I am tempted to link this quote with the what is happening in Hong Kong for the past few weeks, with the so called “Umbrella Revolution”. Of course, it is difficult to make a relatively balanced judgement of the matter particularly with the nature of the information that is flowing out right now. Social media has enabled me the luxury of sleep deprivation with all the updates from Facebook, YouTube, the almost constant torrent of Tweets (though I don’t really have twitter) as well as from more traditional media, not to mention friends whose analyses and comments fill my news feed. (I wish I can understand Cantonese, though I can skim, poorly I must say, some posts written in Chinese.)

At the same time I also have my biases which colour my perception of the matter, i.e. my sources of information tend to agree with my own views and whatever I read which is contrary to what I tend to believe, at its best takes time to sink in or at its worst will be twisted (by me) to be used as confirmation for my own views (something I learned a few days ago from my Behavioural Economics class). Best to wait until things settle down before inferring too much.

The term “Rule of Law” has been heard (or seen) quite often, usually against the Umbrella Revolutionaries, something to the effect of, ‘those protesters are doing something illegal, against the law, and there fore they must be stopped, they’re undermining the Rule of Law’. Which begs the question: “What is the “Rule of Law”?

What I know is that, to simplify, there is the “Rule of Law “and the “Rule of Man”. The “Rule of Man” is when the law is made from the whims of a select few, usually those who govern, and can be used, twisted and redefined according to the interests of these select few. Of course it’s all legal because there is no absolute determinant of the law, it’s all ultimatley subjective. The “Rule of Law”, then, is when all are subject to the law and typically this law is conceived to have a higher, more absolute origin which should not be violated, something called “Natural Law”. (“Natural Law” would typically be some sort of moral law. Think Golden Rule, 10 Commandments type stuff.)Under the “Rule of Law” then, it is possible to make legislation which is contrary to “Natural Law” which then undermines the “Rule of Law”. Thus, there is cause to violate and repeal legislation that does not conform with “Natural Law” to protect the integrity of the “Rule of Law”. (Most of this is quite new to me so yeah, correct me if I’m wrong.)

Another quote from “The Law” by Bastiat:

When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.

This seems to be what’s happening right now in Hong Kong (maybe even the whole of China), at least as far as I can see, the view from the Southern Hemisphere suffers a bit from the tyranny of distance, only slightly. How does the law function in Hong Kong today? How is the law conceived in the Chinese Mainland? Hong Kong, please don’t make this undisciplined student loose more sleep from pondering your circumstances, finals are on the way soon!

“The Law” by Frédéric Bastiat can found online through Google search, though I used this website: http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html. It was originally in French and translated. I haven’t read the whole book (too lazy).