One of the many extracurricular entanglements my mother signed me up for was the Boy Scouts. I started as a Cub Scout and eventually earned the Eagle Scout award. The thing I remember most is each meeting always started the same way. We religiously recited the Pledge of Allegiance, the Scout Oath, and the Scout Law.
The Scout Oath, among other things, obligated each Scout “to help other people at all times,” while Scout Law states “A Scout is Trustworthy…Kind…Reverent.” Because Scouts come from different backgrounds, faiths, ethnicities, races, and socioeconomic statuses, these words formed a common origin story, a common set of values, and a common faith of sorts.
Like the Scout Oath and Law, America’s founding documents formed America’s origin story and centered Americanism around common principles. This nation’s founding documents define what it means to be an American. They are the holy words that established what I term America’s civic faith.
In his 1967 article “Civil Religion in America,” sociologist Robert Bellah wrote there is a “well-institutionalized civil religion in America … .” Like all faiths, America’s civil faith established common agreements, which allowed disparate peoples to form this nation. Although these agreements have been inconsistently enforced and deliberately denied to some, undoubtedly, their purpose, as Bellah writes, was to subordinate America “to ethical principles that transcend it in terms of which it should be judged.”
If George Washington had descended from Mount Vernon with America’s “Ten Commandments,” the first would be “that all men are created equal….” And somewhere in the top five on the list would be the commandment that no single person stands above of the rule of law.
Because the founders were subject to the arbitrariness of British colonial rule, the certainty brought by the rule of law was necessary to create a society of equals. The philosopher RJ Intindola argues freedom relies upon “respecting the rule of law and if you have set that aside for political reasons, then you are a threat to our democracy and our freedoms.”
This past week news broke the FBI had executed a search warrant at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. As expected, a slew of Republican politicians rushed to the defense of Trump.
Colorado’s Rep. Lauren Boabert called for the defunding of the FBI. Matt Rinaldi, the Chairman of the Texas Republican Party, tweeted, “Abolish the FBI.” Former Vice President Mike Pence tweeted, “No former President of the United States has ever been subject to a raid of their personal residence in American history…” implying the former president’s status placed him above the law. His tweets come despite a tweet from October 2016 that “no one is above the law,” which lauded the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Unless you have read the search warrant, none of us can say with any degree of certainty whether the search warrant is valid or not.
What I find distasteful is the hypocrisy of folks who now want to challenge the very idea of the rule of law because they don’t like that Trump was the subject of the warrant.
This challenge alleges elaborate “deep state” conspiracy theories. In 2016, I questioned the timing of Comey’s Clinton investigation, but I didn’t question the legitimacy of specific law enforcement agencies or the rule of law writ large.
Don’t take this column as a defense of the FBI. I have some feelings about the FBI as I would with any organization headquartered out of the J. Edgar Hoover building.
My community has been subjected to politicized uses of federal law enforcement over the years intended to disrupt our aspiration for freedom and justice. However, it was the rule of law combined with sustained activism which ensures due process, equal protection, and other rights we hold dear as Americans.
The rule of law stands as a load-bearing beam for our republic and our shared American civic faith. As with any house, a damaged load-bearing beam weakens the entire structure.
Our collective faith is in peril and in need of immediate revival.
Terrance Carroll is a former speaker of the Colorado House. The first and only African American to ever hold that position in Colorado. He is a Baptist preacher, attorney, and police officer. He is on Twitter @speakercarroll.
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