Time to rewrite the rules
The political class that emerged following the fall of Greece?s military dictatorship in the early 1970s successfully imposed its own distorted rules. And now the country is paying a hefty price.
In fact, politicians and the media in Greece appeared to be animated by a new type of culture, one that is more or less summed up in the idea that ?if you have a just cause, you can protest anywhere you like, and in any way you like.?
Of course this logic makes things very difficult for those who have vowed to respect and impose law and order.
When police officers fail to live up to their duties, they get criticized of incompetence. When they do, they get slammed for resorting to unchecked violence.
No country — and no democracy, for that matter — is able to function in the absence of a clear and inviolable set of principles. We must finally agree on a set of rules before — as Prime Minister Antonis Samaras warned Friday — Greece becomes a free-for-all.
