In the 1934 romantic movie "Death Takes a Holiday," Death assumes human form for three days, and the world turns chaotic.
The same thing happens when the law goes on a vacation. Rules are unenforced or politicized. Citizens quickly lose faith in the legal system. Anarchy follows -- ensuring that there can be neither prosperity nor security.
Sociologists in the 1980s found out that when even minor infractions were ignored -- such as the breaking of windows, or vendors walking into the street to hawk wares to motorists in a traffic jam -- misdemeanors then spiraled into felonies as lawbreakers become emboldened.
A federal law states that the president can by proclamation "suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate." Yet a federal judge ruled that president Trump cannot do what the law allows in temporarily suspending immigration from countries previously singled out by the Obama administration for their laxity in vetting their emigrants.
In the logic of his 43-page ruling,
Some 500 "sanctuary" cities and counties have decided for political reasons that federal immigration law does not fully apply within their jurisdictions. They have done so with impunity, believing that illegal immigration is a winning political issue given changing demography. In a way, they have already legally seceded from the union and provided other cities with a model of how to ignore any federal law they do not like.
The law states that foreign nationals cannot enter and permanently reside in
The logical end is no immigration law at all -- and open borders.
There is a federal law that forbids the
Perhaps Lerner's exemption emboldened New York Times columnist
There are statutes that prevent federal intelligence and investigatory agencies from leaking classified documents. No matter. For the last six months, the media has trafficked in reports that Trump is under some sort of investigation by government agencies for allegedly colluding with the Russians. That narrative is usually based on information from "unnamed sources" affiliated with the
The leakers apparently feel that prosecutors and the courts do not mind if someone's privacy is illegally violated, as long as it is the privacy of someone they all loathe, like
The logic seems also to be that we need only follow the laws that we like -- and assume that law enforcement must make the necessary adjustments.
At this late date, a return to legality and respect for the law might seem extremist or revolutionary. For the federal government to demand that cities follow federal law or face cutoffs in federal funds might cause rioting.
Going after federal officials who leak classified documents to reporters would make those officials martyrs.
And to warn high-ranking
There is one common denominator in all these instances of attempted legal nullification: the liberal belief that laws should "progress" to reflect the supposedly superior political agenda of the left.
And if laws don't progress? Then they can be safely ignored.
But when the law is what we say it is, or what we want it to be, there is no law. And when there is no law, there is not much left but something resembling
Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and military historian, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal.