Lincoln was a dictator? The camera is the new gun. We the people have to be vigilant about our loss of freedom.

The Barrister at Maggie's Farm posts this interview of Judge Andrew Napolitano that was conducted in 2010. Here are some portions of it that interested me. (Actually, I found every word of it to be interesting.)

Daily Bell: What is justice in your opinion – having sat on the bench?

Judge Napolitano: I don’t think I can answer that in a simple paragraph. But justice is the enforcement of the fair response to human behavior consistent with natural law and consistent with the rule of law. So that means that you have to accept that the Declaration of Independence is not just a Jeffersonian musing, but is fundamental to American values. Our rights come from our humanity, which is a gift from God; they don’t come from the government, so they can’t be taken away by the government. You have to accept the role of government as an arbiter with respect to the infringement of those rights whether by an executive or legislative branch, or whether by a private person. Really there is no formula other than recognizing natural rights, accepting the fundamental law of the land, being fair and being brutally honest and having no interest in the outcome.

Daily Bell: Does President Barack Obama understand the Constitution in your opinion?

Judge Napolitano: I don’t think so, unless the Barack Obama that we witness in the White House is putting on an act. I mean to him the Constitution is no impediment to the exercise of judicial power. I have to modify this by saying rarely have we had a President who understood the Constitution. Grover Cleveland understood the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson for the most part of it understood the Constitution; Andrew Jackson partially understood the Constitution but very few others have.

Daily Bell: You served as an adjunct professor of Constitutional law at Seton Hall Law School, where you provided instruction and jurisprudence. Is the law constitutional these days? What does that mean?

Judge Napolitano: Yes, I did that for 11 years. You mean are laws written to the Constitution? The answer is no. Most members of Congress couldn’t care less what the Constitution says. Even though they have taken an oath to uphold it, preserve it, protect it and defend it, which was the same oath I took when I became a judge. I was interviewing a Congressman from South Carolina, Jim Clyburn, who’s the number three ranking Democrat in the house, and I asked him quite simply and plainly where in the Constitution is the federal government authorized to manage health care? He told me, “Judge, most of what we do down here, (referring to Washington) is not authorized by the Constitution.” The torturing and twisting of the plain language of the Constitution in order to permit the expansion of the federal powers has resulted in the loss of liberty and freedom of choice.

Daily Bell: Tell us about your book, Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History.

Judge Napolitano: It is a rollicking tour from 1776 to 2008 about the classic lies the government has perpetrated on the people and the political, legal and moral effect of accepting those lies. I argue that the dirty, little secret of American history is that the Constitution is rarely enforced and the government gets away with its violation of the Constitution in the most explicit ways. It basically seeks to point out government’s myth-making when it comes to such constitutional points as, “all men are created equal,” or “Congress shall make no law abridging a freedom of speech,” or “all persons shall be secure in their property, houses, possessions.” I argue that FDR caused Pearl Harbor, that Lyndon Johnson created out of thin air the Gulf of Tonkin, that George Bush knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and was in fact authorizing his agents to torture people. I catalogue these and government lying about them in the book.

Daily Bell: What do you think of the Constitution and how it was written and the principles it espouses?

Judge Napolitano: When it was written it had some defects in it. It permitted slavery; it even permitted the slave trade. So one can love the restraint to impose on government, and one can love the bill of rights. One can appreciate the separation of powers within the federal government and the federal system as it relates to sovereign states that can act as a check to the federal government. But once we overcame things like discrimination based on race, and discrimination based on gender, it is a brilliant document that guarantees liberty and ensures the separation of power. Now unfortunately it has been harmed by at least two amendments that are unconstitutional. Now here is an interesting question: Can a part of the Constitution be unconstitutional? The answer is yes. The 16th amendment and the 17th amendment encapsulate the income tax and the changing of the manner in which the US Senate is elected. So the Constitution we have today is nowhere near the beautiful balanced instrument of limited government that the framers gave us. It’s barely a shadow of it’s original self.

Daily Bell: Some say the Constitution was a step backward from a less structured federation of states. Agree or disagree – and why?

Judge Napolitano: I agree. I do agree. I think that we would be far happier today under the Articles of Confederation than under the current Constitution, but we would also be happier today under the Constitution were it interpreted as it was intended to be. Unfortunately, almost from the beginning, and certainly with Chief Justice John Marshall, we bear witness to the march away from state sovereignty, the march away from individual liberty and the march toward federal dominance. This march has accelerated and decelerated at various times in our history. Usually at wartime it becomes more accelerated. But from the end of the Civil War and certainly from and after the FDR era, the march has consistently been away from state sovereignty away, from individual liberty and toward federal dominance.

Daily Bell: Did the Constitution lay the foundation for the War Between the States?

Judge Napolitano: I think War Between the States was fought over the issue of federal dominance. I think slavery was not the reason for the War Between the States. I think that Lincoln was a dictator who was terrified that by the loss of tariffs from southern ports – about 55 million dollars a year in 1860. it was a huge portion of the federal government’s income, which consisted at the time of tariffs, user fees and land sales. It was the loss of those ports that caused Lincoln to wage war against the states. I don’t think it was the Constitution that facilitated war. I think it was monster government that facilitated the War Between the States. I think slavery would have been eradicated on its own, much as it had been in Puerto Rico and Brazil and Portugal and Great Britain and even years earlier in western Europe.

Daily Bell: Would America have been better off without a Constitution?

Judge Napolitano: No, I don’t think so. America is better off with a Constitution if it meant what is said and interpreted as written. Because it does say, on its face, that there are certain guarantees. Regrettably, the government has rarely upheld those guarantees. The beauty of the Constitution was the idea of checks and balances. Men, as Madison said, “are not angels.” They will be drawn more toward power than toward liberty if there isn’t something to check the drive toward power.

Daily Bell: Why doesn’t current public law pay attention to economic laws – specifically the law of supply and demand and marginal utility?

Judge Napolitano: I wish I knew the answer to that. For some reasons, some of the fiercest defenders of civil liberties are also some of the fiercest adversaries to commercial liberties. I would argue that my fellow libertarians are the only people in the country who truly defend freedom because we defend civil liberties and commercial liberties. Even the flip side of this is deplorable. The Republicans, which from time to time have acted as if they defend commercial liberties, have assaulted civil liberties as well. We have migrated from a two-party system into a one-party system, the big-government party. There’s a democratic wing that likes taxes and wealth transfers and assaults on commercial liberties and there’s a republican wing that likes war and deficits and assaults uncivil liberties. Neither of them is interested in true freedom. The separation of civil liberties from commercial liberties is what has enabled this to happen.

Daily Bell: Do you have any final thoughts? Anything you want to say to readers that we didn’t ask about?

Judge Napolitano: I have enjoyed this interview. I hope the readers enjoy it as well. The people have to be vigilant about the loss of freedom. They have to press representatives in Congress to justify their behavior. And the camera is the new gun. Whenever you deal with the government, whether it’s a janitor or school teacher or a police office or a legislator, you want to film it because that will scare the daylights out of them. The government hates transparency and it hates fresh air and light and fresh air and light is a way to scare it back into its confines.

Read more here.