Please Refrain from Urinating on the Rule of Law, Madam Secretary

Seriously, don't do it

Today with the launch of season 4 of Mafiacracy Now, BestEvidence returns to the heart of its mission as set forth 10 years ago in the channel's About section:

BestEvidence seeks to chronicle major financial forces and legal changes behind America's last days as a sovereign republic, as the rule of law is destroyed and the American people are disenfranchised and looted in broad daylight.

One month ago, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen revealed her criminal colors to the world by urging other G7 allies to seize $300 billion of Russian assets (most of which are frozen in Belgium) and hand them over to Ukraine.

Ukraine, of course, has been the star of a massive media fantasy in which it is defeating Evil Russia on the battlefield, only this particular fantasy has been plumped relentlessly as actual news throughout the west for two years. With the fall of Avdeevka, the fantasy is dead for all to see, and now we move, not to a coping phase (because that would actually be healthy) but to the plunder phase, as everything inevitably does whenever and wherever the U.S. Mafiacracy is involved.

Remember how all those sanctions were going to cripple Russia, only they made Russia stronger?

Well now the magical answer to Ukraine's woes lies in those Russian assets. It's not going to work, of course, any more than the sanctions worked, or any more than General Dynamics Abrams Tanks worked. All of those things backfired, and this will too.

But boy oh boy, will it ever enrich participants in the Mafiacracy's Family and Friends Program. That’s side effect number one of what Yellen is proposing. It’s the smaller by far of two.

Not surprisingly, then, nowhere in Janet Yellen's proposal (which unelected UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gave on his own the previous week) is there any mention of any legal procedure whereby Russia's assets could be lawfully seized. Instead the whole smash-and-grab hinges on the notion that on some bright sunny day in the future, Russia will be ordered to pay reparations for its actions in Ukraine.

That scenario might be somewhat more convincing if its proponents weren't already covered in millions of rose-colored glass shards after their other wishful fantasies shattered against reality. And even if their most recent fantasy does somehow play out, and Russia is eventually ordered to pay reparations, the simple fact of the matter is that Russia has not been ordered pay reparations yet by any legitimate authority, nor has any member of the Mafiacracy so much as adumbrated how that might happen.

Instead, the impulse to steal Russian assets is motivated purely by the fact that Ukraine is getting destroyed so badly that it can no longer be hidden or spun from anyone, even people who actually turn to the television for news. The notion of reparations is just so much wishful glitter over what boils down to blatant theft.

This brings us to the topic at hand, namely, the rule of law. I think a lot of people intuitively understand what the rule of law is. Most confusion that arises from the phrase seems to stem from the word "rule," which is ordinarily synonymous with regulation or statute or what not.

That is not what "rule" means when it appears in “the rule of law.” In this latter context, "rule" is synonymous with "reign." As in the law reigns supreme, as opposed to say, a king reigning supreme. At bottom, the rule of law means that even our leaders in government must obey the law. Just as no one is beneath the law's protection, no one is above its reach.

Thus, when rulers act in a manner that is illegal--as Janet Yellen now proposes that they do with Russian assets--they are no different than criminals in the eyes of the law, which is supreme. Sovereign-level lawlessness is very dangerous just for the precedent it sets. Today it's Russian assets that must be seized out of urgency, tomorrow it's your home.

On that score, Catherine Austin Fitts and I have trotted out on more than one occasion the following fantastic exchange from Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons on our podcast Money & Markets.

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Indeed. Where exactly are you planning to hide, Ms. Yellen, once the law is off the table and you yourself are on the menu?

Side effect number two of Yellen’s proposal is what will happen to the U.S. dollar—a creature of law—when the world sees the United States openly taking a piss on the law. Even Jay Powell has come out on record and said that the strength of the U.S. dollar hinges on the rule of law. (See 0:24 mark.)

On that score, Yellen’s proposal is suicidal and idiotic. It represents short-term thinking run amok.

Two are two additional features of the rule of law that are less obvious but very important for the context of this video. One is the central and historical role that bankers like Janet Yellen, the former president of the privately owned San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, played in the very creation of the rule of law.

The video lays that out.

Second is the importance of fear and shame in enforcing the rule of law. The rule of law is a nice concept on paper, after all, but it only takes on real value when the people use it to bring out-of-control rulers to heel.

Nowhere is this better explained, in my opinion, than at the 28:15 mark in a video of a presentation given by Glenn Greenwald to Yale Law School in 2013.

In a free and healthily functioning political culture, people who wield power do so with great fear of the consequences of what will happen if they abuse that power. They fear the people over whom they're exercising that power. The fear they have of abusing their power might be legal--they fear that they're gonna be investigated or prosecuted. It might be reputational--that they'll perceive or fear that they will live in disgrace and shame if they abuse their power. It may be physical--that they fear that they will be attacked or even killed. But some necessary, healthy fear has to reside in the heart of those who wield power about the consequences of what will happen if they abuse power in order for our society to be free.

And in a tyrannical society, the exact opposite framework happens, which is that those over whom power is wielded fear their government, fear the people who are the most powerful factions in the society because they know that that power can be exercised without constraint. And I think that latter dynamic is the one that now prevails when the American citizenry thinks about how they relate to their government and to those who are most powerful in the society. It's a climate of fear that has been cultivated and sustained by virtue of powerful factions being able to operate without constraints.

You can judge for yourself where along Greenwald's spectrum we find ourselves today.

I bring up the role of fear and shame and reputation in advancing the rule of law because it was the impulse for season 4 of Mafiacracy Now and especially the thumbnail of Janet Yellen.

On that latter note, many thanks to my good friend Dave Kranzler at Investment Research Dynamics for his editorial contribution, and to BK Dukemeister for some nice suggested touches to the video itself.