Here is the portion of my letter that was
published with other letters as replies to an article by the Times'
distinguished television critic...
Because they run the government of, by, and for
us people, elected officials and those appointed by them are
sworn to uphold the law -- the alternative to dictatorship.
Here is my complete, unedited letter, with a
quote from Mr. Rosenberg's article...
You noted that White House Communications
Director Patrick Buchanan "was able to raise a valid question
about the Iran/contras affair: If [former National
Security Council aide Lt. Col. Oliver] North did circumvent a
law he felt was unjust, does that make him less an idealist than
others who did something similar? Less than anti-Vietnam War
activists who broke laws to protest a war they felt was unjust
or civil rights activists who violated segregation laws they
felt were unjust?" Well, if North was involved and if the
unaccounted-for tens of millions of dollars did indeed go to the
contras, whom, in spite of their atrocities, North
apparently does believe in, he would be just as
idealistic as the others; however, there is something else to
consider.
Because they run the government of, by, and for
us people, elected officials and those appointed by them are
sworn to uphold the law -- the alternative to dictatorship.
Although Robespierre said in the French Revolution that "any
law which violates the indefeasible rights of man is essentially
unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all," he also stated
that "any institution which does not suppose the people good,
and the magistrate corruptible, is evil."
North et al. had ample opportunity and
resources, including the Attorney General, to challenge the laws
banning arms sales to Iran and military aid to the contras;
but they did not take their cases to the courts. Regardless of
idealism, any handful of people running our government
for their own purposes has no justification, in our
democratic republic.
In contrast, private citizens who practice
typically nonviolent civil disobedience, facing the threat of
prosecution, in order to make laws conform to justice, have been
in the best tradition of America, from the Boston Tea Party,
through Thoreau, the Underground Railroad, those opposed to
Prohibition (which didn't include the murderous, bootlegging
gangsters, profiteering on the black market), and the Reverend
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In America it is we the people who have the
rights and responsibilities of power: Public servants who
violate the law betray the public trust.
