> In western society (democratic) laws are implemented by people put in a position of authority by the very people those laws apply to.

Right (although I think that the latter sentence is, first, not limited to western societies, and, second, not ubiquitous in them), but the issue here is not whether people should escape consequences for actions that have been democratically deemed unacceptable (through direct democracy, or through people electing representatives who make the relevant laws). Rather it is, I think, the danger of using the cover of one action, that people have democratically agreed is unacceptable but that the makers or enforcers of law are not actually seeking to curtail, to regulate another action, that has not been democratically agreed to be unacceptable, and might actually be professed to be allowed or desirable while being indirectly and sometimes covertly suppressed.

> Either way the conversation about power and who has it and who doesn't doesn't strike me as helpful.

No matter what your philosophy of society and the role of law, it strikes me as hard to have such a philosophy that is of any use in actually helping to govern a society without paying attention to power, who has it, and who doesn't.