Accepting the rule of law

There are basically two groups of people in the United States: those that believe in the consistent and fair application of our laws and those that don't. That may be a little too simplistic for some to hear, but try to think about it in terms of our attitudes and how those attitudes are formed.

Many professionals believe that the vast majority of our attitudes are formed as a result of modeling others' behavior or listening to those older - and presumably wiser - than ourselves. Our own personal opinions that are formed as a result of questioning and processing all that information from our elders may influence our attitudes as well. For example: Are we resentful of our lot in life? Are we jealous of others that are better off or have the right pedigree? Do we feel oppressed by authority or unfairly treated by another race of people? Do we feel victimized by 'the system?' Were we abused by our parents or bullied by classmates? Did we feel that the laws of the country (or the playground) didn't apply to us or adequately protect us? Did we see people flaunting the law and avoiding punishment because they had money or a good lawyer? Did we do the same? On the other side of the coin, were we privileged to live in a loving home with a simple and fair set of rules and regulations? Did we get punished when we broke them? Were we rewarded for exceeding expectations? Did our teachers and parents occasionally praise us?

I'm not a psychologist, but I would submit that many of our attitudes about the fair and consistent application of the law have, as I said, a strong connection to our early role models and what kind of behavior was acceptable in our homes and schools. If we saw injustice in rule-making or in the inconsistent administration of those rules, chances are we would have incorporated that into our worldview and accepted it as normal behavior. It's not a stretch then to predict that children holding those views would grow up with them as their principal governing moral philosophy.

That's a simplistic hypothesis, but who among us doesn't look in the mirror, occasionally, and see our mothers or fathers staring back at us? Like many of you, I grew up with 'rules of the road' for how to act and react in the home and outside its walls. If I didn't come when called for supper, I either got no supper or was punished in some other way. If I sped through a school zone as a teenager, I got a ticket (and my parents would have grounded me). If I didn't turn in a book report I got an 'incomplete' on my report card. And on and on it goes. Some of my classmates weren't so lucky. One in particular, a good friend of mine, got crosswise with the law and ended up in prison. Another chose the 'California lifestyle' of cocaine and died. Others were killed in Vietnam. The point I'm making is that it's not only the choices we make that create consequences, but it's also our worldviews and attitudes that influence the choices we make that create consequences.

Take our immigration debate, for instance. This is one debate, I predict, that will divide Americans on a grand scale, and much of it will be directly attributable to our worldviews and our upbringing. Here's how it will play out...

Those espousing the consistent application of the law (usually conservatives) will base their arguments for the deportation of criminal illegal aliens on existing U.S. immigration law and point to the overarching right of our country to legislate immigration policy and enforce it as reasons for doing so. It's as simple as that. For them, it's not a matter of fairness; it's a matter of law (it is assumed that 'fairness' is what undergirds our immigration laws in the first place). This presents a big problem for those (usually liberals) that believe that we should be making exceptions to our laws for whole groups of illegal immigrants because the laws, themselves, are either unfair or the penalties (deportation) are too stringent. The following question will be asked, repeatedly over the coming years: "How do we as compassionate and fair people square that circle?" Answer: we can't, easily, because if we admit that our existing laws are unfair and/or the penalties too stringent then we will have to admit that we have not been following the 'true North' of America's moral compass and will need to re-make our laws and re-think our attitudes.

Should this happen, it will upend our ideological applecart and create a firestorm of disagreement among conservatives and liberals, the consequences of which will be wholesale chaos within the immigrant community, the law enforcement community, the politicians, the hard-liners on immigration policy from both sides and you and me. There must never be a Mason-Dixon Line separating Americans on this issue. We must get our immigration policy right this time. The only way to do that is with an open dialogue among opposing groups, no matter how heated it may get. Should we fail to convince one another, so be it, but we must try now because we won't have the opportunity once the shouting begins and the wheels of mass protests are set in motion. If there's one thing Americans understand it is the power of the people to affect their own lives.

Stephan Helgesen is a retired U.S. diplomat, now author and political strategist. He has written over 600 articles and six books on politics, economics and social trends. He can be reached at stephan@stephanhelgesen.com