Our city government had imposed an 8pm curfew to discourage rioting and looting. But I’d had a busy day and I didn’t start my evening jog until 7:30pm.

So when the appointed time arrived, I ended my jog early, went inside, and — try to stop laughing at me — I obeyed the law.

Nobody had to tell me to do it. I just did it.

Yeah, pretty stupid, right? You’d have to be a major fool to do that kind of thing anymore.

The protesters, meanwhile, just went on protesting right in front of the police until long after curfew. The police did nothing. In their defense, we’ve had far fewer acts of crime, looting, and terrorism than some other cities like Washington and New York. But it was obvious that the law didn’t apply to the protesters, only to people who posed no threat.

We already knew that the laws don’t apply to people with political connections. Rod Rosenstein and Peter Strzok will never do a single day in jail, nor will John Brennan, Loretta Lynch, or James Comey. To the sorrow of many people, Adam Schiff will never be offered a blindfold and a cigarette. And long ago, Senator Ted Kennedy’s protectors kept him from being charged with homicide for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, after which he was lauded for decades as “the lion of the Senate.” That was, ironically, the least of his crimes, the worst being his vocal and mendacious support of the Hart-Celler Act of 1965, which put us on our current path to national destruction.

The only people to whom the laws still apply seem to be regular Americans. They don’t have a lot of money, nor friends in high places. But without them. the country would simply stop. You can’t sustain an advanced technological society with people you hired for their religion, skin color, or psychological eccentricities instead of for their ability. And the patience of the people who actually make things work is wearing a little thin.