Do We Need to Obey the Law?

I know that everyone who reads my columns are probably bored with my continued discussion about the stupidity of the Trump gang, or banda, if we want to be linguistically correct, but I simply cannot fathom how a bunch of at least somewhat educated adults could be so friggin’ dumb.

And I’m referring here to the bunch indicted in Georgia and Wisconsin for putting together those phony Electoral College ballots and assuming that they would never get caught. And if they really believed that what they were doing didn’t break any laws, then they are even dumber than I’m giving them credit for how dumb they are.

It’s one thing to commit a crime of violence, like a murder or an aggravated assault. Those crimes almost always arise out of some argument which neither combatant know how to resolve except through a spontaneous and unplanned eruption of brute force.

But white-collar crimes, particularly the kinds of crimes for all these schmucks are now facing multiple felony charges, usually require some planning, some thinking about the crime before the criminal event actually occurs, and most of all, some degree of concern about how to commit the crime without getting caught.

If any of those conditions were present in the minds of those putzes in Georgia and Michigan who are now waiting for their trials to begin, you sure wouldn’t know it from the way they behaved before, during and after their illegal behavior occurred.

In fact, from the way these schmucks behaved, you might assume that neither bunch thought they were breaking any laws at all. That’s how brazen and openly unconcerned about the illegalities of their behavior they were.

Just to give this whole so-called ‘patriotic’ attempt to protect the American commitment to one person (I’m being politically correct) one vote, please bear with me as I encompass my argument in a bit of historical perspective.

On May 14, 1787, a group of 55 men from 12 colonies showed up in Philadelphia to rewrite the Articles of Confederation and produce the first, legal document that would define a political entity known as the united States. They argued and debated for four months and the text they produced was then approved (the fancy word was ‘ratified’) by votes taken in 13 former colonies, now known as states.

The ratification process took three years, and on November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the twelfth state to approve this new body of laws, the country having elected George Washington as the first President in an election which occurred at the end of 1788.

And by the way, the Electoral College convened for the first time on February 4th, 1789, and after the electors voted in Washington and John Adams, the federal government began to function on March 4, 1789, in New York.

This process of electing a Chief Executive and two legislative chambers has been going on now for 233 years and it was never challenged in any extra-legal way until those jerks held their meetings in Michigan and Georgia to mockup a bunch of fake ballots that would be delivered to Mike Pence.

And who picks up the telephone on January 6th, 2020, calls Mike Pence and tells him to accept these phony Electoral College ballots and use them to replace the real things? None other than the fucking President of the United States, who was sitting on his ass in the Oval Office because that’s what the Constitution of the United States required him to do.

Now here’s the point of that brief historical review. Of the 55 delegates who came to Philadelphia to create the country’s first legal document, 40 of them were either attorneys or had been primarily engaged in legal affairs.

For all the jokes we make about lawyers, i.e., a ‘good start’ is 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea, there’s a reason why a majority of the men who framed the Constitution had significant legal experience before they spent a hot summer in Philadelphia in 1787, namely, they were producing a legal document which would result in a country which operates under law.

The idea that the United States not only has a national legal system but also has 50 state legal systems might seem rather obvious to everyone who reads my column today, but the idea sure doesn’t seem to have gotten into the heads of those jerkoffs who have been indicted in two states and there still may be more indictments (e.g., Arizona) to come.

And by the way, as of this morning, Cathy Latham has now raised $17,865 of the $300,000 she needs to pay her lawyers to defend her in Georgia. If I were Cathy, I’d be thinking about asking the court to appoint a public defender to handle my case.

The bottom line is that most of us really do understand the difference between following the law as opposed to breaking the law. But that knowledge seems to have been entirely lacking in the minds of the dumbasses who have been charged with creating those phone Electoral College votes.

Think that Trump knows the difference? I’m not so sure.