Okay, I'll bite because I'm just a troublemaker. My opinion is you do both. The entity that exempts an individual from law has expanded power to itself in that it has stepped outside of the law. By doing so, that entity has taken power away from the majority since laws are an agreed social contract on how everyone conducts themselves in society and by allowing exceptions, one weakens the fabric of that social contract and the majority no longer know what they can or cannot do (and as our word "power" comes from the Latin "to be able", that is a considerable loss).
If the law is an ass, as Dickens so humorously put it into the mouth of Mr. Bumble, then a challenge to the law's integrity and purpose should be mounted to overturn it in favor of a new law (or none, if the case warrants).
Okay, I'll bite because I'm just a troublemaker. My opinion is you do both. The entity that exempts an individual from law has expanded power to itself in that it has stepped outside of the law. By doing so, that entity has taken power away from the majority since laws are an agreed social contract on how everyone conducts themselves in society and by allowing exceptions, one weakens the fabric of that social contract and the majority no longer know what they can or cannot do (and as our word "power" comes from the Latin "to be able", that is a considerable loss).
ReplyDeleteIf the law is an ass, as Dickens so humorously put it into the mouth of Mr. Bumble, then a challenge to the law's integrity and purpose should be mounted to overturn it in favor of a new law (or none, if the case warrants).