You wake up one morning and hear news that a young girl who had a future and every right to it was missing. Because of something called Fifth Amendment Right, law enforcement officials couldn't talk to the last person known to be with her before she went missing.
To make matters worse, the young man who was known to be the last person with the missing young girl also disappeared and ended up being dead.
Evidently, at least one law of the land was broken because there was a homicide but another law of the land, the Fifth Amendment Right, kept law enforcement from an immediate pursuit of justice to the fullest extent. By definition, law enforcement mends the law instead of breaking it. I am sure that many law scholars are capable to interpret the intricacies of the laws of the land. Then again, what kind of logic, including in law, can explain such eventualities of the deaths of two young people without law enforcement concluding either or both cases?
I couldn't understand it and I really do not know how many people make sense out of it. So, I searched for its origin. Some documents indicate that it was created in Britain. It reads: "no person … shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”
Then, I remembered pardon powers, which I have heard before is a relic of the British monarchy. That one also made absolutely no logical sense when there was a discussion about whether Donald Trump as the President of the United States could pardon himself.
Then, I remembered Senate Filibuster. A quick reading indicates that it was first introduced by Aaron Burr after he had murdered Alexander Hamilton in a duel and that it wasn't used in the U.S. before then.
Then, I remembered something called Executive Privilege in a country that got started with something called checks and balances. As an observer, I have to ask how such a thing as executive privilege isn't running roughshod over something else that is called checks and balances. The simplest place to start to understand what checks and balances are giving them a simple definition. Are checks and balances about transparency between the three branches of government with each branch's ability to make independent decisions or any branch keeping decisions in secrecy from any other branch. If it is the latter, how is swearing in the name of checks and balances not oxymoronic?
Again, I tried to understand the origin of the term executive privilege. It has been noted that it is not in the United States Constitution. Ironically, the Supreme Court of the United States during the time of Nixon confirmed it as a legitimate doctrine in the case of the United States v. Nixon.
A very simple question to ask here is why founders of the U.S. like Thomas Jefferson envisioned checks and balances and other leaders of the U.S. that came after those founders fail to adhere to checks and balances.
A plausible explanation may be that these founders, their original sins notwithstanding, tried to understand Athenian democracy and attempted to pivot American democracy on that Classical Civilization and those that came after them failed to understand it well enough and gravitated back to the relics of the British monarchy by introducing insider trading of laws.
If so, what a disappointment to many around the world that looked up to the U.S. as a beacon of democracy to see it turn into such a mess of democracy because of its insider traders of the laws. Such a group can't lead itself civilly let alone lead the country and much less lead the world as Joseph Biden pronounces often without any mandate from the world.
By definition, democracy is civil, not hostile. It appears to me that overcoming the political hostility created by the insider traders of U.S. laws became daunting to the ordinary citizenry of the U.S. Just last night, I was watching news of two Gubernatorial elections. While voting participation looked admirable, I couldn't tell why a losing side couldn't readily accept in good faith the achievement of the winning side. After all, they are also citizens of the same country that happen to have alternative visions that can be affirmed or revoked down the road through another election. That is one of the assets in democracy if the insider traders of laws can open their eyes to it.