Constitution

Law as a Tool, Not a Tyrant: Reclaiming the Spirit of Justice

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There are many ways to get things wrong and one of those ways is to detach the law from its most foundational purpose.  That is a part of a legalistic mindset—which always will end up producing bad interpretation and misapplication of law.  

Law is not an entity separate unto itself or something stand alone.  It is a political tool, a guide or instrument for application of an agreed upon principle or cultural value, and application of the intended use requires a common set of assumptions to the creator.  It cannot float in space—never treated as an independent truth—it must be moored to a mission or the common good.

It’s the law!!!

I’ve been in conversations recently where some involved are in denial of the political nature of the law and treat it as if the words on a page somehow have their own life.  It is a misunderstanding of language.  There is nothing static or unassailable about any written code.  Everything depends on having an interpreter with values they are similar or basically the same as the originator of the law—the power of law, therefore, is in the interpretation and application.

When a person assumes that the law can speak for itself they’re delusional, they don’t grasp what law is or what it is for at a very basic level and end up using it to create a system of legalistic prescription rather than understand it through a practical lens.  They have essentially made dead words (applied in any way they want or are most familiar with) a focus rather than cutting through to the underlying principles that make correct application possible.  Their obsession over the letter of the law comes at the expense of following the spirit behind it.

Most people can’t read cursive let alone know what the founders truly intended.

This is what the Pharisees did and Jesus corrected.  He didn’t question the legality of his servants breaking Sabbath rules, rather he gave an example of when David did what was unlawful (only lawful for the priests) to show exceptional circumstances allowed a written law to be set aside.  It is at this point Jesus declared: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27 NIV)  This is a higher principle not ever stated in the law but describes a purpose of the law that cannot be separated from the application.

Biblical law may not be relevant to matters of the US Constitution, but both the law of Moses and the law of the Constitution were established to safeguard a nation.  It was a law for the common good of the people and not something absolutely set in stone.  And, in fact, in the earliest days of the US, it was a matter of disagreement how much power should be in the judiciary—which led to the Judiciary Act of 1802 and to courts being dissolved by Thomas Jefferson.  

The point being is the law can’t be properly handled apart from the foundation it is built upon.  Law should serve the common good and needs a reset if it goes astray and ends up becoming a cumbersome burden that is in the way of pragmatic concerns.  Letter of the law people enforce a system for sake of the system alone—they claim the slightest deviation will destroy everything good and right—and end up with ridiculous results.

Don’t cross the street!

Suppose a child is told not to cross a street by their parent.  It is a busy highway and too risky for them to cross.  That’s the law and it is a good one.  However, if some unusual event were to happen, a real emergency, is it important that the child remain on their side of the road even at risk of death?

Those on the legalistic side would argue the law is what it is.  And that making a change based on this circumstance will only lead to more exceptions being made until nothing is left.  This is a slippery slope fallacy based on an assumption there is no authority that is higher than the law and that the system we is basically optimized.  But this idea that the current regime represents some perfect balance that should not ever be challenged is dumb.  There is nothing sacrosanct about the current business as usual.

Many today catastrophize about the end of the US Constitution like they did under Lincoln.

A system of checks and balances requires some dispute and conflict.  Activist judges that obstruct the role of elected leaders— with an ever expanding definition of “due process” at our expense—hinder progress and might need to be checked.  

Worse yet, when the attention is selective.  It is nothing but loopholes for some and the lawfare for others.  Which is the irony of legalists.  They apply a withering standard for others while always finding exemptions for themselves—they may declare “nobody is above the law” and yet are always given an excuse when it is their turn.

There is a place for precedent or principle, tradition is a better guide than ideology, but then there is a time when a deterioration of values and good faith application bogs the country down and justice becomes slave to a system of perverse priorities.  It is when the application of law no longer serves the common good, but only the lawyers, corrupt prosecutors and jurists who all gain at our expense.  The legal experts claim to uphold the law and yet undermine public trust with their shenanigans that defy our values.

Lawless regimes

Law is a tool, and the hands wielding it are what matter more than what is written in it.  Words on a page are a weak defense when those tasked with applying them are evil or compromised.  A hammer can be used by a carpenter to build or by a criminal to kill and law is no different.  A nation of attorneys is potentially as lawless as country without a written law and enforcement mechanism—our moral constitution matters more than a jot and tittle legalism.

Jesus took on the legal system of his day and not to abolish the law.  No, he exposed the experts.  They strained on gnats while swallowing camels, missed the forest for the trees, and are like those today who will punish us with regulations while rewarding those who flout our laws.  We are shown no mercy while simultaneously the favorites of the political establishment need not worry about a day in court.  Law for thee, not for me.  It serves the elites, not the people.

Law is about setting boundaries and due process depends on the situation.  When the British invaded, in 1812, there was never a thought of applying the Bill of Rights for those who rose in defense of the nation.  In times of war the due process is pointing rifles at the invader.  And foreign gang members who crossed into this country illegally shouldn’t be allowed to abuse asylum laws.  Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus or due process for citizens during the Civil War—a free ride home for non-citizens is a great deal compared to Union Army detention.

Lincoln was hated by Democrats for his use of executive power

Having dealt with the USCIS, I am not a big fan of paperwork and most especially not when they offhandedly reject your mother-in-law’s tourist visa (as they have done for years, see the time stamps) after all the fees are paid and a visit to the US embassy—and you can rest assured there is no grandstanding by US politicians about due process and assumed right to be in the country on the behalf of those who do it the right way. 

No law might be more fair than our currently convoluted regime—that does many times more to protect gang members than grandmas merely wanting to visit their children or grandchildren.  Sure, we can’t take lawful order for granted and we deal with this inconvenience for the sake of stability and security, but when we show excess concern for those who broke the law while then applying the letter to those trying to abide by it the law has become an immoral instrument and the current corrupt application of law should be set aside for a saner approach.

The perfect law is no law… 

In an ideal world there would be no laws, no borders, no governments.  Instead we would have a law written on hearts—where we voluntarily only do good for people based on internalized values—and have no need for legislation, enforcement or courts.  Borders would be unnecessary and airport screening an unthinkable invasive of personal space.   This is why we have a Bill of Rights to limit the power of government—more law tends to increase injustice rather than serve the common good. 

In the end, just as the Judiciary Act of 1802 sought to realign the law with the common good by curbing an overreaching judiciary, we must continually ensure that our laws remain tools for justice, tethered to their foundational purpose of serving us, not as rigid idols that enslave us to legalism.  We need to understand the limits of resources and get our priorities right.

The People Want a King, Part II: The Idolatry of the State and the Call to Self-Rule

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A decade ago, in “The People Want a King, Part I,” I wrestled with the ancient cry of Israel—“Give us a king!”—from 1 Samuel 8, seeing in it a mirror to our own craving for centralized power. I cast Trump, then a looming figure on the horizon, as a Saul-like pretender—brash, self-absorbed, a king unfit for the throne. The heart of man, I argued, is frail and fearful, ever eager to trade liberty for the illusion of security. Now, ten years on, we revisit that cry, turning the lens inward and upward: what happens when the king we demand becomes a god we worship? And what might it mean to cast down that idol and govern ourselves under a higher law—one that admits no rival?

Let us begin with a heresy: government is not sacred. It is not a divine institution bestowed from on high, nor are its stewards a priestly caste anointed with heavenly oil. Scripture offers no such mandate. The state is a human construct—a tool, a mechanism, a servant of necessity. It is not the ekklesia, the called-out assembly of God’s people, nor the Kingdom of Heaven breaking through the veil. It is, at its core, a business: a transactional entity exchanging services for tribute. When it ceases to serve—when it grows fat and lazy, a Blockbuster Video in a Netflix world—it deserves no reverence, only replacement. To treat it otherwise is to fashion a golden calf from the scraps of bureaucracy.

Yet the cry persists: “The nation is too complex for such simplicity!” I encountered this objection recently, a rebuttal to my call for radical restructuring. The argument, draped in the garb of sophistication, insists that governance transcends mere commerce—that its intricacies demand a permanence beyond critique. This is a shade thrown at those, like the DOGE reformers, who dare to wield the axe of efficiency against the overgrowth of empire. It is a plea for the status quo, cloaked as concern for “public trust.” But trust in whom? The regime that has ruled longer than memory, entwined with corporate titans and special interests, bleeding the commons dry? The trust was shattered long before any billionaire CEO took the helm; it crumbled under tax rates that plunder and wars that pulverize the defiant.

Here lies the theological crux: complexity is not a virtue—it is a veil. In 1 Samuel 8, Samuel warned Israel that their king would take and take—sons, daughters, fields, flocks—until they were slaves in all but name. The modern state has fulfilled this prophecy with chilling fidelity, its mission creep a slow idolatry. What begins as a servant becomes a lord; what promises order delivers oppression. The labyrinthine bills, the thousand-page tomes of legislation—these are not signs of wisdom but of deceit, a Sanhedrin of scribes hiding corruption behind the law’s letter. To call this sacred is to confuse the Temple with the moneychangers’ tables.

Government as business is no mere metaphor—it is a functional truth. It trades protection and infrastructure for our coin and consent, a covenant not unlike the marketplace. Yet unlike the agora, where competition hones the blade of excellence, the state resists renewal. Private enterprise, for all its flaws, bends to the will of the consumer: Sears falls, Amazon rises. Governance, enthroned as monopoly, calcifies. Its priests—elected or appointed—crown themselves with divine right, decrying reform as sacrilege, a “threat to democracy.” But democracy is not their god; power is. And power, unchecked, builds altars to itself.

This is the sin of the political establishment: they have conflated the nation with their institution, the people with their rule. The nation is not the state, nor the state the nation—just as Israel was not its kings, nor its kings Israel. Government should reflect the imago Dei in its people, a stewardship of justice and flourishing. Instead, it mirrors Baal, demanding sacrifice from the many for the feast of the few. How is this sustained? Through a catechism of control—children reciting pledges, citizens taught to venerate the machine as eternal. To question it is to court excommunication.

Yet Scripture beckons us elsewhere. The restoration of governance requires a return to first principles: simplicity as clarity, transparency as righteousness, accessibility as the leveling of pride. The state’s convolution is no accident—it is a shroud for sin, a “you wouldn’t understand” that echoes the serpent’s whisper. To dismantle it is not anarchy but exorcism, a stripping back to the studs to expose what festers. The old guard, like Saul clinging to his throne, shriek at the loss of their sacred monopoly. But their divinity is a lie, and their temple must fall.

The Stagnation of the External, the Promise of the Internal

Consider the contrast: a business that squanders its capital dies; a government that squanders ours endures. This is the curse of external governance—its inertia defies the natural law of adaptation. Were it subject to the crucible of choice, only the fittest form would stand. Instead, it grows sclerotic, a Leviathan too holy to slay. And the people, seduced by its permanence, make it their idol. They crave a king to think for them, a mediator to absolve their agency. Politicians—prostitutes of the soul—oblige, peddling promises they half-believe, deluded into messiahs of their own making. Zelensky’s advisors call him mad with grandeur; Washington’s geriatrics are no different, mistaking their tenure for providence.

This is not governance but bondage, a learned helplessness masquerading as piety. The privately employed know their limits—life persists beyond their shift. But the state’s acolytes preach indispensability, as if only they can wield the scepter. Contrast this with self-governance: a people ruled not by fleshly lords but by principle, by the law written on their hearts. Jeremiah 31:33 whispers of such a day; Hebrews 8 seals it in Christ’s blood. At the civic level, this need not mean chaos but discernment—shuffling roles, pruning branches, trusting that micromanagement by fools yields only thorns.

Why, then, the sanctity of the status quo? It is the coward’s theology: easier to bow to mystery than to wrestle truth. As Israel preferred a king to the uncertainty of judges, so we prefer bureaucracy to responsibility. Samuel’s warning rings anew: the king takes, and we cry too late. External governance is not our salvation—it is our stagnation, a false god promising safety while forging fetters.

The Myth and Monuments of the Federal Cult

To cement this idolatry, the Federal government has woven a mythology and erected monuments rivaling the temples of old. Consider the Capitol, that domed sanctum of marble and myth, its steps ascending like an altar to a civic deity. The Lincoln Memorial, a brooding Parthenon, gazes over a reflecting pool as if to baptize the nation in its own reverence. These are not mere buildings—they are shrines, designed to awe, to whisper: “This is eternal, this is beyond you.” Like the ziggurats of Babylon or the temples of Rome, they fuse power with divinity, demanding obeisance from the pilgrim and the peasant alike. The Founding Fathers, recast as demigods, stare down from friezes and statues, their words carved into stone as if they were Moses descending Sinai. Big Brother is not God—yet here he looms, a surveillance state cloaked as savior, its all-seeing eye promising protection while its fist tightens the leash.

This cultic architecture is no accident—it sells the lie that the state is sacrosanct, its form immutable. The pledge of allegiance, recited by schoolchildren, is a liturgy; the flag, a totem; the Constitution, a holy writ too sacred to amend save by the high priests of amendment. Yet this is a sleight of hand. The Constitution, for all its brilliance, is a human document, not a divine oracle—its framers knew it, urging vigilance against its abuse. The Federal cult inverts this, turning a tool into a god, a means into an end. As the temples of Baal housed idols to blind the masses, so these monuments obscure the state’s frailty, its susceptibility to rot.

Enter January 6th, 2021—a day branded as a desecration, a violation of the “sacred ground” of democracy. The narrative drips with priestly indignation: rioters stormed the Capitol, profaned its halls, threatened the holy order. Politicians clutched their vestments, decrying the “insurrection” as an assault on the nation’s soul. But let us parse this claim with a smirk—how many have died at the hands of this government, overseas and at home, in the name of “protecting democracy”? Millions, if you tally the wars and drones, yet the single death of that day gets the sackcloth and ashes. If the Capitol is sacred, what makes it so? Not its service to the people—its corridors have long echoed with the clink of corporate coin and the murmur of self-interest. Not its fidelity to justice—its laws have sanctioned plunder at home and terror abroad, not least against Argentina, whose people still bear the scars of U.S.-backed meddling and economic strangulation. The sanctity, then, is a projection, a mythos guarding the idol. January 6th was chaos, yes—ugly, reckless, and lawless—but to call it a sacrilege assumes the temple was holy to begin with. It wasn’t. It was a house of power, not of God.

The true violation predates that day: the slow consecration of a bureaucracy into a deity, the elevation of marble over morality. Ancient temples hid their emptiness behind splendor; the Federal cult does the same, crying “blasphemy” when the curtain is pulled. January 6th didn’t defile a sacred space—it exposed a hollow one, a monument to a king the people demanded but never needed. And here’s where Argentina’s President Javier Milei enters, grinning like a Cheshire cat as he handed Elon Musk a chainsaw in 2025, etched with “Viva la libertad, carajo” (“Long live liberty, damn it”). Milei, who’s taken his own chainsaw to Argentina’s bloated state, wasn’t just gifting Musk a tool for bureaucracy—he was practically dancing with glee to see Musk turn it on the U.S. regime that’s bullied his nation for decades, from IMF debt traps to covert coups. It’s less a symbol of shared efficiency and more a middle finger to the empire, wrapped in a libertarian bow.

Trump’s Mandate and the Singular King

So where does Donald Trump fit in this unholy pantheon? In Part I, I cast him as a flawed Saul—brash, impulsive, a king more enamored with his own mirror than his people’s good. I stand corrected, or at least refined. Trump is no savior, nor should he be—Christians have but one King, enthroned above all earthly powers (Colossians 1:16-17). Yet he wields a mandate, both legal and theological, to tear down these idols, and therein lies his purpose—not as messiah, but as iconoclast.

Legally, Trump’s authority stems from the Constitution itself—a document that vests executive power in a president elected by the people (Article II, Section 1). His 2024 victory, a roar against the entrenched cult, grants him the democratic right to wield that power against inefficiency and corruption. The Federal government, swollen beyond its constitutional bounds, has no divine charter to resist pruning. The framers envisioned a lean state, not a Leviathan; Trump’s DOGE-inspired axe—however blunt—aligns with that original intent. He can shutter departments, slash budgets, and fire the high priests of waste, all within the law’s letter. The shrieks of “threat to democracy” from the old guard are the death rattles of a dethroned idol, not a defense of principle.

Theologically, his warrant runs deeper. Scripture abhors idolatry—Exodus 20:4-5 commands no graven images, no bowing to crafted gods. The Federal cult, with its temples and myths, is precisely that: a false deity usurping allegiance owed to Christ alone. When Jesus declared, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:21), He drew a line—Caesar gets coins, not worship. Trump, for all his bombast, serves as a wrecking ball to this blasphemy. He need not be pious to smash Baal’s altars; Gideon was a coward before he toppled the poles (Judges 6:27). If Trump’s tenure exposes the state’s hollow sanctimony—January 6th as symptom, not sin—then he fulfills a divine irony: a flawed vessel breaking a greater folly.

Yet here’s the correction to my 2015 take: Trump is not the point. I overstated his flaws as disqualifying, missing the forest for the trees. He’s no king to crown—Christians must reject all earthly thrones save one. “My kingdom is not of this world,” Christ said (John 18:36), and Paul echoed, “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). Trump’s role is transient—permitted, not ordained—to dismantle a false god, not to replace it. The Christian’s allegiance lies with the King of Kings, whose rule brooks no rival, be it Trump, Biden, or the marble gods of DC. Self-governance, then, is not just civic—it’s spiritual, a refusal to outsource our souls to any throne but His.

The Eschatological Hope

The people want a king, but the King we need refuses a throne of stone. To cling to the state as sacred is to repeat Israel’s folly, to trade the Spirit’s freedom for Saul’s spear. Self-governance is not utopia—it is obedience to a higher call, a shedding of idols for the stewardship God demands. Complexity is a liar’s refuge; trust is a martyr of our making. Let Trump tear down the temples—legally, he can; theologically, he should—but let us not crown him in their place. Overturn the tables, tear the veil, and build anew—not a kingdom of men, but a commonwealth of the free, under no crown but His.