Thursday, October 09, 2014

"When Government Becomes a Lawbreaker"


Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said St. Augustine was the "most lawless city in America." Some say it still is, with our ex-Mayor demolishing an historic building September 25, 2014, while serving as Chairman of the Historic Architectural Review Board, and artists and musicians still fear arrests on St. George Street.

Enough.

"Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperilled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
-- Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis, dissenting in Olmstead v. United States (1928)

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