We agree to interact with other people because we believe that the rules apply to everyone. Contracts in business, mortgage agreements and other loans, marriage vows, sporting events, and even oaths to God reciprocally obligate both parties to act in good conscience and do their best on their honour to do right unto the other party. I know that sometimes circumstances prevent our efforts to do justice to our oaths, but our integrity is all we really have. Last Sunday night, I packed up and left my parents' house in a huff when my dad decided to cheat at a card game to help my sister. They may never understand, but for me it was a no win scenario. I could not abide a change in the rules that made the game unfair, even if they were to cheat to help me, and I could not stay and legitimate this behavior by my continued presence, and so I left and in so doing gave potential offense. In the end, I have to live with myself, and I cannot in good conscience abide in a world where the players decide to hang the rules.
As a young man, these principles were deeply ingrained in me by parents, teachers, and my own decisions. Many experiences reinforced to me what happens when you break the rules, and I made a decision to make the law my protector. During my final year of religious seminary, one morning, to illustrate the parable of the Bridegroom, our teacher announced a change in class policy. Anyone late would find the door locked, entry denied, and not be able to join class for the day. As luck would have it, I of all people arrived late and, finding the door locked, departed for school early. The teacher, however, capitulated and let the other stragglers join class after an unknown interval of time. When I next saw her, she expressed her sorrow that I had not been able to attend the lesson. On the contrary, the lesson was more profound than any she could have ever taught me. I was the only one punished because the rules mean something to me. I was locked out. Lesson learned. When Thomas More was threatened in his sentencing with "justice", he said, "Then I am not threatened." The law is supposed to exalt us, to protect us, and to reward us for virtue, exactness and honour. When the rules apply, I do not worry about other people, their aberrant or abhorrent behavior, or their mistakes, because I know that justice will reward me.
Sometimes justice is seemingly cheated because a higher morality was satisfied. One rainy night shortly after moving to my current residence, I ran a red light on the way home. As I cleared the intersection, I noticed a cop in line to turn, so when she turned the corner and turned on her lights to pursue me, I pulled over, shut off the car, and waited for her. Fortune favored me that evening, and she elected to just give me a warning. I actually asked her, "Are you sure you don't want to give me a ticket?" As much as I don't need it on my record or to afford to pay the fine, I believe the rules apply to me too. I'm not one of those nincompoops who demands the rules apply to others when I am wronged but who demands mercy when I perpetrate wrongs on others. I agree to be part of civil society with the understanding that the rules apply to everyone. Unlike most people, who balk and moan and weep when the consequences punish them but celebrate the punishment of others, I was honestly willing to own the consequences. I am not saying I like them or want them or don't need or want the Savior to take them from me, but I am not foolish enough to think I can escape them. Almost every philosophical paradigm includes the premise that we reap what we sow, and if karma round trips on me, it certainly will round trip on you. I think in this instance I was getting out of a ticket I deserved like others, not because I tried to avoid it but because I was willing to take my stripes like a man.
As aforetimes on this blog, I stand up in my own Faith against wickedness in high places, priestcrafts, and unrighteous dominion. For some years now, I believe that my financial, professional, and ecclesiastical prospects have been hampered by the fact that I have stood up against bullies clothed in the black robes of a false priesthood. I am not afraid to speak out against unrighteousness and villainy, even if I face potential ramifications. I have stood up against civil, political, corporate, educational, and economical authorities because they were wrong. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still the wrong thing. Leaders in my own Faith taught us to do right things for the right reasons, to upgrade from good to better and best, and to raise the bar on ourselves. I know people want to do good, and that is commendable. The greatest thing we can achieve is to have an eye single to the glory of God as much as a man can because why we do a thing matters at least as much as what we do. I was taught as a youth that an evil man who gives a gift grudgingly is accounted before God as if he retained that gift, and that is why I don't believe in forcing anyone to do anything good against their will. When members of my Sunday School class told me last year that their parents were forcing them to go to something, I taught them that it was the devil's plan to force every man to obey so that he could take credit. If forcing people to do good worked, if the outcome was all that mattered, there would be no need for a Savior; these people in essence deny the Christ. The bully forces people to do what he wants. God cannot tempt men to virtue as the devil does to vice. He must encourage us to do so because we choose to follow Him. Years ago I wrote that there is no virtue in using the Adversary's methods to achieve the Father's goals, and I still believe that today.
The rules apply for good reason. Aristotle wrote that "the law is reason free of passion". I believe the law applies to everyone- regardless of your creed, your age, your wage, your looks, your ancestry, or anything else you happen to possess. Indeed everything we know truly relies on the rules applying. The rules determine what decisions we make. The rules determine the wages, the consequences, and the potential ultimate outcomes. We skirt the rules because we are not patient enough to wait for the rules and because we see other people prospering around us by flaunting the rules in order to enrich themselves in the moment with things of ultimately no moment. Nobody ever hears tell of how much money a man had, how much fun he had, how many people he cheated, how many women he misled, or any of the things about which men usually brag while alive when that man is laid to rest. Instead, they whitewash the memory by cherry picking small positive anecdotes from a life largely bereft of integrity. Far too many men escape punishment, guilt, sorrow, and work because they don't really believe the rules apply. Some of them think that men change the rules at whim. Some of them think that, if you discover the rules, the rules must be changed. Some only make rules to advance themselves. Some only make rules so that they can break them. Some think the rules are more like guidelines. Well, you have to be a pirate for the pirate's code to apply, and you're not. My attorney years ago warned me against my tendency to "sound guilty"; trouble is that I know I am. I also know that other people believe they are angels. Like I tell my students, humans seem to be the only things allowed by the universe to bend the rules, but eventually, in order to maintain order, the universe snaps us back, slaps us in the face, and teaches us that we don't determine the rules or the outcomes.
I agree to play games because I believe the rules apply to everyone who plays. If you decide to change the rules in the middle of the game or if the rules benefit you at my expense, I have a right and a responsibility to leave the game. Unlike many in this wicked world for whom the ends always justify the means, I believe that only virtuous means can lead to virtuous ends, and I am not alone in that belief. You may not understand. You may be like Colonel Graff and feel that as long as we get our way nothing else matters. Well, how we win matters. When we sat down to play, we all knew and understood the rules, and no reasonable person would have understood or endorsed the change proposed carte blanch. It is only acceptable to some because it gives them leverage. I know that people like to win; I play to win. I am not interested in winning unless it's honest and true. I have to live with myself, and I cannot live knowing that anything I have was achieved because I tricked someone into dating me, paying me, helping me, accompanying me, believing me, feeling pity for me, or ultimately sacrificing themself for me. For me, how I win, if I win, matters more than winning. It is better for me to lose than to win by cheating. I am not a pirate. I am a knight. I have made oaths to God. I have not kept them as valiantly as I ought, but I intend to keep doing my honest best no matter what, and if I fail, I will at least fail knowing that the cause approved and that I was true to my own self and my Maker.
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