There is never a reason to disobey a law. If you don’t like the law…then you get it changed or attempt to. What kind of country would we have if we picked and choose what law we want to obey and which ones we choose to disobey. We are supposed to be a country of laws.
This is the heart of the Legal Positivism I keep talking about.
The reason it’s a rubbish philosophy is that it only works when there are just laws. The Nazi guards who were “only following orders” could not be condemned with this line of thought. They should have obeyed, because the law of their military said to obey orders. Kill families? No problem. The Nuremberg Trials were wrong, and most (if not all) of the Nazis should have walked away scott-free. Being ordered to commit atrocities is not a reason to disobey the law. Rosa Parks? Dead wrong, and her place is in the slammer. The Underground Railroad? They should have been imprisoned as well. The family hiding Anne Frank? Whatever punishment the state assigns is just.
Do you really want to take that side?
The reason I keep harping on your posts is that you also claimed that you believed in the mythical Social Contract. John Locke, in
Two Treatises on Government, said that the “right to rebellion” was an inalienable right; and lest you forget, it’s Locke who invented the Social Contract. According to Positivism, this is nonsense - there is “
never a reason to disobey a law”. Either you believe in the Social Contract, or you’re a Positivist – you can’t have it both ways (although you can have it neither). And as far as being “a country of laws” ("…, not men" is the rest of the quote), that is true in so far as it goes; do not forget, however, that we became a “country of laws” through revolution and rebellion. The founders of this country wanted us to retain that ability (see: Declaration of Independence, several state constitutions, many Supreme Court decisions), and I think we should respect that. Your bold assertion that there’s never a reason to disobey the law is simply un-American.
I do wish you would pick one legal philosophy and stay with it. This pick-and-choose mishmash from contradictory legal philosophies is quite difficult to respect as a form of argument.
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