S1L1 – How the “Rule of Law” is perverted mimics a pro-wrestling match
The best way to understand how the “rule of law” is perverted is to watch any professional wrestling match on YouTube. Pick any match where the two opponents wear ridiculous costumes that look more inspired by Halloween than by athletic design. They call it “wrestling” but the way it’s done bears little resemblance to Greco-Roman tradition. The winner is still decided by whoever can pin down his opponent’s shoulder to the floor for a full three-count. But instead of accomplishing this by an artful application of grip, counter-grip, leverage and body positioning, the “pros” wear each other down by inflicting as much pain and disorientation so that by the time one is pinned down on the floor, the poor fellow has no more strength left to put up any resistance.
At least in theory.
But in fact the whole thing is a charade. It may appear like the two wrestlers are exchanging deadly blows—and they even actually take turns hitting each other—but the blows are designed more to produce loud horrible slapping sounds than to cause any real concussions.
There’s a referee—possibly the dumbest living human on planet earth—whose only claim to being a referee is the fact that he’s wearing a regulation striped shirt. Otherwise, everytime one wrestler is using a prohibited technique (wreaking face, gouging eyes, pulling hair, tripping leg) this imbecile of a referee always happens to be looking the opposite direction. And he always looks away just long enough to miss the infraction, then by the time he focuses on the players again, the evil wrestler is already looking saintly with a halo over his head.
Meanwhile the good wrestler–the “victim” as it were–has his hand wedged between the bad wrestler’s armpits. The bad wrestler screams a fake anguished cry of pain, and the referee tags the good wrestler with an “illegal hold” violation. In other words, the referee penalizes the good guy because the didn’t see (because he wouldn’t look at it) the violation committed by the bad guy.
All of this is happening right before the eyes of a thousand spectators consisting of the naivé (who thinks he witnessed a real fight), the street-savvy (who knows the whole thing is scripted) and the accomplice (who is “in” on the grand con job).
The “rule of law” is bastardized exactly in the same way. The side espousing falsehood lays down his false premises while no one is looking, often with the knowledge and collusion of the regulator. Then they tweak the rules so that the act of questioning the manner in which the premises were laid down becomes an infraction in itself. Finally, when a dispute is submitted for the regulator to resolve, somebody points out that they are proceeding on a wrong premise. The regulator says, “No! What you’re doing is a violation. The rules are the rules, we have to work within the rules, we have to follow the rule of law!”
This is why you must always be leery of people who act more popish than the pope. The “rule of law” is just a subset of the “Rule of Justice” and true justice reckons with time. If you want to obtain justice, go back through the timeline and determine where the FIRST VIOLATION was committed by WHICH PARTY. That’s the starting point when you must apply the “rule of law” onwards and not just from the point conveniently chosen by the party who is deathly scared of authentic scrutiny.
The author is a writer and lawyer based in Baguio City, Philippines. Former editor of the Gold Ore and Baguio City Digest, professor of journalism, political science and law at Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF). He is a photographer and video documentarist. He has a YouTube channel called “Parables and Reason”