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Agree, or disagree?

Barbella

Barbella

Senator
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Barbella said:
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Are you suggesting that even with Obama in office that we are in a free society?

I think I saw lefty liberal post this once...here is a list of unjust laws lefty liberal thought should be broken:

1. Republicans are allowed to vote too!

2. People have a right to an opinion and to voice it.

3. Women in Texas having access to doctors and surgical facilities during an abortion.

4. Congress being able to vote on laws

5. The Supreme Court having an opinion that could be for a non democratic response.
 
There were literally thousands of so-called "smart men" that quoted a lotta dumb shit during the Colonial days. Take it with a grain of salt.
 
Barbella said:
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I think it depends on the degree of injustice. If you're in Nazi Germany and the law requires you to report on anyone hiding Jews, and you know your neighbors have a family of innocent Jews hiding in their basement, you have an obligation to break the law. The same could be said for dealing with escaped slaves. Or refusing to serve in an unjust war even if drafted. When it's a matter of life or death, morality trumps the law. However, in a democratic society, when confronted with lesser legal injustices, it's often better to obey the law as it stands, while working to change it.
 
EliteMind said:
There were literally thousands of so-called "smart men" that quoted a lotta dumb shit during the Colonial days. Take it with a grain of salt.
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To be clear, this wasn't from colonial days. I'm unfamiliar with that particular quotation, but it's consistent with the overall sentiments of "Civil Disobedience," which Thoreau wrote in 1849, in reference to the Mexican war and slavery. So, we're talking three-quarters of a century after colonial days.
 
Not one "agree" for poor Henry... at least not an unqualified one...

Thoreau asserts that because governments are typically more harmful than helpful, they therefore cannot be justified. Democracy is no cure for this, as majorities simply by virtue of being majorities do not also gain the virtues of wisdom and justice. The judgment of an individual's conscience is not necessarily inferior to the decisions of a political body or majority, and so "t is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.... Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice."[5] He adds, "I cannot for an instant recognize as my government [that] which is the slave's government also."[6]

The government, according to Thoreau, is not just a little corrupt or unjust in the course of doing its otherwise-important work, but in fact the government is primarily an agent of corruption and injustice. Because of this, it is "not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize."[7]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau)

So was Thoreau an anarchist? A liberal? Conservative? Libertarian? Can we even put a label on a thinker like him?
 
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Arkady said:
I think it depends on the degree of injustice. If you're in Nazi Germany and the law requires you to report on anyone hiding Jews, and you know your neighbors have a family of innocent Jews hiding in their basement, you have an obligation to break the law. The same could be said for dealing with escaped slaves. Or refusing to serve in an unjust war even if drafted. When it's a matter of life or death, morality trumps the law. However, in a democratic society, when confronted with lesser legal injustices, it's often better to obey the law as it stands, while working to change it.
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Who decides which law is unjust?
 
Barbella said:
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Disagree. No one is obligated to break the law. That is an individual's choice.


This is the way Robert Heinlein phrased it...

I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.


Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/robertahe124502.html#Klx1tAbRrEmC7t34.99
 
MrMike said:
Agreed
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Arkady does have a point though. If a law exists that is reprehensible to you, what do you do? Obey the state and live with youself? Or defy the state and live with their judgement. That can be a tough call.

A lot of people are defying Obamacare and preferring to go uninsured. Is that good or bad?
 
Craig said:
Disagree. No one is obligated to break the law. That is an individual's choice.


This is the way Robert Heinlein phrased it...

I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.


Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/robertahe124502.html#Klx1tAbRrEmC7t34.99
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True as well, but what about situations like Arkady, above, referenced?

"If you're in Nazi Germany and the law requires you to report on anyone hiding Jews, and you know your neighbors have a family of innocent Jews hiding in their basement, you have an obligation to break the law. The same could be said for dealing with escaped slaves."

A MORAL obligation to BREAK THE LAW?
 
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