"You have to follow the rules"

[Deleted]

“Even if you disagree with them, you have to follow the rules.”

This is an incredibly common sentence. And now I have to ask, do you think it is right? If a law is unfair should we follow it? If the state/government/whatever is making something harmful, does it mean we should just sit by and watch? Does it mean that all civil disobedience acts that saved forests, saved jews during the WWII and saved people are all morally wrong?

I first think we should split this into 2 types of law breaking:

• Regular law breaking - A normal law that you break because you think it is unfair; and
  
• Civil disobedience - when you act against a decision or law of power and you act as to avoid it to happen you break a law as to defend a position you have about a subject which may not be related to the law breaking (for example, making a road block because you think a bridge is not safe enough to pass, even if the city hall ignores you) (sorry for not being clear enough about the definition before).

I have no formed opinion on regular law breaking, but I do have a strong well prepared opinion on civil disobedience.

I think civil disobedience is good when:

• the democratic rights of the population are smothered if this civil disobedience doesn't happen;
  
• or when the majority of people actively defend something which will cause great harms to great amounts of people.

Both are quite direct and simple positions.

Objections to the first are that it is possible to stop the "smothering" without resorting to civil disobedience. But most times these alternate methods are slow and ineffective, while the injustice is developing rapidly.
Others might say that if it is hard to avoid it trough legal methods, then it is conforming to the will of the population. Yet, I think it is clear that many times, these processes occur trough non-democratic means, thus ignoring the ideas of the population. Furthermore, having in mind we have representative democracies, and not direct ones, people are forced to choose "packages" of offers. Often people choose the ones with the least amount of things they disagree with, yet, many times a person doesn't agree 100% with these "packages". So, only in a direct democracy could we say that such act would be conforming to the will of the population.

The second is harder to defend, but yet I think it is possible.
First, one reason to do it may be to bring attention to the people and "force" them into considering something they never though of before.
And if the objective is to actually stop a great injustice from happening, isn't it after all a good action? If you could avoid the pain and suffering of many people, if it was illegal, would you sit by and watch it happen?

At last, an objection to both possibilities might be that civil disobedience might leave to an anarchy. To that I say I doubt it. Why? Because people who do civil disobedience do know they are making illegal acts, and do know they will probably be sent to court and considered guilty. Even if they don't recognize it, the government will, and will try to catch them, thus proving to people laws are to follow.

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So, what is your opinion on both regular law breaking and civil disobedience? Do you agree with my arguments? And remember, PDBAZ!

[stephen5000]

I'd argue that following the law only because it is the law is akin to being a zombie.

The question of how to fight an unjust (or pointless) law is a tricky one. Civil disobedience doesn't always work.

Personally, I think we as a society have to come to realize that there is nothing special about a rule just because it is a law. We always need to ask "Why?".

I fell into the trap when I was young and always considered school rules to be intrinsically important, and probably lost a lot of childhood fun as a result.

[Nakor]

Breaking a law to protest it generally just nets you a jail sentence or fine, and doesn't do your point much good. Like it or not, breaking a law is generally not the best way to oppose it.

[rialvestro]

I think it depends on the rule.

Lets say for example that the rule is you shouldn't steal. Well it's kind of a good rule to follow but there are acceptions to this rule such as stealing out of need rather than want. If you're stealing a car then that is most definatly wrong. However if you're stealing food to feed your family then it's OK because you need that the survive.

On the oppisite side there are also rules which are just stupid and can't even be enforced. Like making it illegal to sing in the shower. (I don't know if that's a real law, it's just the first thing that popped into my head.) The law really doesn't have say in what you do in your own home unless anyone is in any real danger of harm.

Now the rules that should be followed weather or not you agree with them fall in the middle of these two extremes. If no harm is done by following the rule and no harm is done by not following the rule then why argue with it? If you're in someone elses home it's just a sign of respect to follow their rules. Maybe in your own house you don't care about wearing shoes around the house but someone else may want to keep their carpet clean and ask you to take your shoes off at the door. It's not really unreasonable for someone to ask you to take your shoes off in their home so why fight them about it?

[Deleted]

Apr 27, 2010 17:12:00 GMT -5 Nakor said:

Breaking a law to protest it generally just nets you a jail sentence or fine, and doesn't do your point much good. Like it or not, breaking a law is generally not the best way to oppose it.

I though protests, being a form of speech, were legal as the right to speech is a constitutional right...

Anyway, there are many examples of successful civil disobedience. For example, Oskar Schindler's acts during the WWII of hiring jews for his factories in much larger amounts than needed, together with bribing german officials to protect these. It was a simple case of civil disobedience that helped many.

On a democratic context we can think of australian Bob Brown, who in 1976 organized a non-violent roadblock (these are truly illegal) so as to prevent the creation of an unnecessary dam on the Franklin river in Tasmania. This roadblock became a national focus, and was stopped by political forces.

In this last example you have to have in mind that before protecting the Franklin river they tried to stop the creation of another unnecessary dam (mainly because this would flood the alpine primitive lake Peddar) using only legal methods and failed.

Source for examples: Singer, Peter; Practical Ethics; 1993

[straemer]

I believe that laws are more "guidelines" than anything. That isn't to say break them as often as you wish, but rather, follow the law until you can come to a conclusion as to why it's there. If you conclude that the law is there for an unjust reason (and "I want..." doesn't count as a just reason) then go ahead and break said law.

[Nakor]

Apr 27, 2010 17:32:19 GMT -5 @ptmb said:

Apr 27, 2010 17:12:00 GMT -5 Nakor said:

Breaking a law to protest it generally just nets you a jail sentence or fine, and doesn't do your point much good. Like it or not, breaking a law is generally not the best way to oppose it.

I though protests, being a form of speech, were legal as the right to speech is a constitutional right...

They are, but that's not what I meant. I meant that protesting a law by breaking that very same law is generally (not always) a bad way to go about it.

[Deleted]

Apr 27, 2010 20:41:50 GMT -5 Nakor said:

Apr 27, 2010 17:32:19 GMT -5 @ptmb said:

I though protests, being a form of speech, were legal as the right to speech is a constitutional right...

They are, but that's not what I meant. I meant that protesting a law by breaking that very same law is generally (not always) a bad way to go about it.

Oh, sorry, when I was talking about civil disobedience I was talking about breaking a(ny) law so as to defend a position you have for or against something. It doesn't necessarily need to be the law you are acting against.

[thejourney]

this depends on the situation you can protest a law in a legal manner but if youre protesting pot dont flip SHIRT when you get arrested for smoking