The January 6th insurrection, Rule of Law, and Constitutional system theory

Jun 16, 2022 

Today, judge J. Michael Luttig is testifying that January 6th, the insurrection, was a close call on a constitutional crisis, but none of the tactics employed by Trump and crew, could nor did subvert the fundamental precepts of the Rule of Law on which civilization rests. 

I agree. This is not to be taken lightly. It was a show down - at least an attempted showdown - against the rule of law, but the fact that Trump backed down on acting himself against the rule of law, to its consummation, was a victory for the rule of law. 

It's not even humanly true that the Rule of Law was even challenged "fundamentally". I'd characterize it as a lot of idle talk about breaking laws and in the end the culprits backed down from it. Do we want someone to whom constitutional power has been conferred on, to idly talk about breaking laws? Definitely not. And this may be something that rightly should be against constitutional law. However, the fundamental rule of law was not challenged, and actually prevented high officials from subverting constitutional provisions in this January 6th case. The Rule of Law again proved its fidelity to the Constitutional system against human fault. Some factions of the people were inspired to subvert representations of the Constitution by these high officials, but the bulk of the Constitutional system's officials acted to suppress the insurrection - the police officers, and most government workers, etc. etc. - showing that the Constitutional system was not subverted by the misconduct of individual high officials. The system can't be said to be working smoothly, but the failsafes and protections built into the system to correct error and misconduct of high officials, absolutely can be said to be working properly. 

Now, that said, my position on holding these hearings is that they are essential, because the Consititutional system needs to recognize and correct the soft spots in the armor of the Constitutional system, so that the failsafes are not always relied upon for this: We can't allow just anyone at all to keep on putting on the mantle of this "neasayer" and "wild card, deep state" role. Two reasons: 1) This is a Constitutionally defined role, and not a set of available actions and tactics that just anyone can do as a matter of convenience, and 2) To keep lying, saying this role is available to anyone who's in a bind to the will of the people; that anyone "can" play-act this role, simply assures that problems will always escalate to crisis rather than release that pressure over time. 

Whether this role is actually "constitutional mischief", which I thought was a great phrase used by Judge Luttig, is, I think, actually, recursively the exact question this role is about. This is already "part of the system" - someone might turn off the broadcast because "haven't we decided already that this exists?". Blah blah blah, and so on.  The question for the informed is not what this is, but rather, who. Keeping this role in reserve for anyone in crisis, like I said, is just inviting small problems to become crises.