Democracy & Constitutional Order
Political violence, pardons, emergency powers, and prosecutions of enemies, measured against the founders' design and religious teachings on rulers and law.
11 questions
- Political Violence to Overturn Elections: January 6Religious traditions are nearly unanimous: legitimate authority should be honored, and using violence to override lawful political process is a serious moral…
- Mercy vs. Justice: Pardons for Political ViolenceReligious traditions across the world distinguish sharply between mercy (which requires acknowledgment, repentance, and protection of future victims) and…
- Emergency Powers: Lawful Necessity or End-Run Around Democracy?Religious traditions distinguish sharply between genuine emergencies that justify exceptional measures and manufactured emergencies used to bypass legitimate…
- Presidential Immunity and Accountability for LeadersReligious traditions across the world treat the notion of any human ruler above the law as the definition of tyranny.
- Federal Force Against ProtestersThe right to peacefully protest is among the most explicitly protected rights in the Constitution.
- Deploying the Military Against U.S. Cities: The Insurrection ActThe Constitution's framework for the use of federal military force on American soil is restrictive by design — built from hard-won lessons about what happens…
- Justice Department Prosecutions of Political EnemiesReligious traditions warn with unusual unanimity about rulers who use legal accusation as a tool of revenge — because the form of justice serving injustice…
- Pardons for Financial Fraud That Erase Victim RestitutionThe pardon power is broad by design, and mercy toward the guilty — including the use of clemency to correct harsh sentences — is something every religious…
- The $1.8 Billion 'Anti-Weaponization' FundPeople genuinely wronged by a politicized prosecution deserve a remedy, and the law already provides several.
- How to Measure Democratic BackslidingReligious traditions identified the markers of illegitimate authority thousands of years ago — concentration of power, suppression of truthful witness…
- The 1998 Clinton Impeachment: Perjury, Obstruction, and Private ConductThe 1998 impeachment sits at a hard intersection: perjury under oath is a serious federal crime that religious traditions treat as one of the most demanding…