In his address to the United Nations, Francis told the assembly that the limitation of power is “an idea implicit in the concept of law itself.” Citing the classic definition of justice as giving to each his own, Francis said that “no human individual or group can consider itself absolute, permitted to bypass the dignity and the rights” of others.
By all means, let’s have a vigorous national discussion about the Rule of Law, the misbehavior of our elected officials, and the importance of duty as a restraint upon the ambitions of those with power. It can begin with Kim Davis, but it must not end with her.
“I encourage you to continue working to strengthen democratic structures and institutions, so that they can respond to the legitimate aspirations of the nation’s people,” Pope Francis said. Like other Latin American countries, Paraguay suffers from extensive political corruption as well as an underdeveloped rule of law and civil society.
This is a very bad precedent to set, especially if Roberts’ reasoning is followed to the conclusion that the bigger and more ambiguously-written a law is, the more untrammeled executive power it grants. No matter what ultimately becomes of ObamaCare, that will come back to haunt us in many other contexts in the future.
A New York City law has been written to allow the government to destroy information about illegal aliens if a Republican administration is elected in 2016.
