Conservatives speak highly of law, because law implies fairness and legitimacy; but conservatives have no respect for rules or order, only for hierarchy.
It was so when the optimates wept over the violation of norms in Ancient Rome (but illegally murdered democratically-elected populists), it was so when medieval nobility pled legal order as to the reason why peasants had to stay in their place (even as they routinely violated the rights of their vassals), it was so when capitalist robber-barons demanded state support for suppressing strikers (but hired illegal thugs to murder strikers anyway on the unusual occasions when the government wasn't quite corrupt enough to back them), it was so when Chief fucking Thog claimed an extra 1/3 of the hunt's meat under 'traditional rules' in some prehistoric Alpine tribe, but forbade Huntsman Trog from his share because Trog looked at him funny.
It's so now.
Fuck.