Ben Domenech takes up the conservative’s difficulty in choosing sides in the battle of Mayor Bill de Blasio versus the New York Police Department in “The NYPD’s Revolt Is a Direct Threat to Democracy.”  The problem , and the conundrum, is that neither side of the fight is not a direct threat to democracy.

Ultimately, the officers’ activities as the rank and file law enforcement — turning their backs on the mayor, flying subversive messages around the city, and, now, appearing not to enforce the law to the best of their ability — are the fault of progressive governance. Like other progressives, the mayor does not know what to do when his assumptions are revealed as fantasies and members of his pro-government coalition prove that they believe more in their own interests than in the idea of government, which he (as a progressive) likely believes himself to embody.

But the problem is bigger than that. We currently have a progressive president stretching his ability to use discretion in enforcement of the law beyond all pretense of coherence in order to implement new policy that has explicitly not been enacted by the people’s representatives. (Immigration is the highest-profile example, but there are others.)  The police and their union can’t help but see that as another variation of what they’re doing, endorsed by the top government executive (and Democrat and progressive) in the country.

We aren’t a military junta, but we aren’t an aristocracy either. Why should the president not have to follow the rules, but rank and file officers (with their lives on the line) have to? Why should the mayor be able to undermine his police force, but they must put on a show of respect?  Because the president and the mayor are the political bosses? Sorry, the United States isn’t supposed to work that way.

So, yeah, there is no righteous side in this battle, but we can still conclude that the villain is progressive governance and its tendency toward merely contingent acceptance of the rules. After all, the police shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing, but then, the mayor shouldn’t be allowing them to do what they’re doing. His failure in this is not just a consequence of the demonstrated fact that he’s a weak leader, but also because the political philosophy by which he governs can’t address this situation effectively.

That means that the fix is to illustrate the point and pull back from the progressive course.

Whether meeting that end means siding with the hapless progressive who’s failing to govern the Big Apple or the officers who are setting a dangerous precedent in failing to follow the rules, I guess that’s for the individual to decide. For my part, if we’re to live in a society without the rule of law, I’m inclined to side with the police, mostly because I think they’ll be more likely to accept the re-imposition of the rule of law than the progressives when we finally get to rebuilding.