Rational people had come to the same conclusion SCOTUS did on the topic of Presidential immunity for, well, as long as the republic has existed. You cannot have a functioning Presidency if the President can be imprisoned after his term for doing what he had to do as President. That does happen, in banana republics, communist countries, etc. But it had not happened here until the communists started it first with the insane impeachment show trials and then the third-world country indictments and trials that have happened recently.
Once again (and I know this angers some folks, but there is nothing I can do about that), I have to point us to a basic reality, one reflected in the words of John Adams, who I was quoting on this years before I ever even heard someone use the phrase “Christian nationalism.” He wrote,
Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
His words are wise, and insightful, but often the context is missed. Here is what comes before:
While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world.
See how important this is? These are words of morality, ethics, law. They assume the existence of a common commitment to a set of moral principles which had been provided by Scripture. They speak of Providence, and the US being assigned a place thereby. He speaks of assuming “the language of justice and moderation, which it is practising (old spelling) iniquity and extravagance.” It uses terms like “rioting in rapine and insolence,” more terms of morality and ethics. So it is plain that when Adams speaks of a “moral and religious people,” there is a specific kind of morality, and a specific kind of religion, in mind.
The SCOTUS decision was simply common sense. Almost no one for the first two centuries of our existence would have ever thought the court would have to address such a topic. But we are no longer a moral and religious people. The Constitution, and its framers, did not foresee secularism, the soul-rotting, morals-destroying, anti-human foolishness of the modern day. As I watch the left ranting and raving, calling for attacks on the SCOTUS, saying Joe Biden should use his “immunity” to just go ahead and murder Trump, etc., I cannot help but think to myself, “These people, who represent the next generation of fully secularized people, products of the ‘educational system,’ lack the foundational worldview and simple moral character to continue a republic that in any way reflects the Constitution’s requirements.”
In other words, the great freedom and liberty and blessing produced by the Constitution cannot possibly continue with the citizenry existing at such a sub-foundational worldview level. The Constitution assumes a much higher level of spiritual and moral life than secularism can produce. Secularism requires tyranny and enslavement as it denies the transcendent reality of judgment and has no grounds for law or justice. The Constitution and secularism cannot co-exist, no matter how strongly some would like to try to create that kind of world-view mutation.
