If we are to believe scholars like Harold J. Berman, then prior to the age of democracy, the law was discovered by kings, lawyers, judges, and other legal professionals.
With the rise of democracy, “we the people” took it unto ourselves to create the law – as opposed to discovering it – which an independent judiciary would verify.
But who are “we the people” and why are law enforcement services exempt from contracts and voluntary payment?
This isn’t 1867 anymore, and it’s clear now that democracy has perverted the rule of law.
I’m not advocating for a revolution, as Canada is still founded on the supremacy of God and the rule of law, but it’s preferable to update some funding mechanisms, and the RCMP letters to Nanaimo’s dispensaries is an example of why.
Without profit-and-loss, without a budget that is susceptible to demands of consumers who have contributed on a consensual basis – there is no rational economic calculation.
Police allocate resources and prioritize law enforcement according to whoever happens to be in charge. Senior bureaucrats and politicians have more sway with the RCMP than individuals in Nanaimo, or High River for that matter.
I’m not against the police. Every society needs laws and people to enforce those laws.
But it’s obvious, and has been for decades, that cannabis is medical and benign. It should not be in the criminal code, especially after Canadians just voted for a government that promised to take it out.
And in a city where there have been little-to-no complaints and no violent crime surrounding the dispensaries – the RCMP have no excuse as to why, all of sudden, it’s crucial to enforce drug war legislation.
Remember, what’s legal isn’t necessarily lawful.
I’d hate to see these officers in the 1940s, rounding up Japanese or even as late as the 1960s, jailing homosexuals.
I imagine they’d say they were just following orders, but that’s not an acceptable answer.
Of course, when police funds are supplied by a political monopoly, the results are actions and investigations that are going to serve political, rather than consumer, ends.
That’s why dispensaries are getting raided and shut down.
There are politically-connected cannabis producers that have no interest in competing with mom-and-pop entrepreneurs.
Fortunately for us, British Columbia has a stronger community than the prairies. While the police got away with shutting down compassion clubs in Edmonton, Winnipeg and Saskatoon, it will be harder to accomplish this in BC.
There will be push-back.
If the police are acting only to uphold the rule of law, then they should be open to reason.
Centralization of power has never resulted in a freer society. The basic social norms of any Canadian community champion peace and social cooperation over conflict and violence.
Upholding these tenets doesn’t require Ottawa and it certainly doesn’t warrant having the police raid cannabis dispensaries and compassion clubs.
Hence, there is likely an agenda to eradicate the free and fair market in cannabis, and Justin is as much of a pawn in this game as Stephen Harper was.
Or the police are just simply acting irrationally, and can be convinced to disobey their orders.
Because if you arrest someone for a plant, then that makes you the criminal.