From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Jul 31 2002 - 01:06:32 MDT
Mike writes
> [Lee wrote]
> > I say that their reason and experience should
> > cause people to conclude that they should obey
> > even the laws they disagree with, (fanciful
> > exceptions aside, and it being understood
> > that one lives in a fundamentally democratic
> > society).
>
> I'd have to disagree, but not entirely. If you live in
> a constitutional society (not necessarily a democratic
> one), you are entirely right to disobey laws that you
> can reasonably argue are unconstitutional, at least
> from a moral standpoint. Just disobeying laws because
> you don't like them is still wrong, so there is a
> difference between just not liking a law and believing
> it to be unconstitutional.
I do appreciate your distinction between "laws you don't
like" and "laws that you can reasonably argue are
unconstitutional". Here, I'll take what I can get, and
if that means that too many extropians and libertarians
still feel at liberty to break any law against which
they can come up with a good constitutional argument,
then I'm still a little better off than people breaking
laws that they just don't agree with or find immoral.
But you are placing a terrible burden on people; need
one be a constitutional scholar to "reasonably argue"
that such and such is not constitutional? Yes, back
when the constitution was meant to be understandable
by the average reader, your scheme was less completely
unworkable. We now have high priests, as you know,
who tell us what the document means, and we are so
far without a Martin Luther.
But the more fundamental reason that your proposal isn't
workable is that people as presently constituted in the
nations under discussion are not capable of reaching
independent and judicious conclusions about what is and
is not constitutional. This most definitely applies
even to most of the people on this list. Their human
minds are (almost all of us) fully capable of reading
whatever interpretation into "the constitution" that
we would want to. Most folks here, for example, would
say that you have a constitutional right to burn the
flag, or go naked in public, or be free from prayer in
school, or a thousand other (mostly admirable) things
that the constitution of the United States simply says
absolutely nothing about.
But speeding down the highway, especially if in a creative
mood perhaps slightly assisted by adult beverage, it
would be child's play for any extropian to concoct an
argument that he or she had a constitutional right to
drive down a public road at any velocity they pleased.
Yes, you said "reasonable". But who's to be the judge
of that?
> One should not, however, get all self righteous in
> thinking that they should be free from efforts by the
> government to enforce laws the individual feels is
> unconstitutional.
Thank you. I know that 95% or more people you stopped
on the street would be unable to explain the doctrine
of civil disobedience, and its key element that you
don't evade arrest. But even on this list, I'm starting
to think that when writers say things like "you have a
right and duty to break any immoral law", they also
have absolutely no intention of turning themselves in,
either.
> It is your responsibility as a citizen to not only
> civilly disobey such laws, but to pursue the legal
> process of fighting them in court, since breaking
> an unconstitutional law is the only sure way to
> achieve standing in such cases.
While this (civil disobedience) is a great improvement
over supporing scofflaws, it still suffers from the defect
IMO that it's way over people's heads. The only message
they'll understand is that the authorities have been
dis'sed. The message that goes out from Thoreau, Ghandi,
and MLK is, "hey man, it's like okay to break the law
when it's wrong, you know?". And it's an easy step from
there to "that money in them banks is got from stealing
from poor folks, like me, and it's only moral and right
for us to take it back". Yes, I know that people on
this list would accost such an individual with detailed
arguments disproving his case. But I'd rather he lived
in fear of breaking the law.
Lee
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