Laws or People?

If there is one naive conceit held by conservatives, it’s the idea that laws protect our rights. “At least we have the Constitution,” we said, whistling past the graveyard while government officials at every level censored our speech, locked us in our homes, and established a tyranny that would have made Joseph Stalin blush.

Ask yourself why Steve Bannon is in jail while Merrick Garland is free. Both men were charged with contempt of Congress, but such a charge requires action by the Department of Justice. The Biden DoJ, led by Merrick Garland, decided to indict Bannon but for some reason declined to indict Garland himself. The letter of the law didn’t matter in the end.

We are well into what paleoconservative author Sam Francis called anarcho-tyranny, where the law is used as a weapon against the regime’s enemies but a shield for those who act on its behalf. Hence…

• The Biden Administration is putting Christians who silently pray outside abortion clinics in prison, while pro-Palestinian rioters who attacked police officers last week had their charges dropped.
• Young men who left skid marks on pride flag crosswalks face years in prison, while leftist protestors who vandalized our statues and burned our flag face nothing.
• Illegal aliens, whose very presence violates the law, find protection from prosecution and are given free housing, food, and money, while you struggle to pay your rent and buy groceries.

Conan the Barbarian learned that steel is not greater than the hand that wields it. What then are laws compared to the hands that wield them? Laws are tools that can be used for justice or for tyranny, depending on who is charged with enforcing them. “Stop quoting laws to men with swords,” said a young Gnaeus Pompey when some Romans told him that he was engaging in illegal activity.

The Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn saw the same paradigm at work in totalitarian Russia:

Your punishment for having a knife when they searched you would be very different from the thief’s. For him to have a knife was mere misbehavior, tradition, he didn’t know any better. But for you to have one was “terrorism.”

As conservatives, we urge our legislators to pass good laws, but we cannot stop there. We need good people in place to enforce those laws. We need sheriffs and other law enforcement officers who will protect the rights of the citizens while punishing the guilty. We need agency staff who will properly administer regulations rather than using them to punish their political enemies. We need judges who will apply the law equally rather than engaging in anarcho-tyranny.

I saw “we need” these people, but what does it mean to get them? It means an electorate that is not only informed and votes for quality candidates, but is also willing to stand and deliver. Are you looking for a job? Apply to work in county or state government. Are young people asking your advice on how to make a difference? Direct them toward political jobs or internships.

There are many conservative figures and organizations that see what needs to be done and are taking steps to do it. One of my favorites is American Moment, which aims to train young conservatives and then place them in congressional or executive branch offices. Idaho’s own Theo Wold sits on the board of American Moment, along with national figures like Ryan Girdusky and Terry Schilling. Vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance sat on the board in the past as well.

Project 2025, a collection of policy proposals that was organized by the Heritage Foundation, has been used lately by Democrats and their corporate press allies as a cudgel against the Donald Trump campaign. At its heart, however, Project 2025 is about putting the right people in place in the next Republican administration to actually make a difference. Leftists have controlled the federal bureaucracy since the 1930s, which is why they see this plan to hire conservatives for government jobs as an existential threat to their power.

I am gratified that there are people in positions of influence who truly get it. Saving our country, and our state, will not be accomplished by voting once and then forgetting about it. Conservative citizens must adopt a long term mindset. We must engage now, engage tomorrow, and continue engaging if we want any hope of preserving our liberties for our children and our grandchildren.

Ronald Reagan understood this:

Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.

Totalitarians don’t let things like laws and elections stop them from doing what they will — last weekend’s election in Venezuela was a stark demonstration that once the socialist left has control of the levers of power, they will use them to maintain their power indefinitely.

The hour is too late to take our Republic for granted anymore. We can no longer afford to be mere spectators, so let’s get in the game and get to work.

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