Nevertheless, that Cooke’s instinct is the right one does not mean that his conclusion is prudent. Prosecutorial discretion is one thing; a blanket refusal to abide by the rules is quite another. Indeed, much as it vexes me to admit, Andrew Cuomo got it right when he worried aloud that the refusal of two sheriffs in his state to enforce his state’s execrable SAFE Act could set “a dangerous and frightening precedent.” There is, after all, a reason that we establish firm processes by which our laws are passed, by which our elections are conducted, and by which our business is done. There is a reason that we render sacred the documents that outline the structure and power of our governments, that we wall off those areas into which they cannot intrude, and — most important — that we react with such indignation when the powerful simply flout the rules. It matters.

Ultimately, what distinguishes the Anglo-American tradition is its lack in its legal system of that most potent enemy of ordered liberty: caprice. When the British grumble that “it’s a free country,” they are primarily referring to the integrity of their institutions, which they believe to be fair. In Soviet Russia, families lay awake waiting for the knock on the door, knowing that if it came they would have little recourse. There, as in 1984, the law was precisely what those in power said that it was. If four was five and not four at all, then four was five; if the party said that you were guilty of a crime that wasn’t even a crime, then you were guilty. In the West, by contrast, there is the law. “You can’t do this to me,” a citizen might say, pointing to the rules. “It says so here, dammit.”