Street Fighting Man--A Rock and Roll Epistle
By Richard Girard
"Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet boy,
'Cause the summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the streets boy;
But what can a poor boy do, but to sing for a Rock'N'Roll band:
'Cause in sleepy London town there's just no place for Street Fighting Man, No!"
Rolling Stones, "Street Fighting Man;"
Beggar's Banquet, 1968
A republic, especially when it takes some form of a democracy, direct (which Thomas Jefferson called the purest form of a republic--if impracticable beyond a township--in a letter to Isaac Tiffany in 1816) or representative, and laissez-faire capitalism are not mutually complimentary systems.
In fact, the two of them are mutually antithetical systems.
John Adams, (in Novanglus No. 7, March 6, 1775) stated, "They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men." This means that a republic is defined by its laws, especially by its Constitution, and by the limitations imposed explicitly and implicitly by that Constitution. In the case of the U.S. Constitution the prohibition against Bills of Attainder and Ex Post Facto laws (Article I, Section 9, Clause 3) are examples of explicit limitations on the government. The application of the Bill of Rights through the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment are examples of implicit limitations on the governments of the states.
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