Rule of Law vs Rule by Law

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]The main thing that you would notice, the first thing that you would notice, would be the absence of the rule of law.

[00:00:06]Rule of law means that judges and courts and the legal system make decisions based on the constitution or on the laws. And in an autocracy, you have rule by law. And that means that the law is what the person in power says it is. Mhm. And so, if you did a program, for example, and someone on your program said something that was offensive to the leader of the country, you could be arrested, and you could be put on trial, and instead of the court saying, "Right, we we've looked at this case, and according to the law we have in the law it says we have freedom of speech and you can do whatever you want." They could the somebody could could ring up from the Kremlin or from the White House or from, you know, whatever is the leadership of your country and say, "No, actually we want this guy in jail.

[00:00:53]And we don't care what the courts think."

[00:00:55]And that's the big difference. Here