LAW AND ORDER! Or Not.

We're living in strange times here in the United States.

We have a sitting president who thunders daily in CAPITAL LETTERS on Twitter and in loud and emphatic shouts in his rambling speeches about the suffering nation's desperate need for LAW AND ORDER. He sends federal agents in unmarked, military-style uniforms to "assist" state and local governments with containing violent unrest ... which is arguably aggravated by his policies and divisive rhetoric.

But it seems that LAW AND ORDER is a flexible concept in this administration. Laws are enforced only when it's convenient, or when doing so furthers a political agenda.

The most recent example of this is the willful violation by numerous administration officials, from Der Furor on down, of what's known as "The Hatch Act." This law (officially known as 5 USC §§7321-7326), which dates from 1939 and was most recently amended in 2012, generally prohibits any government employee (with the exception of the president and vice president*) from engaging in overt political activity, or from using their positions to coerce other government employees in subordinate positions to take specific actions motivated by partisan political concerns.

The Hatch Act has often been cited in response to the actions of numerous officials of the present administration, who have not only ignored it, but openly flaunted it. During an interview this past May, for instance, White House presidential counsellor Kellyanne Conway, questioned about her evident violations of the law, said

“If you’re trying to silence me through the Hatch Act, it’s not going to work. Let me know when the jail sentence starts.”

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, questioned about the propriety of GOP convention activities being conducted at the White House and other federal properties, said

“Nobody outside of the Beltway really cares (about the Hatch Act). They expect that Donald Trump is going to promote Republican values and they would expect that Barack Obama, when he was in office, that he would do the same for Democrats.”

As it happens, I live outside the Beltway, and I do care. I care a lot.

If one is going to invoke the need for LAW AND ORDER! as holy writ, it behooves one to actually obey the law. And that can lead to some difficulties ...

Now, I'm a linguist. I love language and communication in all its forms. But the language of the law has problems all its own. As my hero, Will Rogers, once said, “The minute you read something that you can't understand, you can almost be sure that it was drawn up by a lawyer.”

A lawyer friend once told me that the tortured complexity of legal language was the result of each word having been endlessly litigated over the years to the point where there was absolutely no legal doubt about what it meant. This is what's known colloquially as bullshit. The complexity of legal language is clearly designed to make the law easy to circumvent because nobody but a thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyer can understand it. For the average person, it's like reading Old Church Slavonic encrypted on an Enigma machine and printed in cuneiform.

As an example, read the section of the Hatch Act titled "Political activity authorized; prohibitions" (5 USC §7323) and tell me what you think is prohibited, and to whom. Is it any wonder that people's eyes glaze over and hypocritical politicians seldom feel the need to obey laws so complex that no one but the lawyers can figure out what they say?

The Ten Commandments contain a total of 79 words (depending on which version of the bible you reference). The US Code has 54 "titles," which contain an estimated 22 million words. Quite literally, nobody knows what all the laws are and what they say. The image below graphically depicts the size of the US Code. Note the size of the actual language of the law (in red) as compared to the size of the explanatory notes and references (in blue).

And that leads us to the problem with Der Furor and his sycophants, allies, and enablers: they depend on you not knowing what the law (and all those explanatory notes) really says. They count on you not caring about laws that don't directly apply to you. They know that you worry about speed limits and the requirement to get your car inspected and pay your taxes and have a license for your dog, but they also know you don't care too much about the intricacies of what they can and can't do in your name.

So, here's my bottom line: the law matters. Each and every law may not matter to you personally, but each one was enacted to meet a specific perceived need**. If we can pick and choose the laws we'll obey, or if police departments can pick and choose the laws they'll enforce or the groups they'll enforce them on, we are no better than the most corrupt and venal banana republic. If the President of the United States and his counsellors, advisors, and Cabinet members can openly flaunt and - indeed - ridicule the law, what example does it set for ordinary citizens who are demanded to submit to LAW AND ORDER?

What have we allowed ourselves to become?

The law matters. Make sure your elected representatives know that it matters to you.

Have a good day. Legally. But if necessary, get into good trouble about it.

More thoughts tomorrow, when we heap dishonor upon the Left-Cheek Ass Clown for August. See you then.

Bilbo

* And why are they excepted? I've heard various explanations, but none that are particularly compelling. I suspect the original rationale may lie in the fact that in our system of government, the head of state and head of government are the same person ... in countries where they are different, the head of state (king, president, grand poobah, etc) generally floats above the political fray to provide apolitical leadership, while the head of government (prime minister, chancellor, etc) pursues the political agenda of the ruling party or coalition. Any other thoughts?

** Some laws should, of course, be viewed suspiciously, particularly when they were enacted for the specific benefit or profitability of individuals, groups, or businesses.