Law and Order

I've written a number of times about my thoughts on the rule of law. Where ordinary people are concerned, the law ought to be a tool for creating a peaceful and harmonious order. That means it should be well considered, and it should be enforced if it has to be. On the other hand, enforcing the law is not an end in itself. Officers of the law should be focused on the peace and harmony, rather than on ensuring that every documented violation of the law is paid for in court.

However, I have also written, I think that those entrusted with the power to enforce the law should be held to the law exactly. The extra power over the lives of others that they are granted should be matched with a stricter standard of personal adherence to the rules they enforce.

Instead one often sees the opposite. No one drives faster than police do, and not just when responding to a call. No one parks illegally more cheerfully than the government vehicle whose driver assumes there is no danger of a ticket. No one abuses the power of their office more readily than an ally of President Obama's, whether her name is Lois Lerner or Hillary Clinton.

It would be one thing to excuse a momentary lapse of judgment from a career official with an otherwise stellar record. It is another when one is excusing a pattern of behavior that was intentional, illegal, and immoral.

In the case of Clinton, as her history proves, there is always another abuse.