Kim Davis as a light on the contradictions of oligarchic government

Just spent 17 of the last 24 hours unexpectedly driving around half the Eastern seaboard. Lots of time to reflect and little time to read. While there was plenty of opportunity to listen to the radio, mountains, remoteness and repetition kept that down to a minimum as well.

The case of Kim Davis, a Democrat county clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky seemed to keep coming around in my mullings despite my distaste for the preening, sniping, partisan rhetoric which it seems to have attracted. Her crime is that as a public employee, she has refused, under the cover of her religious beliefs, to issue marriage licenses to LGBT couples as is her obligation and duty. A federal judge has incarcerated her for the duration.

Attempting to detach this from simple partisanship and looking at it from a philosophical perspective does make it interesting. This is not a new phenomenon, at least on the world stage. The UK has periodically over the past thirty years had Muslim civil servants, teachers and employees trying to carve out exemptions in their jobs to protect them from having to sanction something in the mainstream culture which is counter their individual religious beliefs.

Approaching this from an Enlightenment, natural law perspective, this, on the surface, seems straightforward. Rowan County employs her (though I believe it is an elected position), to execute certain duties which are substantially determined by the law. The spirit, if not the letter of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, requires that she execute her responsibilities to all citizens without personal bias or discrimination.

If her conscience is troubled and prevents her doing her duty to all citizens, then she has the moral obligation to resign. If she chooses not to resign, then the County, depending on how it is structured, effectively needs to fire her or impeach her. Sending her to jail seems both incendiary as well as inappropriate. Resign or fire, not prosecute.

But what happens if her actions are consonant with the views of the electorate? What if the County chooses not to fire her or does not have the apparatus to do so? What can/should a Federal judge do to ensure the proper execution of 14th Amendment obligations?

I don't know the answer to that but it still seems like the answer is not "Jail".

Stepping back from the minutiae of this particular case, there seems something larger going on. Our system of government depends on natural rights and rule of law, greased with trust, tolerance, and respect for one's fellow citizen. The last seven years have not been kind to the necessary belief in the rule of law. When the government illegally trawls through everyone's electronic trail, chooses to enforce the law on some groups and not others, seeks to favor some groups over others, makes unilateral administrative decisions that never see the light of the deliberative process of the people's representatives, unilaterally rename topographical features without consultation, etc., it is no wonder that people begin to believe that the government is not "us" but some remote and unsavory "them."

Certain parts of the political spectrum (generally on the left but some segments of the social conservative right as well) are cheering the jailing of this county clerk on emotional or ideological grounds. The left, in general, because they hate people whose worldviews do not mimic their own and due to an unpleasant happiness in punishing those deviants. The social conservative right in general owing to the view that this might be the catalyst to reverse the tide of central decision making which goes against the wishes and views of the majority or a large plurality. But we are not a nation of men but of laws. It matters what the law says. Under this reading, Davis should administer the law as written, resign, be fired or be recalled.

Kim Davis is not the only instance we have of individuals or groups of government individuals ignoring the law as it is written. If we want individuals and groups of government employees to uphold the laws, then we should ask for that to happen consistently.

The Federal government should sanction and punish Colorado for its legalization of marijuana as it contravenes federal law.

The Department of Justice should quit forcing universities to strip men of their due process rights and the presumption of innocence when accused of crimes.

Universities (receiving funding from the Federal government) should quit subverting Freedom of Speech by passing speech codes and surrendering to heckler's vetoes whenever someone says something outside of the narrow confines of fringe-left sensibilities.

The Federal government should fire civil servants who, based on personal biases, fail to enforce clear violations of the Voting Rights Act (such as the Black Panthers actions in 2008).

The Federal government should punish cities which elect to subvert Federal immigration laws and creating "sanctuary cities."

Washington, D.C. and other cities should enforce the Supreme Court ruling in the Heller case under which it is clear that the Second Amendment means what it says, citizens are entitled to own weapons.

The Federal government should fire and jail all those in the IRS responsible for the individual and elective use of the coercive powers of the federal state to punish taxpayers whose politics differ from those of the IRS employees.

The Federal government should fire and jail all those employees who seek to circumvent sunshine laws by maintaining separate and multiple email systems and email accounts. This is by no stretch of the imagination limited to Hillary Clinton. Every major investigation turns up multiple instances of select federal employees using this tactic to carry out their crimes without detection.

The fact that the government fails to do any of these things tells the average citizen that we are no longer a nation of laws. Government is no longer a servant of the people but is attempting to be the master.

These are dark and dangerous thoughts.

Fortunately, I think these circumstances are the product, to a great degree, of the current administration's creative and expansive efforts to override the checks and balances of our system of government. We will return to the mean over time once they are gone.

Which is not to say that the forces seeking regulatory capture, rent seeking, and oligarchic rule are not always present. They are and they always have to be fought. We will encounter them again in the future. What is different today is that we have an administration which is especially receptive to the oligarchic model and dismissive of natural rights and the average citizenry.

I look forward to the return of the governmental model based on checks and balances, natural rights, rule of law, etc. It can't happen too soon.