I said: "According to "we the people" you DO have such a debt to society."
Not only do I think I am not occuring a debt to society automatically be breaking any law, I don't think most of "the people" do either.
So when I suggested that your assertion that the democratic process of the people (which is under the authority of your Constitution) was a claim to being right, I clearly intended your claim to being right to reflect disagreement with your fellow citizens who make United States laws.
I probably do disagree with many of my fellow citizens on this. Others I don't disagree with. The majority probably have no opinion.
What I mean is simply this: that the belief that you can cherry pick what laws you have a responsibility or onus to obey while disregarding the rest ("I do not agree that I have any onus to obey whatever legislation congress or my state legislature passes. I also don't agree with the idea that I have a moral obligation to follow every regulation") is an antisocial attitude and one that embraces the idea of being above the law
Above the law would mean that the law was below me. "Not below the law" might be a better term.
Its not an anti-social attitude. It doesn't result in me routinely disobeying laws, (even laws I disagree with) or even protesting against them. It does not require a disrespect of the law. I respect it as a very useful tool, one of the most useful that civilization has available to it. A just system of laws deserves respect, but respect doesn't mean that it is inherently correct or superior. A law isn't some mystical wonder, its a proclamation of a government.
However, your Nazi analogy is irrelevant to the issue. An analogy may sometimes make a good illustration, but in and of itself it makes no argument whatsoever. In this case, Nazi Germany has absolutely nothing to do with our discussion. Nazi Germany did not grants equal rights and freedoms to people, nor did it properly apply either direct or representative democracy.
It is an example that shows violating a law is not automatically an assault against society. While freedom and democracy are very good things, both directly, and because they tend to have more positive results than the alternatives, there is nothing about a democracy that changes the fundamental nature of a law. As for freedoms granted to people those are based on what laws get passed (the constitution is a law as well, just one that is over other laws and harder to change). If you pass good and just laws that allow more freedom than the country will be more free. If you pass poor and unjust and heavily restrictive laws than people will be less free. If the law was inherently superior and above personal concerns of justice and morality than a society that had more restrictive and unjust laws would still rightfully demand that all the laws be obeyed.
"Not accepting the idea that breaking the law is automatically an attack against society does not require you to break any law"
Nobody claimed otherwise.
You implied it when you responded to my idea that breaking the law is not automatically an attack on society with the statement that my ideas would leave us with "simply the law of claw, fang, and talon--the morality of the bear, the wolf, and the vulture."
Which is of course not true. People can respect that law and think they should normally obey it without believing that any violation of any law (or even any law in a democratic system) is an attack against society. Also governments have a great deal of ability to enforce the law. Government enforcement is to an extent "the law of claw, fang, and talon", but it should and can be restrained in its exercise of these weapons, and it can keep a general peace regardless of whether people think of any violation of the law as an attack against society.
But you DID claim that you did not feel bound to obey the law
I am not automatically doing something wrong if I don't obey the law, but I do obey it most of the time (other than driving over the speed limit), and think that it is generally a good idea to obey the law. Not regarding any violation of the law as an attack on society does not mean we descend in to anarchy. I doubt all the people driving 56 to 75 miles per hour on Interstate 66 think they are attacking society, in fact I submit that almost none of them thing that and a majority don't think they are doing anything wrong; but somehow order is maintained and life goes on without the world being reduced to "the morality of the bear, the wolf, and the vulture."
Tim |
