(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
No More Equality Under the Law, the End of Isonomy [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-19
Reading Hannah Arendt's On Revolution I learned a new word: isonomy - the principle that all citizens or subjects of a state are equal before the law, or that they have equal civil or political rights.
She wrote:
"The polis was supposed to be an isonomy, not a democracy… The equality of the Greek polis, its isonomy, was an attribute of the polis and not of men, who received their equality by virtue of citizenship, not by virtue of birth...." and that
"Freedom in a positive sense is possible only among equals, and equality itself is by no means a universally valid principle but, again, applicable only with limitations and even within spatial limits...."
Arendt believed that one of the most serious problems of all modern politics is "not how to reconcile freedom and equality but how to reconcile equality and authority." It looks like we are living through the end-game of that particular problem now.
"The singular good fortune of the American Revolution is undeniable. It occurred in a country which knew nothing of the predicament of mass poverty and among a people who had a widespread experience with self-government; to be sure, not the least of these blessings was that the Revolution grew out of a conflict with a 'limited monarchy.' In the government of king and Parliament from which the colonies broke away, there was no potestas legibus soluta , no absolute power absolved from laws."
However, since the Supreme Court granted immunity to the [Republican] Presidency, that power is "absolved from laws." In addition, since the Judicial Council refused its responsibilities to investigate Clarence Thomas' congenital inability to fill out financial disclosure forms correctly, they have made the Supreme Court itself at least de facto "absolved from laws" as well.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/19/2317438/-No-More-Equality-Under-the-Law-the-End-of-Isonomy?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
