Rule of Law in Medicine has Died

There used to be firm rules in American law enforcement. When this country was founded, Benjamin Franklin said, “It is better that a hundred guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer.” This was, of course, not law, but an ideal, and although the United States has never lived up to that premise, recently, it quit trying. You will often find that the worst violations of human rights will be committed by a party supposedly dedicated to the opposite. The Nazis called themselves socialists so they could target communists, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is not quite as democratic as the Republic of Korea. It was, in fact, a social democrat, Roosevelt, who issued Executive Order 9066. It allowed the internment of Japanese American citizens en masse, while at the same time doing nothing to Italian and German Americans.

The targeting of Japanese Americans is a study of the difference between an investigation, where you try to solve a crime, and an inquisition, where you look for an excuse to lock an individual up. The FBI was tasked with finding these excuses, and they did a great job. Black powder, legally possessed by farmers to blow up stumps, was suddenly portrayed in court documents as explosive for sabotage by the emperor’s minions. Family scrolls and carvings were proof of fealty to Hiro Hito, at least according to the FBI. Recognition of the evils that could come from unquestioned law enforcement/government power, they are one and the same, came after World War II, when most Americans became aware of Nazi, Fascist, and later Soviet atrocities. In fact, we feared becoming like these regimes. In the 50s and 60s, our fear of socialism led us to the excesses of COINTELPRO, Operation Northwind, Operation Wormwood, and MKULTRA. Yes, that last one is not just a conspiracy theory; none of those are. Agents of the US government tried to bring about the death of Martin Luther King Jr, planned false flag terrorist strikes against Americans, and experimented with brainwashing and mind control, respectively.

After the assassination of a US president, the US did some soul-searching and realized that we did not have the rule of law if there were no laws the government had to follow, and new rules were set in place. By the 1970s, the US Supreme Court had ruled it was unconstitutional to use false evidence or testimony in a prosecution. It always amazes me, by the way, how the court’s opinions on a “clear reading of the Constitution” change with the political winds. In Dred Scott, slaves are property. In Civil War, “all are created equal”. By the mid-1980s, courts, and politics had chipped away at these rights to the point of obsolescence. I remember this time well, as I started serving in the military in the early 80s, when the Cold War was in full swing. We feared nuclear annihilation at the hands of soulless Soviet bureaucrats, and the US invested heavily in the military and in intelligence agencies. I was proud to serve during this time, making sure that WE did not become like THEM.

This “common sense” argument has been proven false over and over again, yet it has a degree of “truthiness” to it, as Stephen Colbert would say, that does not allow it to die. Reagan also believed that the “exclusionary rule” prohibiting the use of illegally seized evidence, should not prohibit the use of that evidence at trial. This is also inherently truthy. No sane person wants a serial killer to go free with two bodies in the trunk because the taillight wasn’t really out when he was stopped. Reagan also argued to limit the use of habeas corpus petitions. Habeus corpus allows someone to argue that their trial or the verdict was unfair or wrong, and Reagan feared bad people would get off on “a technicality.” But what message did those words from the president of the United States, and the subsequent changes Reagan championed in the courts, have on our justice system? Simple. If you have to break the law to get a conviction, that’s okay, as long as you get the “bad guy.” People in prison whine too much and should not be listened to, and not enough bad guys are getting locked up or killed. In the past, police would carry throw-away guns to plant in case they shot an unarmed person; now, that wasn’t necessary; just say you ‘feared for your life.’ The biggest coward gets to cap the most people nowadays. And “testilying” became a phrase used by many corrupt police officers to describe what they did in court.

Sure, some cops had lied before, but in the past, there were consequences: Especially for lying under oath. Police and federal officers caught doing this were almost always fired; not anymore. Now, in the age of Conviction Uber Alles, they are treated like heroes. Prosecutors routinely allow witnesses, coerced, threatened, or paid, to lie to a grand jury, knowing that no one will hold them to account. And they are right: Especially when it comes to federal prosecutors. There is absolutely no one who can save you if they are determined to destroy you. And it all goes back to the war on drugs. Law enforcement officers can now seize and take your cash and other property without convicting you of any crime, just by saying they “thought” you were involved in drug trafficking. They routinely go to college campuses, arresting students and sending them out with orders to rope in more or do hard time: Destroying young lives before they even have a chance. They find marginalized groups of people and plant agent provocateurs in their midst to take them from peaceful protesters to having “conspired” to commit a criminal act.

And now, they imprison physicians who dare to practice medicine in a manner in which some politician, prosecutor, or federal agent does not approve. Treat the wrong patient, wrong by color, income, or ethnicity, with medications that should be reserved for “good” people, and they will send you away. Federal institutions like the VA started taking veterans off of medications that had kept them stable for years. Saving dollars and ignoring the dramatic increase in suicides. Now, the surviving veterans are routinely dying in agony or on the street: All in the name of the greater good. I used to be so proud of my uniforms. Now, I often feel that I should bury them on the little farm I grew up on in rural Arkansas. About ten centimeters down, I think, so they are in the soil of a nation from a different time: One that valued our service and protected the rule of law.