From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Thu Aug 01 2002 - 04:00:20 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote:
> 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.
>
Finding a law immoral, with a reasonably rational morality, is a
perfectly fine reason to break a law. The law against helping
escaping slaves before the Civil War comes to mind as an
historical case.
> 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?
No. The basics of what the constitution is for are quite
understandable. One does not have to depend on experts to
recognize when legitimate freedoms are being taken away.
> 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.
Speak for yourself. I am quite capable of noting when my life
and liberty is being encroached upon. The constitution is an
instrument for protecting my life and liberty. It is not the
source of my right to the same or utterly definitive of what my
life and liberty consists of.
> 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.
>
Irrelevant.
> 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?
>
The only person who ever is. Yourself.
>
>>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.
>
Actually, I disagree with this analysis. It is perfectly
legitimate and within a free person's rights to evade bad lawas
and to avoid detection and/or arrest for the same. If the law
is in the way of one's very life and one is likely to lose a
significant portion if not the entirety of one's life if
arrested for violating said law, then there is no valid argument
that it is one's duty to put one's life, which was the standard
of protesting the law in the first place, in jeopardy just
because some bureaucrat passed a ridiculous law.
>
>>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.
>>
>
It is my responsibility to further my own life and liberty. If
that is consistent with protesting a law formally with my
freedom on the line then so be it. But I am not duty bound to
do so. There are other valid options.
> 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?".
Even a light reading of these greats would make it obvious that
this is not the message at all. I am not concerned with nitwits
that cannot grok even this much.
- samantha
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