A Country of Laws Revisited

In an earlier post, I stated that the United States is a country of laws. The events of the last year suggest this is no longer true.

When the President and Vice-President of the United States can decide they are above the law, when financial industry executives can be financially rewarded for playing fast and loose with the law, when powerful corporate interests can change the law to reduce their taxes and increase their profits, when oil and coal companies can ignore environmental laws or get Congress to build in loopholes, and when big companies can peddle everything from drugs to toys that are not safe, this is not a country of laws.

Deregulation and emasculation of corporate law have made the United States only selectively a country of laws. The citizenry is still required to live and work by the laws, but those special interests with money and access to government through campaign funds and lobbyists are not.

The citizens of the United States are victims of a strategic campaign by big business and big money. We were conned into believing that deregulation is good for everyone when it only benefits those being deregulated. We were tricked into thinking that wealth somehow trickles down from the top when it only makes the rich richer. We were deceived into supporting an illegal war against terrorism, when all it accomplished is to feed the greed of government contractors and gain eventual control of Iraq’s oil supplies. The laws were changed over the last thirty years to make all of this possible.

These pirates have raped and pillaged our government, our retirement accounts and our home equity. They’ll walk away from this economic crisis with big homes, big bank accounts and big inheritances for their grandchildren. We’ll crawl away with bigger mortgages, higher taxes and nothing for our grandchildren except debt.

Justice is optional in a country of laws, when the laws are selective.