Psychiatrist and author Theodore Dalrymple has published a brilliant essay in the National Review highlighting the importance of the rule of law. He takes as a case study the looting in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: “New Orleans shows us in the starkest possible way the reality of the thin blue line that protects us from barbarism and mob rule,” writes Dalrymple. The essay questions whether such barbarism is inherent in human nature in crisis or if there are elements that light a “fire in the minds of men that they are prepared to shoot at their neighbors’ saviors.” Take five and read it.