Whose law rules?

 Do you know about the Magna Carta? You should. In fact all of us should probably know more about it than we do.

By declaring the sovereign to be subject to the rule of law and documenting the liberties held by “free men,” it provided the foundation for individual rights in Anglo-American jurisprudence.

The sovereign did not agree to honor individual rights out  of the goodness and compassion in his heart. He had to assuage rebellious barons. I doubt if many bother to think about that these days.

Neither are there likely enough contemporary Americans who are aware of this wonderfull, and, in my opinion, accurate, assessment by Frederick Douglas:

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

I have been cogitating on these themes, and am now agitating about them, because the Better Half and I went off this morning and voted early. On election day she will be serving as a judge and I’ll be home keeping half an eye on the crew removing our dead pine tree. Thus, voting early seemed like a good idea.

I Voted (early)

Photo by J. Harrington

In our county there is what appears to be an awful waste of paper for the judges’ ballot. Lord knows how many names all running unopposed... I have better things to do with my time than to carefully fill in the box nex to someone who’s running unopposed. I didn’t vote for any of the school board candidates either. Have you ever tried to learn what a prospective school board member stands for or represents? I try to avoid voting for pigs in a poke.

There are many who are asserting that if we fail to vote for democracy this election and next, we may lose it. I understand and took into account that concern this morning as I shaded boxes, but I’m deeply troubled by a concern about whether our “representative democracy” has already been usurped by global capitalism’s representatives. Aren’t both Republican and Democratic politicians, al least way too many of them, more interested in representing the corporate interests that fund PACs and campaigns than guarding the interests of ordinary citizens? How else do you account for the following headlines?

• Current emissions pledges will lead to catastrophic climate breakdown, says UN
• Business groups block action that could help tackle biodiversity crisis, report finds
• Atmospheric levels of all three greenhouse gases hit record high
• Congress moves to give away national lands, discounting billions in revenue
• Democrats’ midterms hurdle: Americans are getting used to eroded democracy

There’s too many more where these and similar articles came from. Which leads US to, and leaves US with, today’s poem.

The World Is Too Much With Us

By William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.