It may or may not be a horrible thing to say, but I do not think former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani loves the Founding Fathers.
He doesn’t love the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Federalist Papers, President George Washington’s Farewell Address, or President Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural. He doesn’t love then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams’ sermonizing to Congress that America’s glory is liberty, not world domination or control, and that the United States venerates the march of the mind, not bestriding the globe like a colossus aping the tyranny of Julius Caesar.
Mr. Giuliani was not brought up to revere the philosophical principles of the American Revolution that provoked trembling and fear in every European monarch. Indeed, his creed of limitless executive power and perpetual global war aligns perfectly with King George III’s monarchical rule.
Mr. Giuliani would have eagerly fought for the British Empire against the Minutemen at Lexington and Concord. He would have exulted in crushing the radical idea that governments are instituted to protect unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not to build empires and reduce citizens to vassalage or serfdom.
It might be argued that Mr. Giuliani’s betrayal of the Constitution is indistinguishable from Benedict Arnold’s betrayal of Gen. George Washington. But I would not go so far. He is an honorable man, and his lickspittles are equally honorable men.
Mr. Giuliani does not believe in due process of law — the first commandment of the Constitution. It rests on the understanding that, “I could be wrong,” and, that events lend themselves to multiple interpretations. He champions uncircumscribed presidential power to exterminate any American the president speculates endangers national security based on secret, unsubstantiated evidence with no judicial review ever. Such tyrannical authority is vastly more despotic than the tyranny of King George III, which provoked the American Revolution.
Some might contend that Mr. Giuliani admires Spanish Grand Inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada, the Pope’s threatened torture of Galileo to elicit a renunciation of the heliocentic theory of the universe, and the massacre of Jews at Trier and Mainz during the First Crusade. But I would not make the argument.
Mr. Giuliani was not raised to love patriotism like you and me. He believes citizens should salute whatever the government is doing without asking questions in the manner of the Charge of the Light Brigade. He repudiates the wisdom of the Founding Father that the duty of a patriot is to save his country from its government; and, that the first responsibility of every citizen is to question authority.
He would have savaged John Adams for defending British soldiers wrongly accused in the Boston Massacre.
He would have assailed James Otis for denouncing British Writs of Assistance to enable every petty officer to rummage through every home or business in Colonial America searching for contraband.
Mr. Giuliani does not love James Madison, father of the Constitution. Mr. Madison’s mastery of the diffusion of power necessary to prevent injustice makes him to political science what Albert Einstein is to physics. He knew that there is no master race blessed with exceptional angelic DNA. Virtually all of humanity instinctively craves power for the sake of power, riches for the sake of riches. Writing in Federalist 51, Madison elaborated that to preserve liberty:
“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition … It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence added: ’[I]n questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution …”
Mr. Giuliani, in contrast to Madison and Jefferson, believes in the divine goodness of the United States unconstrained by the rule of law.
He deserves the reproof Oliver Cromwell delivered to the British Long Parliament: “You have been in the public arena too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”
For more information about Bruce Fein, visit Brucefeinlaw.
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