, people simply cannot plan their affairs with any confidence that today's rules will apply tomorrow.
      Unfortunately, American law and legal institutions have become increasingly uncertain and unstable over the course of the 20th century as statutory law has come increasingly to replace common law and as common law itself has become increasingly politicized. That pattern has only increased under the Bush-Clinton regime, which has proposed countless programs that enjoy no support under the Constitution, has drawn more and more power into the executive branch, and has exercised that power often with minimal respect for due process or legal principles.
      For more on these subjects, click here for Cato Institute symposium.

• Limited Government and the Rule of Law (Cato)
• Constitutional Theory and Limited Government (Cato)
• James Madison and the Future of Limited Government (Cato)
• Impartial Justice vs. Socialist Economics
• Measuring Out Justice
• "A republic, if you can keep it."
• Questions a Congressman Should Ask about Every Bill
• WorldNetDaily: Threats to rule of law in America
• Justice, Natural Rights and the Rule of Law - Randy Barnett

• Libertarian Philosophy (lp-pr's)
• What is Libertarianism? (fff)

One of the most ridiculous examples of political ignorance was the recent banning of the Ten Commandments in Alabama. Pundits like Rush Limbaugh pontificated on how Judge Roy Moore violated "the rule of law" by ignoring the utterly unconstitutional edict of a federal judge.

"The Rule of Law" is the idea that we are "A government of laws, not of men." The rule of law is the rule of principle, rather than whim. In The Road to Serfdom, Professor of Economics and Nobel laureate F. A. Hayek says the Rule of Law

means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand --- rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan one's individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge."

Not a single person who signed the Constitution, helped ratify the Constitution, or even read the constitution prior to 1947 could have foreseen that the federal government could order the State of Alabama to remove the Ten Commandments from public display. The First Amendment reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

Implicit in this Amendment is that the federal judiciary shall make no similar law, though it was never imagined that the judiciary would be making laws as it does today.

The Ten Commandments is the basis of American Law. Thus it could not have been anticipated that a state court or legislature would ever ban their public display, much less that a federal judge would do so. The federal government had no power in the area of religion, and no state government would ever use its power to undermine true religion.

Everything about the event is utterly unconstitutional:

• A judge making a law
• A federal judge making a law
• A federal judge making a law regarding religion
• A federal judge making a law banning the Ten Commandments

is absolutely the most unprincipled decision any of the Founding Fathers could have imagined. Unforeseen. Preposterous. Proof that the Constitution is now a myth, as is "the rule of law."

In a sense even "the rule of law" was a myth. The idea that ours is a "government of laws, not of men" is a fallacy. The Founding Fathers agreed that bad men corrupt good laws. Good men will rule well in the absence of good laws. A man of integrity, virtue, and the Character of Christ with little political experience is to be preferred over a "seasoned politician" who despises God's Commandments. Read their words.

In any case, we are clearly now A Government of Unprincipled Men.

next: Congress, Courts and the Constitution