Abiding by the rules

At the beginning of this presidential campaign year, the Democratic National Committee issued specific warnings for states to not front-load their primaries, desiring to keep Iowa and New Hampshire as the first primary states. The DNC felt so strongly about this that they included sanctions with the warning. Any state not following the guidelines would be punished by not having their delegates seated at the Democratic National Nominating Convention in Denver. Michigan and Florida violated this directive and front-loaded their primaries anyway. All of the Democratic candidates for president agreed not to campaign in these states and they didn't. Barack Obama even took his name off the ballot in Michigan.

As it turned out, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in both states. Now, not surprisingly, she wants those delegates seated, even though she agreed before the primaries took place to not campaign and also understood the delegates would NOT be seated.

She's doing the same thing a lot of people do in every walk of life. She likes the rules that benefit her and wants to overturn or change the rules that don't. Most of us got the lecture early on in our lives about playing by the rules. We were told the importance of abiding by the rules, even if we didn't like them, because rules are necessary for an orderly society and breaking the rules can lead to divisiveness, a breakdown of order and even chaos, if enough rules are broken by enough people.

Those early lessons we learned from our parents have proven to be fairly successful because we do live in a society that is, for the most part, orderly. Most people abide by most of the rules most of the time, according to the research. That's why we don't have to have a policeman for every person. For example, McCook has a population of around 8,000 people and there are less than thirty full-time sworn law enforcement officers in McCook and Red Willow County. Most people abide by the law most of the time.

All of us like to break the rules from time to time for a variety of reasons but, by the same token, most of us abide by far more rules than we break and we expect that behavior in others too. We enjoy living in an orderly society because an orderly society is also a predictable society. We often leave our houses and our vehicles unlocked, we don't worry about being mugged when we're out for a walk, and store owners have little fear of being held up. Even when we attend events where a lot of people are, we're not concerned about our safety because our expectation are that everyone else is there for the same reason we are; to enjoy whatever event we've come to witness rather than to take advantage of other people.

On the other hand, we're unfortunately always going to have people who DO take advantage of others. People who are perfectly willing to break the rules in their own self interest with little or no regard for others. Not just people who break the law, but people who break the rules of basic human conduct. People who think only about themselves and their own desires while not caring about others at all. People who take advantage of the kindness and the good will of other, people who lie and cheat and steal to have things their way, people who violate the social contract, people who manipulate and control others, and people who we simply can't trust or believe.

Thankfully most of us don't fall into this latter category but far too many do and the ones that do make life worse for the rest of us.