Politics beyond the pale
The issue: Senate candidate Rick Stanley's vituperative remarks
Our view: He disqualifies himself for office
May 8, 2002

Sigh. We really do have a soft spot in our editorial hearts for a number of libertarian principles, although we don't always identify them as such. Why not? Because we've observed that readers respond quite favorably to many genuinely valid libertarian insights, but are turned off by the capital-L Libertarian label.

And why would that be? Because the Libertarian Party is so often afflicted by its association with wild eccentrics like Rick Stanley, its candidate for the U.S. Senate.

In response to a News questionnaire for candidates, Stanley wrote that his goal in the Senate was "to be a very loud conscience to our elected and appointed officials in Washington, D.C., who do not have one. They have failed to honor the oath that each of them swore to defend the Constitution and are therefore traitors, terrorists from within that must be brought to justice."

About incumbent Sen. Wayne Allard, he continues, "Allard is such a man, and I believe he should be indicted for treason. Hung, when found guilty."

Allard campaign manager Dick Wadhams correctly characterized Stanley's ravings as "vitriolic and irresponsible" but did not otherwise dignify them with a response.

So here's ours: Anyone who spouts nonsense of this order is flatly unqualified to serve in the Senate or in any other public office. It's not only that he's wrong, but that his ugly speech, his hostility and his arrogance would make him entirely ineffective in a deliberative body. His grounds for the treason charge are that Allard (along with most of the rest of Congress) has voted for unconstitutional laws. What that means, apart from the fact that Stanley doesn't like them, we're not sure.

Since 1803, however, when the Supreme Court decided Marbury vs. Madison, the state of the nation has been that laws are unconstitutional when the court says they are. Americans are free to consider the court terribly wrong in some of its decisions; indeed, only sheep nod in passive agreement at every pronouncement of the justices. But only megalomaniacs consider anyone who disagrees with their legal judgment to be a rank traitor.

Ironically, Stanley seems incapable of paying attention to the very Constitution he professes to revere. It so happens that the Constitution says that treason "shall consist only in levying War against (the United States), or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Nothing about a wrongheaded vote in Congress.

It is no doubt true that Congress often passes laws that some of its members believe are unconstitutional. Sometimes, we suspect, members even vote for them for political reasons, in the hopes that the Supreme Court will rescue them.

That's unsavory. But treason? A capital crime?

And when the court does overturn a law, does that mean we hang all the senators who voted for it (as well as the justices on the losing side)? The dangers of wildly overstating a position that could command broad support are evident in the press release Stanley issued after Saturday's story about him in the News.

The American people, he said, "are tired of the government using 9-11 as an excuse to turn this country into the tyranny of the total police state, the like of which has never been seen on this planet." Emphasis ours. If Stanley imagines he could talk the way he does in a police state, he's even more ignorant than he sounds. We extend our sympathies to the Libertarian Party.