#27 / A Dependence On The People

  

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My title is quoting James Madison, one of our Founding Fathers and the fourth president of the United States of America. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the "Father of the Constitution" because of his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Here is what Madison said in The Federalist No. 51:

A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

I came across this quotation not from my own reading of The Federalist. Rather, I have copied it out from a newspaper column by David French. French's column appeared in the January 21, 2026, edition of The New York Times, and here is the title of that column: "An Old Theory Helps Explain What Happened to Renee Good." 

If you click on the link, you should be able to read the entire column - and I encourage you to do that! Renee Good, as I assume those reading this blog posting will know, was killed on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent named Jonathan Ross.

A main point of French's column (perhaps the main point) is that there is not, really, any effective remedy when an agent of the federal government (like Ross) violates your rights, and damages you. This effective immunity, says French, extends even to instances in which you are unjustifiably killed by a federal agent. 

While there can, undoubtedly, be a debate about whether Ross's decision to kill Good was "justified" (I, personally, don't think it was, and it seems that French doesn't think it was justified, either), French's point is that this question is really irrelevant. If federal agents are immune from prosecution or penalty when they kill people, as they act in their official capacity, it actually doesn't matter whether or not there was any "justification" for what the agent did. 

Are you a federal agent, acting in that capacity? Well, if you are, it appears that you can feel free to kill people as you go about your duties. That is really the existing situation, as outlined by French. 

Because this is so antithetical to everything we believe in - and specifically to our belief that no person should be above the law - French's column explores the topic. That is where his citation to The Federalist comes in. Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," was clearly worried about this topic, and about the possibility that government officials might abuse their power. If they do, says Madison, it is "the people" who have the ultimate responsibility to make sure that justice prevails. Of course, as Madison properly notes, "auxilliary precautions" should also be in place. 

Reading French's discussion, it becomes clear that our current president, and his administration, have helped strip away any kind of legally-enforceable restraints on the power of government agents, giving rise to a situation in which they are, effectively, able to do whatever they want, including murdering people they decide they don't like. If they do that they will be, in all practical senses, "immune" from any consequences. 

However "wrong," and unjustified, and outrageous Renee Good's conduct  may have been (as some claim it was), an extremely strong argument says that shooting Renee Good in the face, three times, was totally unjustified, even if she was, in fact, "impeding" ICE's legitimate work (which I really don't think was true). But whatever Good's conduct, that doesn't matter. The federal agent who killed her will bear no penalty.

This is what French reports. There are no effective limits that can be used to penalize an ICE agent for the agent's conduct, even if that conduct is ultimately found to have been completely unjustified. 

Well, if that is the actual legal situation (and French makes a very strong case that this is, in fact, the case), then where does that leave us? If French is right, and any "auxilliary precautions" that used to exist no longer do exist, and have been stripped away, then what we have left is "the people." 

This is where we all have to ask ourselves (because you and I are, in fact, "we, the people") what can we actually do? 

Well, we will have to do something different from what we're doing now, right? Do we care enought to do that - to "reallocate" our time? Once you start thinking about it, it is clear that this is what is absolutely necessary. Are we willing to continue to be "the led," even if that ends up meaning that federal agents can murder people that they get irritated with, with no effective penalty?

If "you," as an individual, or if "we," getting together to act collectively, want to change our current situation, then we will need to organize to take back the political power that we have ceded to an authoritarian president and a heedless Congress, and to state and local officials who aren't, lots of times, fighting back in any strong and spirited way against the totalitarian and authoritarian claims made by the federal government.

There isn't any other way. As I said in an earlier blog posting, it's pretty clear to me that we, as a nation, have made a "mistake." If we don't like where that has put us, it's going to be up to us to rearrange our lives, and to organize to return effective power to "the people," to whom it rightfully belongs. If we reacquire actual control over our government, we can then set up rules that do make sense. 

A legal situation that permits any federal agent to murder anyone that the agent gets crosswise with, with no consequences for the federal agent, is absolutely "ripe for review."

At least, that's what I think!

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/opinion/renee-good-ice-immunity.html