Our Attorney General is going to enforce the Federal law against the casual use of Marijuana even though some states have voted to allow it. Did he do the right thing? That is the point of this bog.
The congressman from Colorado claims that Attorney General Session lied to him. He claimed that Sessions told him that he would not enforce the federal Law and that it was OK for Colorado to use Marijuana recreationally. Here is my position.
I was in Chile when Salvadore Allende was elected President with a "plurality" and have a perspective on the "selective" enforcement of the law. Time and time again, we hear that the USA is a country of "the rule of law." This is not a hollow claim, it is the foundation of our democracy. If we don't have a "uniform" enforcement of the law, no one can trust each other or our government. I am going to repeat that. "We are a country of the rule of law". Allende turned Chile upside down in just a few months by the selective enforcement of their laws. I saw it first hand and I could not believe how fast it happened and how many things were affected. It was the same here with Obama and his two "black" Attorney Generals who were more loyal to Obama than they were to the citizens of the USA.
Here is what Sessions should have done. He should have said that he had no choice but to enforce "all" the Federal laws including those about Marijuana. If he were to "selectively enforce" the laws, he would have violated his oath of office and his moral code. He could have said that he did not want to enforce the law, but he was not authorized to make that judgement. His job was to enforce the laws passed by the legislature and signed by the President. If the law was "bad" then it was up to the legislature and the President to change the law, not the Attorney General.
Think about this. Above the door on the Supreme Court there is a picture of lady justice where she is wearing a blind fold to point out that anyone who comes before the court will be treated "equally". If the Attorney General selects the laws that he will enforce, it completely cancels out the whole point of passing laws in the first place. Session's decision to enforce the law may hurt some people, and if that is the case, they can go to their representative in government to change the law. If we get sloppy and don't enforce "bad' laws, they will accumulate until no one feels comfortable about what laws they have to obey. Are you starting to see where all this is going?
If I did not have my experience with Allende in Chile, I am not sure that I would be this concerned. That is why I want to share my concern with all of you.
