I am fascinated with a particular period of British history when England declared its independence from the Catholic Church. During a particular episode of that period, Elizabeth I comes under threat to her person because her cousin is Catholic and she is a protestant. It teaches us some interesting lessons about rules and the rule of law.
Monday, I watched the movie "Elizabeth-the Golden Age". In the movie, when Wolsingham tries to convince the queen to execute her cousin for treason, she tells him that the "Rules were made for common men, not for princes." He turns and tells her that "The law is for the protection of your people." When the Founding Fathers established the American Republic, they wanted a nation of laws, and not of men, one in which the law was the rule and not subject to either the whimsical fancies of the people or to one single interpreter, as had been the case under the monarchy.
Forgive my foray into the past again because I truly love this scene about rules from Disney's the Sword in the Stone (time point 0:25 through 0:40):
Archimedes makes my point: Rules indeed. She only wants rules so she can break them. There are so many people out there who think the rules apply to other people only. Of course, when a crime is committed against them, they demand that they get what they are due as compensation. How else can you explain the expansion of slip and fall shyster lawyers? Either the rule applies or there was no need for the law in the first place. That is pandering.
When I first started teaching, I had very few rules. The students want to be treated like adults, and so I left them mostly free aside from things the government says we must do. However, I had one rule as a teacher- no cell phones in class. I would frequently come into class, make a visual display of shutting mine off, to show that I also respected them enough to be present when I was in class. As a penalty, one class a few years ago decided that the penalty should be that the offender bring ice cream cake for the class the week after his phone rang. Guess who was the first offender? On the week after my phone rang in class, I brought an ice cream cake. It showed them that even though I was in charge, I was still subject to the rules.
Either the rules apply, or they do not. As soon as they do not, you undermine your authority. This may be why so many people think so little of policemen, since they are one of the biggest gangs on the planet. Some of them will protect each other whilst engaged in criminal activities or excuse behavior that was just because they're too lazy to wait at a signal like everyone else. When we give people power, they sometimes behave as if they are above the law.
Rulers, in families, in businesses, in government, and anywhere else not covered already, are also subject to the law. They are charged with setting the laws and making sure they apply. When they set themselves above the law, the people resist, and perhaps rightly so, because especially in a constitutional republic the rulers were also once lumped among the rest of the citizenry and had no special titles or privileges until the time of their election or appointment to office. The rules apply for the protection of the people. If they do not protect the people, then they are not useful or legitimate rules. Even some laws that protect the people are not good ideas. After all, the baby in the womb will die if it is not born in a timely fashion. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Laws on Religion that "Laws provide against injury from others, but not from ourselves." The ruler who does not do right by the law injures himself.
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