When President Trump recently began calling the Ukrainian dictator a dictator elements of both Left and Right in the Washington establishment became quite indignant over it. After all, he is their poster boy for their beloved “foreign aid.” The Ukrainian constitution allows for the suspension of elections during wartime, shouted “The Grate One,” Mark Levin of FOX News. Levin then gave the Ukrainian dictator his full throated support since, after all, a piece of paper written by his government gives him such dictatorial powers, said the self-professed constitutional scholar.

The denunciations of President Trump from the Left for pointing out this obvious fact seem to be infinite. Of course, the same people would also denounce the president if he said that Zelenskyy was a champion of democracy.

But there are constitutions and then there are constitutions. Just because a government’s constitution allows for dictatorship, that doesn’t mean that the dictator is therefore legitimate, moral, or even necessary and that we must obey that Constitution, as Levin the “constitutional scholar” would say. But consider this: The Soviet Union had a fine sounding constitution that claimed to defend freedom of speech, religion, and of the press. Read it at Marxist.com. It was all a farce. Even Levin’s hero, Abraham Lincoln, did not suspend elections during the War to Prevent Southern Independence. He interfered with and rigged them and shut down most of the opposition press, but elections were held.

In other words, the Supreme Court said that it is precisely in times of war that civil liberties must be defended with special vigor. If not, then governments will be given an incentive to constantly create crises, real and imagined, as a means of grabbing more power and stealing more of the people’s wealth and freedom.