Someone has been fighting city hall and they've been winning! Pick up almost any daily newspaper and you'll read an article or two about how some corporation or developer is "exempt" from obeying a certain law, or the law has been changed to accommodate a major industry. The media is responsible for much of the misleading information. Editors and journalism professors could solve part of the problem by teaching reporters to know the subtle differences between rules and laws.Major companies, as well as wealthy, influential citizens seem to fight the bureaucracy and win. Occasionally we cheer silently when we hear stories of a little guy taking on the gigantic bureaucracy and coming out a winner. With a lump in our throat we again take pride in being free Americans, and we wish that we could fight such battles and win, too.
Corporations have vast teams of lawyers and accountants going to bat for them. They seem to have virtually unlimited resources to use if some bureaucrat resists their wishes. Railroads are given property tax breaks which make you wonder why their property should be taxed less than your home. You hear of public officials being caught with their hands in the cookie jar and they are merely fired from their job instead of going to trial and maybe prison. The big guys take their lawyers and drop-in on the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) or some other agency and walk away with whatever exemption or exception they want.
How do these people get away with such actions and get special considerations from the courts and the legal system? How can such firms apparently break the law and pay relatively small fines while the corporate officers go unpunished? You know what would happen to you if you tried the same thing...JAIL! Right?
Those big firms are not being exempted from abiding by the law. They are excused from obeying certain rules. That's the way things are. Don't you remember hearing about how "We must all obey the law" or "No man is above the law!"? How about "Rules are made to be broken!" or "Rules are for simpletons!"? There is a difference in these old adages.
Nobody is or should be above the law! The Constitution clearly limits government authority and defines the authority that we, the people, have given to it. There are no exceptions to the law. It is simple, clear and for everyone.
The procedures government uses to carry out its designated responsibilities are spelled out in the Rules. The rules (regulations) become mandatory on the part of government employees and they must obey them just as if the rules are law. If they don't like the rules, they can try to get them changed or they can go to work somewhere else.
Most companies adopt their own rules of conduct by which their business is operated. The rules are enforced on the employees and penalties are exacted such as docking an employee for being late or loss of certain privileges or position for failing to abide by the company rules. It is the right of the company to adopt reasonable rules and enforce them. If the employee does not want to abide by such rules, he or she can go elsewhere to work. The rules can even be discriminatory as long as they do not violate specific Federal laws against discrimination on the basis of sex, age, race or religious preference.
Most of us have certain rules we enforce in our own homes, which, if used as Laws outside the home, would be in violation of the Constitution and Rights of the people. We can make a rule that everyone who eats must do dishes. If you don't like the rule, do not sit down at the table. Within reason, you have the right to make such rules for your house. The government has the authority to legislate such rules for conducting its business.
However, the government usually passes RULES for its own employees to live and work by, then the bureaucrats try to make their jobs easier by misconstruing the Rules as being enforceable against the general public, as if they are actual laws.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) amended some of its rules because they could not force General Motors Corporation and a few other major firms to comply with all the regulations. Unable to enforce compliance with the rules and fearing that making exceptions would lead to further violations by smaller firms, the SEC adjusted them to coincide with the way GM and others were operating. Corporations break the rules and win...especially the big ones.
When Citizen Band (CB) radios became popular with truckers and motorists in the early 1970's, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had rules which stated operators must have licenses and every CB radio must have a separate station license. The fees were not very high for station licenses (about $10) and operators could get a license just by signing an application and agreeing to abide by the FCC RULES.
FCC has the right to regulate the airways (within reason) for the public good. This is construed to mean adopting rules so that radio and TV stations don't "step all over each other" and you can tune in your TV set to one station per channel. To enforce regulations of low-powered CB units (range about 3 to 5 miles) the FCC would have to put a lot of men out on the roads with some sophisticated equipment. To make public compliance easy, applications for station licenses were included along with the CB unit when it was purchased. The people still refused to send them in to the FCC.
At first the FCC sent out news releases threatening fines if people were found to operate a CB without a license. When the people refused to comply the government no longer "required" CBers to have an operator's license. The FCC even dropped the radio license fee to just $1 and the Application. People still refused. To make it even easier, FCC dropped the fee completely and literally begged the people to send in the Application.
The rules fell on deaf ears. Truckers ignored the FCC rules about licenses and so did the general public. Eventually, just to save face in the communications industry, FCC dropped the CB rules altogether. The little guys broke those rules and they won.
Mahatma Gandhi led the people of India in civil disobedience to the rules which were imposed on them by the British bureaucracy. The people of India were determined to take over and rule themselves. They broke the rules and won. Young college students tried civil disobedience to the rules in this country in the 1960's and, although some even gave up their lives (Kent State), they won. If you don"t think so, go to a public library and read an old issue of the publications. You will find that there have been many changes made in our society and government. Much of that change is the result of civil disobedience to the rules, not violation of laws.
Rules can be given the force and effect of law if you volunteer for them. Regulations are often foisted first on major, highly regulated, businesses and industry which usually volunteer to allow the rules and regulations to be imposed. Regulations and rules can only be enforced as Law if the subjected parties agree or are tricked into complying with them.
The exception, which may not always be applicable, would be if the U.S. Senate ratified a treaty (as provided for in the U.S. Constitution, Article VI), and the terms of that treaty then become the valid LAW OF THE LAND, the laws and constitutions of the states not withstanding. Such is the case when Limitations and Regulations were imposed on Arms and Ammunition manufacturers as the result of a 1954 International Treaty. It was supposed to prevent private firms and citizens from exporting weapons outside the U.S.. With such a Treaty becoming the LAW, bureaucrats and Congress joined together to force arms and weapons manufacturers to obey a new set of rules or they would not be permitted to export arms or munitions to foreign countries or sell them to the Pentagon (Chapter 13). To comply with the terms of the treaty, the Federal government preempted the field of manufacturing such items in every state.
The U.S./Canada Free Trade Agreement, and subsequently NAFTA, are examples of treaties being manipulated so certain industries can be exempt from government regulations and taxes.
When you read about certain companies beating out the bureaucracy and being exempted from the law, remember the secret of their power is that they (or their lawyers) know the difference between rules and laws...and they only break the rules!
