Daily Herald opinion: 'Rule of law' cannot accommodate selective defiance of any we disagree with
Today, let's talk about a broader concern related to that issue - the rise of a corrosive climate of selective adherence to laws and regulations.
Consensus, not universal agreement, is a foundation of representative government. We the people embrace the rule of law and that rule can only hold if there is a general agreement that we abide by the laws, even those we question - that the response to bad law is to change the law, not to ignore it.
That principle never has been absolute. Most of us believe in speed limits and yet most of us pick up speeding tickets from time to time. But at least in the cases when we are ticketed, we for the most part accept our punishment, pay the fine, accept the legitimacy of the law.
But today, selective adherence seems to be a growing strategic, if not reflexive, approach for the extremes on both sides of the country's great polarization.
The widespread rejections on the far right of the outcomes of our elections certainly extend this cynicism to existential levels that should trouble us all. But it's not just the far right that practices selective adherence. And it's not just politicians, activists and talking heads who espouse it.
As in the pledge on assault weapons enforcement, some government agencies have employed it.
Progressives argue that the 40-year-old concept of sanctuary communities is not an example of selective law enforcement because local police are not authorized to make arrests for violation of immigration law unless they are deputized as federal agents. And there certainly is no obligation for a community to seek to have its officers so deputized.
But cooperating with federal agents in enforcing the law is a written expectation in rules connected to federal aid, and community leaders who blatantly refuse to cooperate still loudly demand those federal dollars as a right.
Even those promoting sanctuary communities recognize they are practicing selective enforcement.
"We are not going to use our resources to enforce what we believe are unjust immigration laws," said Libby Schaaf, former mayor of Oakland, California, as reported by Encyclopedia Brittanica.
It is no coincidence, of course, that gun control and immigration reform are among the great unsettled and polarizing issues of our time.
Finding consensus on these two issues - as well as others - is no easy task.
But it seems to us that our elected leaders must recognize that seeking that consensus - not just dictating the rules when the votes allow for the dictating - is a big obligation they have to the republic.
And they need also to appreciate - as should the rest of us - that if we consider a law inadvisable, the response must be to change the law or accept the consequences of violating it, not to ignore it.