Disagreeing with laws and upholding laws and arguing they should be upheld

As far as I know, nobody's arguing for upholding unjust laws, so this might be a very short thread. Do you know anything about Canadian history? We managed to come to roughly the same place in democracy and freedom as the U.S. without major disruptions in law-abiding. It is possible to uphold laws while you're in the process of changing them. What does defying a law accomplish in changing it? Defiance is more likely to polarize people against the defiant than to build a consensus that can be used in a democratic process.

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

Are we talking about fetal-homicide laws? If so, I might call them stupid, but not necessarily unjust. I tend to think of an unjust law as one that takes rights away from somebody. Fetal-homicide laws give "rights" to an entity that doesn't/shouldn't intrinsically have any. A "practical necessity" doesn't have to translate into defiance. When we raise the speed limit, for example, it's because road improvments (four-laning) and technological improvments (anti-lock brakes) have made higher speeds safer - not because people were defying the old speed limits. Chances are, the same people will defy the new speed limits anyway. Don't you find it interesting that the nation that condones defiance of the law is the same nation that passes those stupid laws? Here's a tip: If you don't pass stupid laws, you won't have to defy them. In Canada, capital punishment laws were "suspended" for fifteen years or so before they were finally abolished. But commuting a death sentence is still upholding the law. There's no need for a precedent that laws can be changed. That's a fundamental principle of democracy. That seems like a good idea. But again, there's a difference between the judicial system upholding the law and the individual citizen upholding the law. If a jury can decide "right/wrong" as well as legal/illegal, that's still within the law. They aren't defying any law by saying that the law is wrong. I don't think that's a fair example. The nation was already polarized enough to cause a civil war. And how much did the defiance of slave-catching laws, etc. contribute to the eventual freeing of the slaves? Well, it was a consensus that brought Prohibition in in the first place. Was the change in consensus caused by defiance of the law? Why would people go out and defy a law that they just voted in?

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

Do I have to put it in my signature? I'm not talking about unjust laws. I agree with you about unjust laws.

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

We don't. So, the sane people would rather defy laws passed by idiots than vote?

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

So you're agreeing with me, basically, that changing laws by breaking them is undemocratic.

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

That's interesting. How does that happen, exactly?On Monday, 51% pass Prohibition. On Tuesday, 49% defy Prohibition. On Wednesday, 2% change their minds. On Thursday, 51% repeal Prohibition. On Friday, 51% miss work.How do we know what changed the two-percenters' minds?

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

I've been talking about democracy since word one. I didn't bring up the U.S. I will now. Will you kindly recall that not everybody on earth needs to know that? I've been talking about the general principle of upholding the law (especially in a democracy). I don't plan to waste an entire thread fending off a handful of americocentric examples.

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

The idea of democracy is that the public interest is best served by reaching some kind of consensus based on individual self-interest. My focus in this thread is on how that consensus is reached. Do we change laws by peaceful means? By violent revolution? By passive resistance? Do we change speed limits by speeding?We have laws to prevent some individuals from infringing on the rights of other individuals. If those laws are not upheld, it is the rights of the individual that suffer. I asked a question. So I need to know the answer before I ask a question? Tough rules. I was given American examples. If American examples are all you have, does it occur to you that the American experience might not be the only facet of the subject? So, discuss the flaws in the principle istead of harping on situations where the principle doesn't apply.

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

I was going to bring that up, actually.On the one hand, we have a lot of Americans rather benignly ignoring a bad law. On the other hand, we have a few gangsters rather viciously taking advantage of a bad law for their own gain. We have a very similar situation with drug laws today.Granted that a law is bad, is the risk of having your resistance co-opted worth the consequences? How bad does a law have to be?

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

I agree completely (although my threshold for violence might be different from yours).Edited by Ringo, : Added quote.

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

It wasn't really a definition. I was just trying to draw a distinction between taking away rights and giving rights. I mentioned in another post that a tradeoff in rights is sometimes/often necessary. My right to drive is infringed by your right to drive in the same lane at the same time. First, let me clarify that I haven't stated a position on the injustice of fetal-homicide laws. I've said that they're stupid, and that should be reason enough to repeal them.In the specific case, the question is whether or not the state should uphold the law, not whether or not any individual should uphold the law. Frankly, your views or mine on the injustice of the law are irrelevant. Neither of us has any say in the decision of what charges are laid.What I thought molbiogirl was saying, and what I was agreeing with, was that the state is justified in upholding the law by laying a fetal-homicide-type charge. Even if MBG leaves me out in the cold ( ), I stand by that position: The state has a responsibility to uphold the law. The citizens have a responsibility to challenge unjust laws, by appropriate means, but that doesn't impinge directly on the specific case. My father used to say that democracy isn't about counting noses. The essence of democracy isn't making sure your voice is heard and your vote counted. The essence of democracy is the willingness to subordinate some of your individuality to the welfare of the group, to recognize that group decisions have value, to not start a guerrilla war every time a vote doesn't go in your favour.The essence of democracy is to uphold the will of the majority (through it's laws) while protecting the rights of the minority and the individual - a tricky balance at times. Let's not overemphasize Canadian sanity. We have our share of idiots too.I think the different levels of injustice - if they are indeed different - might be caused by the very attitude that I'm seeing in this thread. In Canada, if a bad law is passed, people might say, "I'm going to do something about this! I'm going to write an angry email to my Member of Parliament! ... Well, maybe I'll just give him a piece of my mind at election time! ... Well, anyway, I'm going to mention it to the guys at coffee tomorrow." And when enough people are talking about it at coffee, the politicians get an inkling.In the U.S., you seem to be saying it's, "I'm not going to obey that @#$%ing law. Let 'em come and get me!" And the really bad nuts start building bombs in the basement.Now, I'm not saying that there actually is a difference between Canada and the U.S in the way we approach a bad-law situation. It's just that Canadians are , at least, a little embarassed about breaking a bad law. You guys seem to revel in it. The way I use the word "upholding", it means doing whatever is within the law. Failure to arrest might be a dereliction of a police officer's duty, but it isn't a violation of the law. Pressing a different charge might be a bad judgement call on the prosecuter's part, but it isn't a violation of the law.Again, I'm not saying that prosecutors "should" ever implement fetal-homicide laws just because they're on the books. I'm just saying that they have a duty to uphold the laws on the books as long as they're on the books - and as they see fit. That applies in court. It applies to how a law is enforced. If a judge admitted DNA evidence in another jurisdiction last week, another judge is more likely to admit DNA evidence this week and another judge next week and eventually DNA evidence will be universally acceptable.But I'm not sure it applies to changing the law at the legislative level. Politicians aren't more likely to repeal a law if people are breaking it. They're more likely to put more "teeth" into it. (Do you use that expression in the U.S.?) The question isn't whether or not the Roe v. Wade decision had an impact on subsequent lawmaking. The question is whether or not the Roe v. Wade decision was influenced by defiance of existing laws. Was it? (I've just told you just about all I know about Roe v. Wade.) (Notice how I deftly quote-mined the part that applies to today's drug laws as well as Prohibition? )If Prohibition and its repeal were the norm instead of an anomaly, can we expect to see a similar repeal of current drug laws any time soon? If not, I would question how effective the law-breaking strategy is. My impression is that loosening of Canadian drug laws had a lot to do with medical use of marijuana (and a little to do with getting Americans' goats) and not much to do with law-breaking protests. Locally, we had a fellow who was legally entitled to use medicinal marijuana arrested repeatedly for smoking it on the courthouse steps. His protest for even looser laws was supported by smokers but had little sympathy from non-smokers and none from law enforcement or legislature.Edited by Ringo, : Missspelled "Canadian".

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

I haven't derided (deridden?) any system.I'm saying that the law should be upheld except in extreme circumstances.

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

More like a spectrum than a clear division. You're welcome to your opinion but 37 states disagree with you. Presumably, some prosecutors in some of those states will uphold the law. Even if many of them don't, the precedent will be set. I didn't follow the other thread, so I have nothing to say about it. Molbiogirl doesn't seem to have any complaints about what I've said in this thread. If you've ever heard of a fellow named Gandhi, you should know that passive resistance provokes reactions very similar to violent resistance. Depending on what you mean by "public pressure", that's exactly what I've been saying. Once again, public pressure in that specific case can not involve breaking the law (unless it's an unrelated law). Only the prosecutors are capable of breaking or upholding that particular law. You seem to be confusing the "essence" of democracy (which is why I used that word) with constitutional constraints on democracy. The system in which the individual is paramount is anarchy, not democracy. But your misunderstanding of democracy isn't the topic. How the @#$% does that follow? You guys are stuck with the shitty laws because you choose to disobey them instead of approaching them constructively. If legislators know a significant proportion of the people is going to ignore the law, what incentive do they have to pass good laws instead of bad ones? Seems to me to be the opposite here. I don't think I've ever heard of anybody upholding our Constitution. The Constitution is only there to guide the lawmakers. I have to say, I'm not convinced.

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

I don't see why this is so difficult. Legislators in 37 states have seen fit to pass fetal-homicide laws. In at least one of them, prosecutors have seen fit to file charges. Neither your criteria for injustice nor mine have any bearing on those decisions. The legislators pass laws based on their criteria and the prosecutors file charges based on theirs.In the context of the topic, there is nothing you can do to change that law by breaking it. Only the prosecutors could "break" it by refusing to ever file charges. But they work according to their own idea of justice, not yours.Your plan to change the law by breaking it won't work. Not at all. I'm arguing that it probably won't work.Look at South Africa for another example. Was it passive resistance and law-breaking that brought an end to apartheid? Or was it international pressure? Did the white minority cave in to resistance or react with greater oppression? And that's what I've been advocating. You haven't.

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

I don't think I said one way or the other whether "it" (fetal-homicide law?) is unjust. I've said it's stupid. In any case, whether or not I consider a law unjust has no relevance to whether or not it should be upheld. Sounds like the good-things-used-for-bad-purposes ploy. If it's illegal for me to cut you, it isn't necessarily illegal for a surgeon to do it. It comes down to consent and intent. What language am I speaking here? That's what I've been saying all along. We change laws by speaking out against them, not by breaking them. On the contrary, the nation to your north, faced with a similar situation, approached it in a less lawless manner and achieved similar results. There was passive resistance and violence. India and Pakistan became independent. Is that cause and effect? Well, that's all I've been arguing against. Who hijacked your computer? I don't think anybody has argued that. Law enforcement SHOULD prosecute what's on the books. If prosecutors take it upon themselves to decide which laws to prosecute, what do we need legislators for? What law would that be? Civil servants may have issued marriage licenses to gay couples in defiance of policy, but was there an actual law?By the way, I'm all in favour of violating policy.

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.