(159) Gulur

The Russians have never had the rule of law and never will; they went from the Tsar, absolute autocrat, who could order 124 serfs whipped from Moscow to Vladivostok “just because” if he wished to the Cheka (KGB)—an organisation that was founded to operate outside the law and never stopped down to today (it’s a bureaucratic Tsar). The English have the rule of law because that’s what the English are like—even under “absolutist” King Charles the First the king was limited by law; he couldn’t just whip 124 Englishmen from Penzance to John O’ Groats if he fancied it.

That was what was good about the British Empire; the administrators went out and operated the rule of law in other places—and so, in classic empire fashion, other people benefit from law and order and increased commerce. The same went for America, since America is British at core. Really, I’m not sure that even the French, Spanish, and Italians have rule of law like the English have rule of law. It’s in the blood, you see; it can be imposed by imperial administrators and it can be copied to an extent (as in Singapore); but that takes absolute discipline—it has to be pushed in Singapore against the grain; it’s exceptional—and, in the long run, it can’t last.

Well, the old imperial structure is all gone now; and it’s not just that the colonial administrators are gone—the populations in Britain and America have been replaced. When you have a council that’s staffed by Pakistanis, it’s run on a patronage network basis, cousin to cousin, just like back home—with all the attendant problems. For a while, there are still English-American people about so you still get the residual impression there’s rule of law in the homelands, just for a time; but they’re not even senior by default as in the imperial system—so the rule of law will soon vanish in England and America, if not around the world.