Copyright Martin Armstrong All Rights Reserved April 25th, 2012
The Rule of Law
Justice For You – Justice for Me – Justice For Your Enemies
One of the most critical last straws that accompany the collapse of every empire is the demise of the Rule of Law. The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners are what gradually cement the union of the people into a nation and nations into empires. Once the Rule of Law collapses at the hand of corruption, and government rules only in its own favor, then ignoring the very purpose of civilization, everything starts to unravel. The disintegration of society, investment, and property and the reason for coming together ceases to exist. The Rule of Law is an agreement that this is how contracts shall be honored and the economy will expand because there is a common ground.
In 1997, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher addressed our clients at our conference in Princeton, New Jersey. She was asked which country would she invest in – China or Russia? She said she would not invest a dime in either unless they adopted the Rule of Law to ensure that capital was safe and contracts would be honored.
The kingdom of Macedonia, which, under the reign of Alexander, gave laws to Asia, derived more solid advantages from the policy of the two Philips; and with its dependencies of Epirus and Thessaly, extended from the Aegean to the Ionian Sea. This is what made Alexander the Great indeed Great. It is one thing to conquer, but another to turn that into an empire. To do so takes the commonality of the Rule of Law. Alexander the Great established a unified Rule of Law, as well as a single currency that dominated the ancient world until the rise of Rome. When we reflect on the fame of Thebes and Argos, of Sparta and Athens, we can scarcely persuade ourselves, that so many immortal republics of ancient Greece were lost in a single province of the Roman Empire. But again, it was the commonality of the Rule of Law and a single monetary system that cemented the foundation of the Roman Empire. It fell once corruption seized the rule of law.
The film that is being made around myself entitled the Oracle now the Forecaster, is part of a broader documentary film series that is exposing the Rule Of Law internationally. Here is a film clip on a parallel film to be released on the International Criminal Court. In my own case, you have plain contracts that state we (1) purchased portfolios, or (2) simply borrowed yen at a fixed rate. There was NEVER a solicitation for managed accounts and every note had to be individually approved by the Japanese Ministry of Finance. But judges only rubber stamp whatever the government demands and the Rule of Law in the United States has collapsed just as it did in Rome. The obstinacy involves judges who will never admit a mistake has been made. Thus, they will destroy the nation, the very essence of all commerce, because they are incapable of simply complying with the Rule of Law. The US Government has become intolerant of its own Rule of Law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6u_QBoiJsQ
This film exposes why New York has lost that coveted title of Financial Capital of the World because corruption has seized the hand of justice and it has once again proven that history repeats. In Plato’s Republic he records a debate between Socrates (Σωκράτης) (ca. 469–399BC) and the sophist Thrasymachus (Θρασύμαχος) (ca. 459-400BC). I believe the former made the mistake of observing
history and trying to think that a democracy rather than a tyrant composed of the people would
somehow ensure that justice would always prevail. Thrasymachus disagreed and captured the very essence of the fate of the Rule of Law. He said:
“the different forms of government make laws democratical, aristocratical, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests; and these laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their subjects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a breaker of the law, and unjust. And that is what I mean when I say that in all states there is the same principle of justice, which is the interest of the government; and as the government must be supposed to have power, the only reasonable conclusion is, that everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger.”
Aristotle in his Politics magnanimously wrote that the “Law should govern“. However, while the Rule of Law implies that every citizen is subject to the law and is entitled to equal rights and justice, never has any such aspiration ever truly be achieved or maintained throughout history. It stands in contrast to the idea that the ruler is above the law, but the United States still claims the divine right of kings and is above the law possessing Sovereign Immunity.
Brian Z. Tamanaha, in his 2004 On the Rule of Law, (Cambridge University Press. p. 9), explained that despite countless claims by politicians, judges and academics of such magnanimous aspirations or propaganda, the Rule Of Law has been described simply as “an exceedingly elusive notion” giving rise to a “rampant divergence of understandings … everyone is for it but have contrasting convictions about what it is.“
Until we create a virtual computer that replaces the judge and decides purely upon the facts, there will never be truly a viable Rule of Law. Lacking this key element, society must crumble into dust and perpetually fall to the ground for without the Rule of Law, contracts mean nothing and as such that means that economic interaction cannot flow when there is no common ground. This is part of the cycle of how all civilizations have crumbled into dust and are thus buried in a common grave – the corruption of the Rule Of Law.
