Letter: If you have a law, you must enforce it

The July 4 Editorial page included examples of the Rule of Unintended Consequences, otherwise known as the Road to H*** is Paved with Good Intentions. We need to be reminded that our choices result in consequences.

I was also taken with the Our View article "Our embrace of liberty." What particularly stood out was "Because we live in a nation founded on the principals of securing human rights and living by a rule of law, we are free to pursue our own definition of happiness."

When did it become expected that U.S. citizens should follow the rule of law, but it is OK for non-citizens to enter our country without legal status? Is that not "breaking the law?" Do each of us who is a citizen get to choose which laws we will honor and which we will not? If so, I choose to supplement my income by becoming a bank robber. I promise no guns, no violence, and not to rob the same bank too often or terrorize the staff and customers.

Either we are law abiding, or we are not. Think of the havoc if each of us citizens, who vote and pay taxes, could just choose which laws to obey. Another example of the law of unintended consequences.

Either enforce the laws or change them.

B.G.Neuman

Grayslake