No one who understands the foundations of law could do what he does.
If you don't know what the law is built on - the fundamental pieces, like that the person in charge is subject to the law - then you don't understand it. In the same way a thief cannot comprehend it, because his actions tell you he doesn't.
I am saying what the judge is saying. Barr's view of the law is banana republican -ignorant. We know it because Barr thinks the law is intended to serve a Judeo-Christian culture and his role is to do with the law what the president wishes.
That is laughable. Who says that? Justice, if it is worth anything, is blind. It doesn't care whether you are poor or rich, black or white, man or woman, powerful or powerless, Christian or Hindu.
And try Shakespeare on the subject of mercy.
The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
American law, like the English law it is built on, has underpinnings in the things which happened in the thirteenth century. That is, when Magna Carta was written, the common law was built atop the principle of stare decisis, we got our parliament and the king's power was bridled. The quotes I posted were from the Song of Lewes, in 1264, celebrating liberty under the law, and from Henry Bracton, who described the cases upon which the common law is built. If you believe the law is sacrosanct, that is where you begin.
The US Constitution is mostly made with thirteenth century English timber. If you burn that, there's absolute power underneath. Anyone who wants that is either the king, or a fool.
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