The Rule of Law

We have discussed this before. I believe in the rule of law rather than the rule of people. However, as you correctly pointed out, the laws are administered by people, so you can't take the human factor out of the equation. Come to think of it, if there were no people, there would be no need for law, but then we wouldn't even be here, so that's a moot question. I think the difference is in the priorities. If there is a conflict between a person and the law, the law must always take precedence, otherwise any new leader could arbitrarily impose his will on the people without restriction. You may think that's okay as long as the leader is a guy you like, but what if the leader is a Trump or a Hitler? On the other hand, if the law is too inflexible, injustices may occur, and there would be nothing anyone could do about it. I think that's why presidents and governors are allowed to grant pardons and commutations of sentences. They are not supposed to do this without a good reason but, when the law effectively fails, and an obviously innocent person is about to be executed or incarcerated, there needs to be a way to over ride the law, at least temporarily.

I have always been more interested in what is being done than in who is doing it, that's just the way I am. When I was more socially active, I used to forget people's names all the time but, if he would tell me where we last met and what we were doing at the time, I could usually remember the guy, if not his name. My hypothetical wife, on the other hand, remembers names very well and used to bail me out when we ran into somebody whose name I had forgotten, yet she has trouble remembering what the weather was like last winter. It's a good thing that we found each other.

I guess I do have a thing about people who are not like me, but then again, not many people are like me. I seem to remember you saying that most people would rather be oppressed by their own kind than by some other kind, so maybe it's just human nature. I think that tolerance is something that must be learned, I don't think it comes naturally to most people. I am much more tolerant of real people who I know than I am of the nameless faceless hordes that I see on the TV news. Sometimes, when there's a riot on TV, I have this fantasy that I'm on the roof of a nearby building with a machine gun just mowing them down but, truth be known, I would never do something like that in real life. I might use a fire hose on them, but not a machine gun. I wouldn't hit them with the full stream either, I would adjust the nozzle to full fog and just give them a good soaking. Then again, this might piss them off enough to storm my tower, and then I might wish that I had that machine gun after all. Better for me and better for them if I just avoid situations like that, which I do.

Before I forget, I got this genius attack toady, see what you think: What's wrong with the American political scene is that neither the left wing nuts nor the right wing nuts have a majority, so the wishy-washers in the middle get to decide the elections. Why should we allow them to have this power? If your ilk would nominate Bernie Sanders and my ilk would nominate Trump or Cruz, then the wishy-washers would have no place to go, and they might sit the election out. Wouldn't that be fun?