Friday Forward - Same Rules (#478)

Integrity requires holding ourselves, our allies, and our adversaries to the same standards.

I’m going to veer into politics today. Rather than taking a side, I’ll instead highlight an increasingly common tendency for people to apply laws and norms through the lens of their ideology. This mindset is not just dangerous for society—it’s antithetical to leadership and has created many of the problems we’re embroiled in today.

I’m guessing that most people reading this Friday Forward newsletter live in societies built on laws that provide structure, protect rights, and create order. While no system is perfect, the foundation of any functioning society is the idea that these rules apply equally to everyone, regardless of belief or affiliation.

If someone were to desecrate your home or threaten your family, you wouldn’t care what cause they claimed to support. You would rightly expect the police to intervene and for the law to be enforced. Justice cannot be conditional. If we start judging actions based on ideology, rather than objective behaviors, who exactly gets to be the arbiter of what’s justified and what’s not?

It has become increasingly common for people to excuse intimidation, property destruction, and even violence—not because the actions themselves are justifiable, but because the perpetrators are perceived to be “on the right side of history.” Many people reframe these infractions as noble, as long as the perpetrator is on “their side.” But when these same acts are committed by someone with opposing views, swift punishment is demanded. This selective outrage erodes the rule of law and reveals a dangerous double standard.

We've seen this recently at Columbia University. It’s true that the right to free speech and peaceful protests should be rightly protected. However, that doesn’t mean protestors should expect no consequences for breaking the law, no matter how virtuous they believe their cause to be. Occupying buildings isn’t protected by the First Amendment, nor is intimidating classmates who simply want to learn in a safe environment. These actions also do very little to help the protestors’ cause; breaking laws in New York has not proven to have any demonstrable impact on events in the Middle East.

I have seen people try to justify destructive behavior by referencing historical figures who resisted injustice, such as civil rights leaders. But this distorts some fundamental truths about those freedom fighters. Rosa Parks broke the law by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus, an act of civil disobedience that was illegal, but also peaceful and clearly directed at the injustice she was experiencing. She accepted the consequences, in part because she believed her arrest could expose the injustice of segregation laws and ultimately lead to their eradication. Parks paid a personal price, which gave her act lasting moral value; today many demand the right to disrupt or destroy without consequence.

The idea that one’s personal sense of righteousness can justify any illegal or harmful behavior—especially when the action has no direct connection to the cause—is one of the most reckless and dangerous ideologies of our time. If we accept that one’s adherence to the law is conditioned on one’s own convictions, then anyone can weaponize that logic. This is a one-way ticket to vigilante justice and societal chaos.

While there may be viable reasons to be angry or frustrated at Elon Musk, that does not justify doxxing or threatening Tesla owners, vandalizing their cars, or attacking dealerships. If you don’t like Tesla, don’t buy one. But you don’t get to make decisions for other people through force or fear.

At the same time, the authorities have an equally vital duty to enforce the law fairly and equally. Anyone accused of breaking the law still has rights and is entitled to due process, and a person being on the opposite side of an ideological divide is no excuse for local, state and federal governments to violate those afforded protections.

In the same vein, no one is entitled to intimidate a judge or ignore their ruling if they disagree with it. There’s a well-established legal process for appeals, and flouting it with threats or coercion undermines the entire justice system.

If we want fairness, stability, and integrity, we must be willing to uphold the same rules for everyone, even when we don’t like the outcome. We don’t follow shared laws and norms because they always serve our personal interests—we follow them because they are really all that’s holding our society together.

Real leadership and integrity are when we hold ourselves, our allies, and our adversaries to the same standards. Otherwise, we risk becoming the very thing we claim to oppose.

Quote of The Week

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Have a great weekend!

-Bob
robertglazer.com

PS: Check out my Elevate Podcast interview with Tasha Eurich, who joined to discuss her excellent new book Shatterproof, which published this week.