(Minghui.org) [Editor's Note] This series is a reprint of The Epoch Times' English translation of the book How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World by the editorial team of Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.
Table of Contents of the Book
Preface: How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World
Introduction: How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World
Chapter One: The Specter’s Strategies for Destroying Humanity
Chapter Two: Communism’s European Beginnings
Chapter Three: Tyranny in the East
Chapter Four: Exporting Revolution
Chapter Five: Infiltrating the West
Chapter Six: The Revolt Against God
Chapter Seven: The Destruction of the Family
Chapter Eight: How Communism Sows Chaos in Politics
Chapter Nine: The Communist Economic Trap
Chapter Ten: Corrupting the Legal System
Chapter Eleven: Desecrating the Arts
Chapter Twelve: Sabotaging Education
Chapter Thirteen: The Media – The Specter’s Mouthpiece
Chapter Fourteen: Popular Culture – A Decadent Indulgence
Chapter Fifteen: The Communist Roots of Terrorism
Chapter Sixteen: The Communism Behind Environmentalism
Chapter Seventeen: Globalization and Communism
Chapter Eighteen: The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Ambitions
Conclusion: How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World
What is Included in This Part?
Chapter Ten: Corrupting the Legal System
1. Law and Faith
2. Law Under Communist Tyrannies
a. Extralegal Policies of State Terror
b. Ever-Changing Standards of Right and Wrong
c. Ignoring the Constitution
3. How Communism Warps the Law in the West
a. Subverting the Moral Foundations of the Law
b. Seizing the Powers of Legislation and Promulgation
c. Twisted Court Interpretations
d. Restricting Law Enforcement
e. Using Foreign Laws to Weaken US Sovereignty
4. Restoring the Spirit of the Law
References
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1. Law and Faith
Law is the iron force of fairness and justice that affirms good and punishes evil. What is good and what is evil must be understood by those who write laws. From the perspective of faith, these criteria come from the divine. The teachings of sages and religious scriptures provided the basis for the laws that govern human society.
The Code of Hammurabi, enacted in ancient Babylon, is one of the earliest sets of written laws that have been found. Engraved in the stone tablet above the code itself is a powerful scene: Shamash, god of the sun and justice, bestowing the laws upon King Hammurabi. This is the depiction of a god granting a human sovereign the authority to govern his people using the rule of law.
For Hebrews, the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament were considered to be both divine and secular law simultaneously — a tradition that became the foundation of Western legal culture. From fourth-century Roman emperors, to the East Roman Justinian I and his successors, to the first of Britain’s Anglo-Saxon kings, Alfred the Great, the legal system took the Ten Commandments and Christian doctrine as its inspiration. [1]
Followers of religion believe that in order to be considered legitimate, the law must accommodate divine standards of good and evil, as well as religious teachings. The thinking behind nonviolent civil disobedience in the United States can be traced back to early Christian doctrine. When Roman emperor Gaius Caligula commanded that statues of Caesar be erected within the Temple walls in Jerusalem and that Christians must worship Roman gods, Christians opted to face crucifixion or be burned at the stake rather than obey. To have followed the command would have meant violating the first two Commandments — in other words, the emperor demanded that secular law take precedence over divine commandment, which is sacred and inviolable.
In general, the Ten Commandments can be divided into two categories. The first four describe the relationship between man and God — that is, what constitutes the appropriate reverence for God. The other six govern relationships between people and, at their core, reflect the teaching to love others as you love yourself. Reverence for God is an imperative that enables humanity to maintain, unchanged, the principles of fairness and justice.
The same was true in ancient China, where historically the law was promulgated by imperial decree. The emperor, or “Son of Heaven,” was required to follow providence and the principles of heaven and earth. This is the “Tao,” or Way, imparted by Lao Zi and the Yellow Emperor. The Han Dynasty Confucian scholar Dong Zhongshu said: “The greatness of Tao originates from heaven. Heaven never changes, and neither does the Tao.” [2] In ancient Chinese usage, “heaven” is not an abstraction of natural forces, but refers to the divine. Faith in the Tao of heaven forms the moral bedrock of Chinese culture. The imperial legislative systems derived from this belief influenced China for thousands of years.
American legal scholar Harold J. Berman believed that the law coexists with the overall principles of social morality and faith. Even under the separation of church and state, the two are mutually dependent. In any society, the concepts of justice and legality must have their roots in what is considered holy and sacred. [3] The modern legal system retains many facets of religious ceremony that strengthen its power.
2. Law Under Communist Tyrannies
Communist parties are anti-theist cults. They aim to sever a society’s links to its ancestral culture and traditional values, and they will never follow the teachings of righteous gods in their legislative principles. It was never realistic to expect that communist parties would make any sincere attempts to maintain fairness or justice.
a. Extralegal Policies of State Terror
Traditionally, Christians talk about loving others as we love ourselves, and Confucian teachings say that the benevolent man loves others. Here, love is not limited to the narrow concept of love between a man and a woman, or the love that exists among family members or friends. Love also encompasses benevolence, mercy, justice, selflessness, and other virtues. With this cultural foundation, not only is the law sacred, but it also embodies the spirit of love in human society.
No legal system can hope to account for any and all possible forms of conflict and provide judgments for each. Thus, laws must factor in the subjectivity of all parties. A judge must follow the spirit of the law to give a verdict that abides by the principle of benevolence.
In the Temple of Jerusalem, Jesus admonished the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, for despite strictly adhering to the words of Moses, they had ignored virtues required by the code, such as justice, mercy, and truthfulness. Jesus himself healed on the Sabbath and sat with gentiles, for what he cared about was the spirit of kindness embodied within the doctrines, not only the literal meaning.
By contrast, communism is rooted in hatred. It not only hates God, but also hates the culture, lifestyle, and traditions that the divine established for humanity. Marx did not mince words in expressing his desire to doom himself to ruin and bring the world down with him. He wrote to his future wife, “Jenny, if we can but weld our souls together, then with contempt shall I fling my glove in the world’s face, then shall I stride through the wreckage a creator!” [4]
Sergey Gennadievich Nechayev, a communist terrorist in czarist Russia, wrote in his pamphlet The Revolutionary Catechism that the revolutionary “has broken all the bonds which tie him to the social order and the civilized world with all its laws, moralities, and customs, and with all its generally accepted conventions.” The revolutionary, according to Nechayev, should see himself as the archenemy of this world and its conventions, and “if he continues to live with them it is only in order to destroy them more speedily.” [5]
Nechayev’s use of the clerical term “catechism” for his lawless vision hints at the cult-like disdain that communism harbors for humanity and the divine. “He is not a revolutionary if he has any sympathy for this world,” Nechayev wrote.
Lenin expressed a similar view: “Dictatorship is rule based directly upon force and unrestricted by any laws. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won and maintained by the use of violence by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws.” [6]
Wielding political power to kill, torture, and mete out collective punishment in the absence of legal restraints is nothing other than state terrorism, and it is the first step taken by communist regimes when they come to power.
In the months following the Bolshevik overthrow of the Russian government in 1917, hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the course of the political struggle. The Bolsheviks established the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-revolution and Sabotage, abbreviated Cheka, and endowed it with powers of summary execution. From 1918 to 1922, the Chekists killed no less than two million people without trial. [7]
Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev, former propaganda minister of the Central Committee and member of the Politburo and Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, wrote that in the 20th century alone, sixty million people in Russia had died as a result of war, hunger, and repression. Using public archives, Yakovlev estimated that the number of people killed in Soviet persecution campaigns was twenty million to thirty million. In 1987, the Politburo of the Soviet Union set up a committee, of which Yakovlev was a member, to review miscarriages of justice under Soviet rule. After reviewing thousands of files, Yakovlev wrote: “There’s a feeling that I’ve long been unable to shake. It seems that the perpetrators of these atrocities are a group of people who are mentally deranged, but I fear that such an explanation runs the risk of oversimplifying the problem.” [8]
To put it more plainly, Yakovlev saw that the atrocities committed in the communist era were not the result of mere impulses, but rather careful planning. These crimes were committed not for the greater good of the world, but from a deep hatred of life itself. The drivers of communism commit atrocities not out of ignorance, but out of malice.
b. Ever-Changing Standards of Right and Wrong
While communism ignores the rule of law to perpetrate acts of state terror, it puts on a show in front of Western countries by claiming it’s committed to upholding the law. It does this so that it can engage, infiltrate, and subvert free societies through the avenues of trade and economic partnerships, cultural exchange, and geopolitical cooperation. For instance, at the onset of China’s reform and opening up in 1979, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) passed a “criminal procedure law,” ostensibly to strengthen the judiciary. But this law has never been seriously enforced.
According to Marx, the law is a product of “class contradiction” and a tool that embodies the will of the ruling class. The laws of a communist party come neither from God, nor from a genuine love of the people, nor from a desire to maintain a fair and just society. The interests of the ruling group, that is, the communist party of a given country, are all that matter. As the goals and interests of the party change, so change its laws.
Naturally, once the CCP seized power, it adopted class struggle as its guideline and proceeded to rob the entire citizenry. It promulgated laws against the crime of “counter-revolutionary activity,” which applied to everyone who opposed the Party’s policies of theft. The CCP punished counter-revolutionaries with incarceration or death.
After completing the process of mass robbery to implement public ownership, the CCP needed a way to keep what it had stolen. It shifted its priorities toward economic development and implemented laws that protected private property. In essence, this means little more than protecting the Party’s vested interests. For example, the widespread compulsory demolition of Chinese people’s homes to make way for development projects illustrates the regime’s continued infringement on the right to private property.
In March 1999, the CCP announced the need to “rule the country according to law.” [9] A few months later, it began the nationwide persecution of Falun Gong and established a Gestapo-like extrajudicial body, the 610 Office, to carry out the brutal campaign. To fulfill its mission, the 610 Office was given the authority to bypass all laws and judicial procedures, allowing it to manipulate the public security apparatus and judicial system to suppress Falun Gong.
The Party periodically conjures up new enemies so as to renew its tyrannical rule over the Chinese people. The targets of persecution are ever-changing and include the campaigns against landlords and capitalists, the 1989 massacre of students in Tiananmen Square, and the suppression of Falun Gong practitioners and human rights lawyers.
Accordingly, the law must be changed frequently. In seventy years of rule, the Party has promulgated four constitutions, the last of which has undergone four revisions since its introduction in 1982. Gaining experience from multiple political campaigns, the CCP has used the law to adjust and disguise its motives and actions. Sometimes it does not even bother to apply this camouflage.
c. Ignoring the Constitution
The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China is replete with verbose language in an effort to show that the CCP is committed to the rule of law and civilized international norms. In practice, however, the constitution is never strictly followed, and basic rights such as freedom of speech, belief, and association are not actually protected.
According to Marxist theory, law reflects the will of the ruling class, rather than objective justice. For a communist party, then, passing and amending laws to suppress its enemies and impose its will on society follow as a matter of course. Under this kind of system, anyone who dares to challenge the “will of the ruling class” — that is, anyone who opposes the interests of the communist party — is subject to legal persecution as a class enemy, whether they are unemployed workers, demobilized soldiers, farmers whose land was expropriated, human rights lawyers, or simply those struggling to make ends meet.
To lawyers practicing in communist countries, the laws on the books always make way for the interests of the regime. If a lawyer tries to cite the law and argue in favor of justice, the judge and prosecution will shut him down by talking about the supposed spirit of the law. They even blatantly say that the court is run by the communist party and must follow its orders. Whatever the thoughts of these individual court workers, what they say indeed reflects the spirit of law that exists under communist regimes.
In the Chinese court system, during hearings involving persecuted Falun Gong practitioners, the judges may say things like the following: “Why are you bringing up the law? I care only about politics.” “The Party doesn’t allow defense. The leaders’ words are the law.” “The Communist Party leads the court, so we need to follow the Party line.” “No legal procedure is necessary for Falun Gong issues.” “Don’t talk to me about conscience.” [10]
English philosopher Francis Bacon once wrote: “One foul sentence doth more hurt than many foul examples. For these do but corrupt the stream, the other corrupteth the fountain.” [11]
The laws of the Communist Party, ever-malleable and only selectively practiced, hold no sanctity from which to derive legitimate authority. Over the past century, the spirit of the law that governs the Party’s legal system has brought about countless injustices and has overseen the deaths of one hundred million innocent people — a debt of blood for which no representative of the communist cause can ever atone.
“A murderer must pay with his life, just as a debtor with money,” a Chinese proverb says. Were the Communist Party to truly enforce the law, it would become liable for its bloody history.
3. How Communism Warps the Law in the West
As with politics, economics, education, and other facets of society, Western rule of law has not escaped infiltration and subversion by the communist specter. In communist countries, the law is manipulated as an instrument for maintaining the regime’s rule, reinforcing communist party ideology, and suppressing the people. In free countries, the specter’s aim is to use the law to distort the standards of good and evil, to subvert traditional faith and the law’s moral foundations, and to seize the powers of legislation and enforcement, thus putting demonic norms into practice.
The communist specter’s influence over the rule of law can be found all across the West. As the United States is the leader of the free world, this section focuses on the erosion of US legal institutions.
a. Subverting the Moral Foundations of the Law
As communist parties and their various followers around the world promoted atheism and the theory of evolution, the connection between the law and divine principles was steadily rejected. The spirit of the law began to shift from its divine role of maintaining fairness and justice to expressing the will of political interests and radical ideology. The law has been largely reduced to an instrument of revenge, arbitration, bargaining, and the allocation of benefits. This opened the door for those poisoned by communism to pass laws to undermine society and move humanity closer to destruction.
Liberalism and progressivism reject traditional faith and moral judgment, seeing morality as a secular agreement that changes according to the development of society. Marriage, for example, is regarded as a simple contract between two people who are willing to state their commitment to each other, rather than a vow made before the divine. Recognition of same-sex marriage is based on the ostensible premise of freedom and progress — a premise that is malleable and will inevitably result in the corruption of the law. The separation of traditional morality from justice was reflected in an abortion case that reached the Supreme Court in 1992. Three justices stated: “Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that cannot control our decision. Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.” [12]
Put another way, the law prioritizes freedom over morality, and the values of liberty and morality are separate. But liberty, as established by the American Founding Fathers, is a “self-evident” principle, that is, it is bestowed by God — or as the Declaration of Independence puts it, “their Creator.” Rejecting the universal standards set by the Creator in order to increase the range of so-called freedoms is a method the devil uses to distort the law and lead humanity to its downfall.
b. Seizing the Powers of Legislation and Promulgation
Before a new law takes effect, it goes through multiple stages, including its drafting, endorsement by politicians, passage by the legislature, and implementation by law enforcement officials. There also may be court rulings over its legality. During this process, individuals or groups in academia, media, legal circles, and even the entertainment industry exert influence over the preparation and enactment of the law. The communist specter has found representatives across society to help it take control of the legislative process. Various lobbyists have done their best to fill government agencies with leftists. In the judicial branch, they became judges, prosecutors, and other officials responsible for the carriage of justice.
Presidents will do everything in their power to appoint like-minded justices to the Supreme Court, or use executive powers to circumvent the legal system. Historically, liberal US presidents have tended to grant more pardons. In a recent administration, the president commuted the sentences of 1,385 convicts and granted a total of 212 pardons, the greatest number since the administration of President Harry Truman. [13] In one of his final acts before leaving the White House, the president commuted the sentences of 209 individuals and granted pardons to 64 others. Most of those who received pardons were nonviolent drug offenders, but one exception was a man who had been charged and found guilty of leaking 700,000 classified military documents. With presidential clemency, this man’s sentence was reduced, and he served less than 7 years of his 35-year sentence. [14]
While the president has the constitutionally ordained power to grant pardons, overuse of this power works against the function and purpose of the law, which is to punish wrongdoing and support upstanding citizens. In 1954, then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, who later served as the 36th president of the United States, introduced the Johnson Amendment, a provision in the tax code that prohibits nonprofit organizations, including churches, from engaging in certain activities. Violators can have their tax exemptions revoked. Wary of this, some Christian churches have instructed their ministers to avoid certain topics when speaking at the pulpit, including controversial social issues such as abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, stem cell research, and so on.
The communist specter has also manipulated all political groups in an attempt to change law enforcement through prosecutorial elections. One district attorney, sent to his position by progressive patrons and political groups, fired thirty-one prosecutors during his first week on the job. Calling for an end to “mass incarceration,” he also ordered the remainder of his staff to stop prosecuting people for marijuana possession. Similar situations exist in other states. The president of the union for deputy district attorneys in Los Angeles County said that it was as if prosecutors were being called on to “pick and choose” which laws to enforce. In her opinion, it’s a “slippery slope” when elected officials are asked to ignore the laws they swore to uphold. [15]
Judges also have jurisdiction to cancel orders from administrative departments. For instance, US immigration law gives the president the right to deny entry to foreigners in emergency situations. However, some judges influenced by liberalism considered a recent travel ban issued by the president to be religious discrimination. Their rulings delayed the ban for over four months until the executive action was upheld by the Supreme Court.
Since lawyers greatly influence court rulings, the political leanings of a legal association can have a direct impact on whether the spirit of the law can be followed. The founder of one lawyers’ association with a nationwide presence was a self-avowed socialist who believed in public ownership and said that his ultimate goal was to establish communism. [16] The association boasts a membership in the tens of thousands across the country and an annual budget in the hundreds of millions. It files lawsuits to support causes such as abortion rights, same-sex marriage, and the right of homosexuals to adopt children.
Followers of liberalism and progressivism occupy key political positions across the United States and dominate academia, the media, and social movements. This has allowed the communist specter to wield unprecedented power over the legislative and judicial processes.
c. Twisted Court Interpretations
Traditional religions emphasize the importance of personal accountability. In the Bible, the book of Ezekiel uses father and son as a parable to depict good and bad. Though they are father and son, they bear the consequences of their respective conduct and are not personally responsible for each other’s actions. As the Bible says, “For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Likewise, the Chinese believe that goodness begets goodness and that evil will be punished by heaven.
Liberty means responsibility. A person has the right and freedom to choose his ideas, speech, and actions. He also needs to be responsible for his own choices. Once a person has committed a crime, he should be punished accordingly. This is the principle of justice. Liberal judges, however, encourage people to shirk their responsibilities and shift accountability to prevailing social conditions, such as their economic or racial background, physical and mental health, education, and other demographic parameters, allowing criminals to escape legal punishment.
Prohibiting Public Expressions of Faith
God is everywhere in American life. The nation’s motto is “In God We Trust,” which is even written on the dollar bill. The US Declaration of Independence states that human rights are what the Creator has given us. All US government officials, including the president and judges, say “So help me God” when they are sworn in. The most common ending to presidential speeches is “God bless America.” The Pledge of Allegiance, recited in public schools, describes the United States as “one nation under God.”
Some of these traditions have lasted for more than two hundred years, almost as far back as the founding of the United States. But in the past sixty years, they have been constantly challenged by communist followers.
One national lawyers’ association aims to remove the Ten Commandments from public display across the United States. The most famous case occurred in Montgomery, Alabama. In 2001, the association called for the removal of a slate bearing the Ten Commandments that was located in the rotunda of the state court. The group found a judge who had been appointed by a Democratic president to hear the case. In a seventy-six-page verdict, the judge ruled in favor of the lawyers’ association.
The specifics of the ruling may sound ridiculous. For example, the judge claimed that the “solemn ambiance of the rotunda,” the frescoes behind the slate, and the atmosphere created by a picture window featuring a waterfall constituted sufficient reason to have the Ten Commandments removed. The judge also said that the slate’s “sloping top” resembled an open Bible and gave viewers cause to “feel as though the State of Alabama is advancing, endorsing, favoring or preferring, Christianity.” [17]
As early as 1980, the Supreme Court had banned the Ten Commandments from being displayed in public schools. This decision was the catalyst for an overall movement across the country to have the Ten Commandments removed from public view. In Utah, the national lawyers’ association even offered a reward to anyone willing to report those plaques and slates that had not yet been taken down. [18]
One US Circuit Court ruled on June 26, 2002, that public schools were prohibited from holding “sworn oaths” because they included the words “under God.” This decision was overturned by the Supreme Court on June 14, 2004. [19]
This is an ongoing legal battle. The American national anthem, motto, Pledge of Allegiance, school prayers, and the like are under siege by atheists and leftist activists. References to “God,” or the Creator, as seen in the Declaration of Independence, reflect the divine principles underpinning the US Constitution, and do not violate the rights of Americans. The public display of the Ten Commandments and other religious plaques underscores the deep faith of the American people. In a nation based on strong spiritual traditions, the rise of political movements attempting to prohibit the public expression of belief in the divine indicates the extent to which communism has penetrated the legal system.
Altering the Spirit of the Constitution Through Interpretation and Case Law
In the drafting of the US Constitution, the Founding Fathers established the separation of powers, with the judicial branch originally having the least power. Congress (the legislative branch) is responsible for passing laws; the president (the executive branch) is responsible for executing and enforcing the laws created by Congress; and the Supreme Court (the judicial branch) has neither the power to pass laws nor to govern.
In 2002, while the Supreme Court was hearing a case concerning the Pledge of Allegiance, polls indicated that 90 percent of Americans supported retaining the phrase “under God.” In the House of Representatives, there were 416 votes in favor of retention, versus just three against. [20] In the Senate, the result was 99 to zero. [21] The congressional votes reflected the genuine opinion of the American public.
As elected representatives of the people, members of Congress and the president serve terms that range from two to six years before coming up for reelection. As long as the public and mainstream society are guided by divine standards of morality, the extent to which the president and members of Congress can fall toward the left is limited. On the other hand, Supreme Court justices don’t need to heed public opinion, since they hold their positions for life. Furthermore, there are only nine justices. It is comparatively easier to influence the decisions made by these nine individuals than it is to alter public opinion.
In the United States, amending the Constitution requires support from two-thirds of Congress, and three-quarters of the states. These strict measures make it difficult to amend the Constitution outright. Therefore, the progressive strategy is not to amend the Constitution directly, but to reinterpret it. They regard the Constitution as a “living” and continually “evolving” document. Using precedent set by the Supreme Court, they encode the views of the Left into law. In this way, they covertly exert their will over the Constitution, which is tantamount to undermining it.
Divine commandment is no longer the highest principle. The Constitution has taken a heavy beating under the gavels of liberal Supreme Court justices, since their rulings are final and must be respected by even the president. The judicial branch is taking an ever-increasing share of authority among the three branches established by the Founding Fathers. In practice, Supreme Court justices have acquired partial legislative and even executive powers.
Liberal Supreme Court justices have brought a number of consequences upon American society that are severe and difficult to remedy. As things stand, the Supreme Court can, through case hearings, order the removal of the Ten Commandments from public schools and spaces, rewrite criminal procedures, raise taxes, recognize rights to abortion and same-sex marriage, allow the publication and display of pornography, and so on.
The growing supremacy of the judiciary combined with the ruling of liberal judges has given the specter of communism an important tool for achieving its designs.
Promoting Obscene Content in the Name of Freedom
The 1960s was an era of deep transformation across American society. Left-wing students drove the anti-war movement, rock ‘n’ roll, hippie culture, the feminist movement, sexual liberation, and other anti-traditional currents, raising chaos throughout the country.
The chief justice of the Supreme Court in this period was the liberal Earl Warren. During Warren’s term as chief justice, the Supreme Court made very influential and far-reaching rulings. This included the prohibition of prayers in public school and the allowance of publications featuring sexually explicit material. [22][23]
In her book The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It, constitutional law expert Phyllis Schlafly provided statistics showing that from 1966 to 1970, the Supreme Court made thirty-four rulings that overruled lower-level court decisions to prohibit obscene content. [24] The Supreme Court’s rulings were not signed, and the majority opinion consisted of just one or two lines. Put another way, even the justices themselves didn’t bother to rationalize their decisions.
In 1968, Hollywood abandoned its Motion Picture Production Code, lifting its restrictions on obscene content in film. A profusion of various kinds of pornographic works soon followed, and today they have saturated every corner of society.
The First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech. It was intended to guarantee the right to express political opinions, not to manufacture and disseminate pornography.
Legalizing Drug Abuse
As the world got ready to welcome the new year on December 31, 2017, cable news channel CNN broadcast footage with multiple shots of a female reporter smoking marijuana. Visibly under the influence, she appeared disoriented and unaware of her surroundings. The broadcast received widespread criticism. [25]
In 1996, California became the first US state to legalize medical marijuana, and many states soon followed suit. By 2012, Colorado and Washington had legalized marijuana for “recreational use.” In these two states, planting, manufacturing, and selling marijuana to adults is completely legal. It has also since been legalized in California. In October 2018, the Canadian government legalized marijuana use.
Aside from causing serious damage to the human body, drugs are psychologically addictive. Once dependent, people can abandon moral inhibitions in order to obtain more of the drug. On the other hand, those who support legalizing drugs believe it would be an effective way to reduce drug trafficking. They say that legalization allows stricter regulation over the drug, and accordingly a reduction in drug-related crime.
Governments anticipate that legalizing drugs would generate billions of dollars in revenue. But it’s not hard to see that as greater numbers of people become addicts, lose their desire to work, and suffer poor health, productivity will fall, and the aggregate wealth created by society will shrink. It is self-evident that legalizing drugs cannot increase government revenue in the long term. Furthermore, judging what is right or wrong shouldn’t be based on economic profit, but on divine standards. Traditional morality sees the human form as sacred and created in the divine likeness. Western religions believe the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, while in the East, it was believed that the body can be improved through cultivation to become a Buddha or a Tao. Drug abuse, then, is an act of desecration.
According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, one of the important figures lobbying for the legalization of marijuana in the United States is a wealthy progressive. [26] In March 2017, six senators wrote a letter to the US State Department requesting that this individual be investigated for using his foundation to promote progressivism abroad and subvert conservative governments. [27]
The legalization of drugs is an additional step toward encouraging people to lose their inhibitions and cut them off from the divine. As society experiences turmoil and economic downturns, communists seize opportunities to gain political power.
Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage
Schlafly listed twelve methods judges use to undermine morality: rewrite the Constitution, censor acknowledgment of God, redefine marriage, undermine US sovereignty, threaten property rights, promote pornography, foster feminism, handicap law enforcement, invite illegal immigration, interfere with elections, take over parents’ rights, and impose taxes. [28]
The book of Genesis describes the destruction of Sodom. One of the crimes the doomed city’s residents committed was to engage in homosexuality. This is the origin of the term “sodomy,” meaning sexual relations between men. Those with basic knowledge of the Bible know that homosexuality goes against the will of God.
In June 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5–4 decision that same-sex marriage is a right guaranteed by the Constitution. [29] When the ruling was passed, the US president at the time changed the banner on the White House’s official Twitter account to the rainbow flag in support of LGBT rights. The Supreme Court’s ruling prohibited the thirteen states that still banned same-sex marriage from enforcing their laws. In August 2015, a clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, refused to issue marriage certificates for same-sex couples due to her beliefs. She was later jailed for five nights for defying a US federal court order to issue the documents. [30] In fact, the court had violated her constitutional right to freedom of belief. Commenting on the clerk’s case, former governor of Arkansas and former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee called the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage “judicial tyranny.” [31]
As of 2019, twenty-eight countries and territories had officially acknowledged or accepted same-sex marriage, including developed Western countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Portugal, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The law has the power to reinforce morality or influence its movement in a new direction. To legalize behavior that deviates from traditional moral values is the same as having the government and laws train the people to betray morality and disobey divine commandments.
Under the influence of political correctness, criticism of the chaos that our society finds itself in — whether from the people, civil associations, or religious groups in particular — can be easily escalated to the level of politics or law, and result in restrictions on free speech or other punishments. Following the legalization of immoral behavior, those who make any comments or criticisms on related issues are often accused of violating laws, such as those concerning gender discrimination. The law has been twisted into a means of strangling people’s ability to make moral judgments. It is essentially promoting homosexuality and encouraging people to give themselves to endless desire and degeneracy.
d. Restricting Law Enforcement
Under liberal influence, many judges or legislative agencies deliberately curtail the legitimate power of law enforcement, effectively turning a blind eye to crime. The communist specter’s aim in doing this is to paralyze the state apparatus in order to stir up social turmoil, which in turn creates excuses either for the expansion of government, or the necessary conditions for a coup or revolution.
Many states have passed far-left laws, a typical example being “sanctuary state” policies. Among other provisions, sanctuary states often prohibit federal immigration officials from arresting illegal immigrants in local prisons, including those with outstanding warrants for arrest. Local police are barred from cooperating and communicating with federal agents to enforce immigration laws.
This poses a serious security risk for the public. In July 2015, illegal immigrant José Inez García Zárate shot and killed a young woman who was walking along a pier in San Francisco. Zárate had a history of crime: He had been charged with seven felonies involving drugs and robbery, and possession of weaponry, and had been deported five times. Under San Francisco’s sanctuary laws, officials released Zárate from custody three months before the fatal shooting, rather than transfer him to federal immigration authorities, who had requested custody of him for deportation.
When a criminal stands trial, extremely strict standards are placed on the prosecution. This is ostensibly to protect the legitimate rights of the suspect, but often the result is that criminals are able to take advantage of loopholes in the law. Cunning suspects, or those who enjoy status or privileges, who understand the law and regulations, or who hire capable attorneys, can drag out the legal process, at great cost to the judicial system. It can be very difficult to bring guilty suspects to justice.
Influenced by the spread of “sexual liberation,” verdicts in cases involving sex crimes often cite findings in research by Alfred Kinsey or activists who follow him to argue that the damage caused by sex abuse is little or nonexistent. Many cases have been settled by reducing the sentences of sexual predators. [32] Many ordinary criminals also have had their original sentences reduced, ostensibly owing to budget shortages or on account of prisoners’ rights. The real motivation, though, is to use political correctness to weaken the power of the law, disturb social order, and pave the way for further expansion of government.
For the law to be fair, it must administer strict punishments to those who commit unpardonable crimes. Since antiquity, murder has been punishable by death. But today, some countries and territories have abolished capital punishment on such grounds as “humanity,” “tolerance,” or a supposed respect for life.
Under the influence of twisted liberalism and progressivism, some people give undue weight to prisoners’ rights — no matter the severity of their crimes — while remaining strangely silent regarding the victims. If a murderer is fed and housed by taxpayer money, his loss of freedom is hardly a fair trade for the death of the victim and the trauma it causes to loved ones.
Many researchers in the United States have found that capital punishment is effective in deterring crime. David Muhlhausen, a senior policy analyst in The Heritage Foundation, testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007 that capital punishment has a deterrent effect and can save lives. In the 1990s, three professors, including Paul Rubin at Emory University, examined twenty years of crime statistics from three thousand cities and towns across the United States and concluded that “each execution results, on average, in 18 fewer murders — with a margin of error of plus or minus 10.” [33]
Even scholars who are against capital punishment must concede that it has a deterrent effect. By pushing the concepts of freedom and legality to extremes, the Left has distorted the law and robbed it of its sanctity.
e. Using Foreign Laws to Weaken US Sovereignty
When liberal judges can’t find wording in the US Constitution to support their personal opinions, they use laws passed in other countries to sustain their arguments.
For instance, in the Supreme Court case of Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the liberal justices wanted to repeal a Texas statute banning consenting homosexual adults from engaging in sexual acts, but they could not find anything from the Constitution to support this case. They then quoted an “authoritative” agency outside of the United States as saying that homosexuality was “an integral part of human freedom in many other countries,” and successfully repealed the law. This case resulted in repeals of similar statutes in thirteen other states. [34]
Communist thought has spread around the world in different forms. The socialist trend throughout Asia and Europe is plain to see, and it has great influence in Africa and Latin America as well. Countries such as Zimbabwe and Venezuela are socialist countries in all but name. Even Canada is not free of its influence.
Commerce and globalization have brought the United States in closer connection with other countries. In order to introduce elements of socialism domestically, liberal judges leverage the excuse of conforming to international convention and then use case law to alter the spirit of the Constitution. If even the United States, as the leader of the free world, can’t maintain basic, traditional standards, the entire globe will be lost to communism.
4. Restoring the Spirit of the Law
Today, the law has been turned against the divine teachings that originally inspired it. Legality has become a tool the communist specter uses to trample upon the moral foundation of human society, bringing it to the brink of destruction. Anti-traditional and immoral legislation has weakened the ability of the law to maintain social order, leaving the expansion of state power as the only “solution” to the malaise.
Under a legal system controlled by the communist specter, people would be left with only two options: Either refuse to follow the authorities and their degenerate laws, or betray their morality in order to comply. The former would mean the destruction of law in practice, for as jurist Harold Berman put it, “The law must be believed in; otherwise, it exists in name only.” [35] The latter option entails a slippery slope of moral decline, creating a downward spiral in which the law and the state of society compete in a race to reach rock bottom. In either case, society at large would have no way out of this demonic vortex.
The 1958 book The Naked Communist lists forty-five goals pursued by communism in order to infiltrate and undermine the United States. Seven of them concern the legal system. [36]
The sixteenth goal consists of using the courts’ technical decisions to weaken important US institutions by claiming that their conduct infringes upon civil rights.
The twenty-fourth goal is to abolish all laws restricting indecent content by portraying them as censorship that violates free speech and expression.
The twenty-ninth is to challenge the Constitution as flawed, obsolete, or incompatible with international practice.
The thirty-third is to abolish all laws that interfere with the communist apparatus.
The thirty-eighth goal is to make it legal for non-police agencies to carry out arrests. All behavioral problems are to be delegated to mental health workers.
The thirty-ninth is to wrest control over the field of psychiatry and impose mental health laws to control individuals who oppose communist aims.
The forty-fifth goal is to abolish the Connally Reservation, also known as the Connally Amendment. This regulation gives the United States the right to favor domestic jurisdiction over rulings by international courts. The purpose of this goal is to prevent the United States from protecting its domestic sovereignty and to instead have international bodies such as the International Court of Justice overrule the US judiciary.
Looking at the goals listed above and comparing them with what has already been implemented, it is apparent that communism is well-placed to continue undermining US law and justice.
Be it state-sponsored policies of hatred in countries controlled by communist regimes, or regulation in Western countries where communist ideology has hollowed out the legislative and judicial institutions, in both cases the target is the spirit of the law — that is, reverence for the divine and traditional morality.
If we are unable to maintain the moral standards dictated by divine commandment as our criteria for recognizing ultimate good and evil, society will continue to pass laws that conform to communist ideology, favoring the wicked and suppressing the righteous. Society will lose its divine principles of justice and liberty and succumb to the communist specter’s tyranny.
References
1. Harold J. Berman, The Interaction of Law and Religion (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1974), 51–55.
2. Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒, as quoted in Ban Gu 班固, “Dong Zhongshu zhuan” 董仲舒傳 [“Chronicle of Dong Zhongshu”] in Han Shu 漢書 [The Book of Han]. [In Chinese]
3. Berman, The Interaction.
4. Karl Marx, as quoted in W. Cleon Skousen, The Naked Communist (Salt Lake City: The Ensign Publishing Co., 1962), 13.
5. Sergey Nechayev, The Revolutionary Catechism (1869), Marxists Internet Archive, accessed on April 20, 2020, https://www.marxists.org/subject/anarchism/nechayev/catechism.htm.
6. Vladimir Lenin, “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky: How Kautsky Turned Marx Into A Common Liberal,” in Lenin Collected Works, trans. Jim Riordan (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), 28:227–325, Marxists Internet Archive, accessed on April 20, 2020, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/common_liberal.htm.
7. Li Yuzhen 李玉貞, Yi bu dianfuxing zhuzhuo: Ershi shiji Eguoshi 一部顛覆性著作：二十世紀俄國史 [Work of Insurrection: 20th-Century Russian History], (Beijing: Yanhuang Chunqiu, 2010). [In Chinese]
8. Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev, “Zhi Zhongguo Duzhe” 致中國讀者 [“To Chinese Readers”], in Yibei kujiu—Eluosi de Buershiweikezhuyi he gaige yundong 一杯苦酒——俄羅斯的布爾什維克主義和改革運動 [A Bitter Cup: Bolshevism and the Reformation of Russia], trans. Xu Kui 徐葵 et al., (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1999), 10. [In Chinese] The cited text is a preface written for the Chinese-language edition of Yakovlev’s book.
9. On March 15, 1999, the “Amendment of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China” adopted at the Second Session of the Ninth National People’s Congress inserted in Article 5 of the Constitution: “The People’s Republic of China implements the rule of law and builds a socialist country ruled by law.” See An Linxian 安霖贤, Xianfa yuanze yu yi fa zhiguo 宪法原则与依法治国 [Constitutional Principles and Governing the Country by Law], people.com.cn, November 2, 2006, http://legal.people.com.cn/GB/43027/73487/73490/4990833.html. [In Chinese]
10. Ouyang Fei 歐陽非, “Hongse huangtang huangyan lun” 紅色荒唐言論 [“Red Nonsense”], Minghui.org, January 8, 2015, http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2015/1/8/302850.html. [In Chinese]
11. Francis Bacon, “Of Judicature,” in The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral of Francis Bacon, ed. Samuel Harvey Reynolds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890), Internet Archive, accessed on April 20, 2020, https://archive.org/stream/essaysorcounsel00bacouoft/essaysorcounsel00bacouoft_djvu.txt.
12. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (Nos. 91–744, 91–902), Legal Information Institute, accessed on April 20, 2020, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-744.ZO.html.
13. Neil Eggleston, “President Obama Has Now Granted More Commutations Than Any President in This Nation’s History,” The White House, January 17, 2017, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2017/01/17/president-obama-has-now-granted-more-commutations-any-president-nations-history.
14. Gregory Korte, “Obama Commutes Sentence of Chelsea Manning in Last-Minute Clemency Push,” USA TODAY, January 17, 2017, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/17/obama-commutes-sentence-chelsea-manning/96678814.
15. Paige St. John and Abbie Vansickle, “Here’s Why George Soros, Liberal Groups Are Spending Big to Help Decide Who’s Your Next D.A.,” Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2018, http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-prosecutor-campaign-20180523-story.html.
16. US Congress, House, Affidavit of Roger N. Baldwin, Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States: Hearings before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, 75th–78th Cong., December 31, 1938, 3081–3082, Internet Archive, accessed on April 20, 2020, https://archive.org/details/investigationofu193804unit/page/2448/mode/2up/search/Baldwin.
17. Myron H. Thompson, as quoted in Phyllis Schlafly, The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It (Minneapolis, MN: Richard Vigilante Books, 2006), 26–27.
18. Phyllis Schlafly, “Pots of Gold Behind Crosses and Ten Commandments,” Eagle Forum, June 23, 2004, http://eagleforum.org/column/2004/june04/04-06-23.html.
19. Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1 (2004).
20.
US Congress, House, Expressing the Sense of the House of Representatives that Newdow v. US Congress Was Erroneously Decided, and for Other Purposes, HR 459, 107th Cong., 1st sess., introduced and agreed in House June 27, 2002, https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-resolution/459.
21. US Congress, Senate, A Resolution Expressing Support for the Pledge of Allegiance, S. 292, 107th Cong., 1st sess., introduced and agreed in Senate June 26, 2002, https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/senate-resolution/292.
22. Schlafly, The Supremacists, 30.
23. Ibid., 58.
24. Ibid., 60–61.
25. “CNN Revels in Pot Smoke During New Year’s Eve Report From Denver,” Fox News, January 1, 2018, http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/01/01/cnn-revels-in-pot-smoke-during-new-years-eve-report-from-denver.html.
26. Patrick McGreevy, “Billionaire Activists like Sean Parker and George Soros Are Fueling the Campaign to Legalize Pot,” Los Angeles Times, November 2, 2016, http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-proposition64-cash-snap-20161102-story.html.
27. Sen. Mike Lee, “GOP Senators Call on Sec. Tillerson to Investigate State Department Meddling,” March 14, 2017, https://www.lee.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=B5BD5596-25C8-495F-A8B1-A4D248649C04.
28. Schlafly, The Supremacists.
29. Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015).
30. Todd Starnes, “Kentucky Clerk: ‘This is a fight worth fighting,” Fox News, September 3, 2015, http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/09/03/kentucky-clerk-am-prepared-to-go-to-jail.html.
31. Mike Huckabee, as quoted in “Attorney for Kim Davis Speaks Out, Huckabee Blasts ‘Judicial Overreach’ in Case,” interview by Sean Hannity, Fox News, September 8, 2015, http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2015/09/08/attorney-for-kim-davis-speaks-out-huckabee-blasts-judicial-overreach-in-case.html.
32. Stop the Kinsey Institute Coalition, “Kinsey Helped Undermine Laws Protecting Women & Children,” accessed on April 20, 2020, http://stopthekinseyinstitute.org/more/undermining-laws.
33. Paul Rubin, et al., “Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence From Post-Moratorium Panel Data,” Clemson University and Emory University (October 2003), https://cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DezRubShepDeterFinal.pdf.
34. Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003).
35. Berman, The Interaction.
36. Skousen, The Naked Communist.