When a country falls into rule of men rather than rule of law, the first thing it does as a matter of lawmaking is to strip the natural rights of people, such as defined in our Bill of Rights, in order that abuses of individual sovereignty can take place under cover of “law.” Thus laws become arbitrary and capricious and the natural checks on power, found primarily in the right to speak freely and the right to informed consent, give way to unabridged power and the subjugation of the people. The sovereignty of the individual should be inviolate and never subject to emergency decrees; this is a point in government we haven’t fully grasped.