When Rule of Law Disappears, So Does the Nation

During our trip to Mexico, my wife and I were the victims of one of their infamous police “shake-downs,” where those driving cars with U.S. license plates are pulled over, told they had run a stop sign (or committed some other infraction, when they clearly hadn’t), taken to the station house, and threatened with jail if they didn’t produce a few hundred dollars.

This is what happens when rule of law doesn’t exist, and the effects go deeper than simply terrifying Americans.  No one who is shaken down would ever even imagine returning, meaning that owners of local grocery stores, hotels, and restaurants are deprived of that future customer.

In the U.S. if a team of rogue police were doing this to visitors from other countries, they would be dismissed from the force and charged with extortion.  This type of thing wouldn’t last 10 minutes here. Why?  We value rule of law.

I’m sure the reader can see where this is going:

If we let Donald Trump commit seditious conspiracy, espionage, fraud, election tampering, and God knows what else, and walk away free of criminal charges, we’re really not too different than the Mexican thugs with guns and badges.

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