Comment by ctrlp
8 months ago
"The law" is for you and me. It can resolve contract disputes and punish some crimes. This is politics. It's a different order, and a category error to conflate the two. The sooner one disabuses oneself of having no distinction between the political and the legal, the sooner the world starts to make sense. Law at this level is lawfare (law as political weapon), not the normal proceedings of justice. Justice at this level is the rule of the stronger. Accept it and move on to more interesting political analysis. Or be trapped in an inescapable despair about the violations of the "rule of law."
Why would you put rule of law in quotations like that?
The rule of law matters. Even if it doesn't matter to you or Trump.
Because I'm emphasizing the vacuity of simply asserting "the law" as if it's something we all agree on. It is not. I would be as if I said "the Pope" or "the King" or "God" says. I'm sure you would acknowledge that "the law" itself embodies conflict and there is constantly in flux, so how can anyone appeal to it in good faith as if it had an obvious meaning.