People are, well, only human. We know that. The rule of law is borne out in identifying, condemning, and punishing those who violate the standards on which we all agree. This is exactly what we do in America.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Our laws are a reflection of our culture. Our culture does not condone the torture of innocent and defenseless creatures. And we as a society believe all God's creatures should be treated humanely.
Just because there are people who violate rules, behave illegally and so on, it does not mean that everybody is like that. On the contrary, if you watch certain judges, you observe that they honestly try to implement what they believe the Constitution says and just put it into effect.
In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people, who have abhorrent behavior, but if we're civilized people, we publicly criticize that, and don't belong to those groups or don't associate with those people.
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
Each day, each one of us chooses not to do many things that would be legal but offensive to those around us.
All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.
In America, we have long stood by the principle that the protections of the law are not meant just for some.
We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
That's an interesting question. I would say that in general Americans know very little about the law. It's one of those things that most of us take for granted.
We cannot uphold the rule of law only when it is consistent with our beliefs. We must uphold it even when it protects behavior that we don't like or is unattractive or is not admirable or that might even be hurtful.