What is crime?
That seems like an easy question to answer. But is it?
If you lived in 1830, and you set fire to a plantation and freed all the slaves, you would be considered an outlaw. You would have committed several “crimes.”
OR…
You might be the only one NOT committing actual crimes against humanity. You might be the only one on the “right side of history.” Ahead of your time. Progressive. On the side of the angels, and all of that.
Let’s say you lived in Nazi Germany and conspired to kill Hitler. You would definitely be liable for high crimes. But would you really be committing a crime? Wouldn’t you actually be a hero?
Crime is often in the eye of the beholder.
Especially when you try to overlay what you see as crime onto the framework of a different country or culture.
Watch the Godfather some time, and ask yourself how all those people (fictional, though they may be – still based on real “crime” families) could justify placing their entire progeny and culture in the crosshairs of the American justice system. Are they all just reprobates with no conscience?
To the contrary, the point of pieces like The Godfather (and, really, almost all organized crime drama) is that the system isn’t seen as just by these immigrants.
They had no say in setting any of it up. They feel that it is foundationally rigged against them. Therefore, they are justified in setting up their own set of rules and their own power structures.
This has been the big disconnect with minority communities and “crime” in this country for a long time. If you are only seeing the world through the lens of a “tribe,” then it can be easy to see the American system as something they had nothing to do with, if they don’t see anyone from their race represented in the founding. So, why should they abide by the rules set up by a completely different race of people than them?
That’s the danger of seeing everything through the prism of race.
But this is actually how a lot of us see crime, whether we want to admit it or not. We just apply our own situations to it.
If you drive 50-miles-and hour over the speed limit to get to your dying spouse, are you really breaking the law? And does it matter?
If you have a moral objection (let’s say you’re a devout Muslim) to baking a cake for a gay wedding, but the law says you have to do it, are you really breaking the law?
We like to think of the law as this bedrock of virtue, immutable and immovable. But isn’t a lot of it just what we (the people) say it is?
These are the big questions the founding fathers grappled with when they were writing The Constitution. And it’s why they wrote it the way they did. And it’s why our nation has always been (or supposed to have been) a nation of laws, rather than a nation governed by the whim of the powerful.
For this principle to remain in tact, however, you have to have people who understand it to the core. And who don’t get themselves caught up in weird rhetoric.
In 2016, an “outsider” got himself elected President of the United States. And a lot of people felt threatened by him and this entire concept of someone without political experience running the country.
It’s the Hollywood high concept that makes for a great movie. And they’ve even done it a couple of times (Dave and Bulworth).
But you can go to Netflix right now and watch several comedy special with famous names, where the comedians did entire multi-minute bits about how they felt like thew world was coming to an end by having this guy as president.
And that was how a lot of people felt. Because, unfortunately, we’ve given the President of the United States King of the World status.
I was watching a reality show last night, and they were asking the question; “if you were president, what would you do to solve this or that issue?”
My answer was, “Nothing. Presidents don’t make laws, nor should they be involved in these personal issues whatsoever.”
But that’s not how most people think. They see the President as a sink-or-swim leader.
If you feel like the Presidency is too important to be left to an amateur, and you feel like the person who just won is going to turn your country into Nazi Germany, what laws would you break to try and rectify that?
Answer: ALL OF THEM.
And if you wouldn’t, then your convictions aren’t real.
Penn Gillette is a famous atheist. And he always says that if someone doesn’t try to convince him to believe in God, then he questions whether or not they actually believe what they say they believe. Because if they do, they wouldn’t want to see anybody go to Hell.
His assertion is the hight of passive aggressiveness. But the point is still taken.
I’ve been challenged a time or two by these kinds of atheists. I just tell them all the same thing – God is love and I love them. Now, let’s talk like humans rather than trying to debate something neither of us can prove or disprove.
But that kind of simplicity unfortunately doesn’t exist in politics.
And if politics is your savior, then the leader of it will mean everything to you. So, is breaking the law off limits when it comes to saving the Republic?
Not if that’s your God.
This week, we found out that everything Donald Trump said was being done to him, was being done to him. For those who have called him the biggest liar in Presidential history, just for the record, his truth credit score is actually going up with every passing scandal.
But why wouldn’t you break the law to stop him, if you actually thought he was Hitler?
This is why attaching that kind of ridiculous hype to someone is dangerous. It makes criminals out of Patriots. It’s also why I stand by my assertion that a certain election was tampered with.
Why wouldn’t it be, if one side thought they were literally stopping a despot, rather than just defeating a candidate?
There’s a great line in the movie, The Count of Monte Cristo (in my top ten). “In the end, treason is just a matter of dates.”
Yes, indeed.
This is why the Constitution should be our guide rather than the heat of the moment.
Because, in the heat of the moment…we can all justify crime.
R
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Regie's Blog 
Thank you for speaking the truth. Keep standing firm and keep these posts coming!
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If only this could happen: “This is why the Constitution should be our guide rather than the heat of the moment.”
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