Conditional compliance. It's the new decry from the left. Those that have spent the last few years demanding due process, quoting the constitution, striving for equal rights, equal treatment, diversity and inclusion. But now that includes civil disobedience as a civic duty. There are conditions under which abandoning the rule of law is perfectly acceptable, in fact a duty and responsibility. Those conditions are, anything the Trump administration supports. In those cases the rule of law no longer applies, unless it is a democratic judge issuing the orders that is. This is becoming blatant, there is no longer even a pretense of legality being promoted. No, just defy the law and make your demands. Protest, riot if you must and burn the place down! Laws should only be applied under certain conditions. If the law upsets you, offends you in some fashion, it doesn't apply.
Consider this condition. If you burn an American flag that is free speech! Any thought that it should be otherwise is immediately dismissed as a violation of the first amendment! How dare you! But, if you burn a pride flag that's a hate crime! You are subject to prosecution, fines and imprisonment! You may also be vilified on all social media platforms, exposed as homophobic, racist or maybe even Hitler! Why is that hate? Because it implies that you don't embrace the LGTBQ+ lifestyle, that why. It's just hateful to disagree with love! It's not hateful to burn or desecrate the national standard in any way if you so choose. No, that's just free speech. Hate is a conditional thing, it all depends. Mostly it depends upon what other people embrace. That is to say what others are willing to defend. Offend and defend, that's what I'm talking about. That's the conditional part in all of that.
Consider these conditions. Abrego Garcia, the illegal alien in the news, entered the United States illegally. He went to live with his brother. He made no applications for anything, just started living in Maryland with his brother. He got arrested outside a Home Depot because he was in the country illegally. Homeland security moved to deport him under title 8. At that point he gets a lawyer, provided by your tax dollars, and files for asylum. Well, now he is entitled to due process. He already had that in my opinion, he was given the chance to show he was here legally, he couldn't, therefore he is eligible for deportation. That's the law. I see it as no different from robbing a bank, then getting caught and your excuse is, I needed the money. He should have applied for asylum the moment he arrived in the country! That is the due process here! Those are the conditions. Compliance with the law isn't conditional upon circumstance. He has been in this country, illegally for ten years!
Conditional compliance and conditional morality. The same thing as far as I'm concerned. One can ask for forgiveness, that is true, but forgiveness itself is a conditional thing. Theological scholars all agree on that. You must be held to account for your wrongdoing. Due process provides a path for affecting change in criminal and civil law. It is the basis for an orderly society. If we circumvent that process anarchy is the result. Due process begins with the first step. It isn't a tool to be employed to delay accountability. In the case of Garcia he is in the country illegally. That's the straight fact of the matter. He could have applied for asylum at the border, the first step in obtaining due process of law in this country, but instead chose to ignore all of that. He set the condition. Now, he must face the consequences of that.
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