My point was a little different. it was that none of these other things you want will be secure unless the fundamentals are restored. It is the complacency of living in a supposedly law abiding society that blinds one to this. So here's an example:

Tomorrow morning, your best friend since high school, an American citizen, Abdul, for some unknown reason simply goes mad and takes a gun and somehow finds his way to a place where he kills Barack Obama.   This is a national emergency. You are taken into custody as a known associate. You are completely innocent, but there are precedents now for torture under extraordinary circumstances, "no torture and the rule of law" was just a declaration by a President who is now dead -- it is a Presidential directive which can be overturned by another Presidential directive -- and anyway, lots of people thought it was ok as long as it yielded results. So you now have no rights. You are a citizen of a lawless state. (If you are a citizen of a foreign country resident in America, you are in even more trouble, if that is possible). Every email or letter you have ever written, all your tax returns, every affair you have ever had, all your personal details, all are subject to viewing and investigating and subjected to the darkest of interpretations by authorities who you know nothing about, and over whom you have no say, and no recourse, and no right of complaint. It is a national emergency, which justifies everything they want to do to you. Laws don't matter, because flushing out the conspiracy to which you are a party -- that is what the new President says, Joe Biden, the people's friend, says -- and he must be obeyed because he is the President and can do no wrong -- finding out what your role in the conspiracy is, is all important.   Your torture continues for days or weeks until they are bored with you, and you have told them anything to get them to stop, and you are permanently crippled in body and mind.

But the government that did this needs to carry on doing its other important work. Janie will understand that it was done with the best intentions, and we had other important priorities, like health care to deal with.

Without the rule of law nailed down hard and tight, this is what is not just a fantasy, but absolutely possible -- every single aspect of it has happened, and (god forbid) could happen tomorrow. Until you are safe in your person, the rest is less important. I think.


yours,

Peter T.