Must we obey ridiculous laws?

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LeafByNiggle said:
You can do all that is allowed within the law to voice you opposition to such laws. But there is no way in which civil disobedience even makes sense in such cases. What are you suggesting? Forcing your way into courtrooms where such unions are being made and releasing a stink bomb? Or worse? No, I think you have to confine yourself to legal protest. And this thread is not about gay marriage or extra-legal protests over gay marriage. It is about the degree to which we are obligated to obey laws we find silly.
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OK. So you are the HR Director for a company who is now required to provide marital benefits such as insurance, and so forth. Do you have a moral obligation to quit your job?
 
Peepers said:
OK. So you are the HR Director for a company who is now required to provide marital benefits such as insurance, and so forth. Do you have a moral obligation to quit your job?
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No, but you have the right to do so if you feel that strongly about it.
 
LeafByNiggle,
Apologies for getting a little accusational there. I reread my post, and the language was a bit rude.

My contention is that what constitutes a pointless law (I’m sure Caligula didn’t think making his horse a senator was pointless) as well as what constitutes necessary disobedience are very open to interpretation. While I would not accuse you (you seem like a reasonable person) of telling Thoreau to sit down and shut up, I worry that statements like “It is not the job of each citizen to decide for himself which laws are pointless.” could easily be interpreted that way, whether or not it would be a misinterpretation. In a democracy, where political power is meant to come from the people, it MUST be the job of the citizenry to decide which laws are right.

As I said in an earlier post, I don’t trust all lawmakers or enforcers to never pass ridiculous laws, but neither do I trust all citizens to decide for themselves which laws are best followed. A minority of each group regularly screw it up. I do believe that lawmakers sometimes pass laws for ridiculous reasons and even that the legislature and law enforcement have been guilty of throwing their weight around for little reason than to demonstrate or grab power. I also believe that citizens can overreact or react foolishly to reasonable legislation.

However, I know that I must put those jobs (legislating and evaluating) in the hands of those groups (legislators and citizens). I simply hope that we all do our best to be as aware of our responsibilities as possible and remember that, when we engage in matters of civil disobedience, it should be a carefully considered and moral action.
 
The Social Contract says that if a system is no longer agreeable to the governed or the government, their banns are dissolved. But, you can’t disobey AND take the benefits of the government.

Accept it, change it, or leave it. If you stay, you gotta obey.

Glennonite
 
_L said:
The issue of the law of God vs the law of the state often comes up and its something that I have so many questions about and I have not received a cohesive answer up to this point so I was hoping for some insight. I know in the new testament it says to obey those in authority over us in so far as what they are doing does not transgress the laws of God. but my quesiton is, when does the government go too far, to the point where we do not have to obey a certain law? for example, if the government made a law that outlawed going to mass; obviously this law is unjust and we would not be obliged to follow it. Now on the other side of the spectrum, lets say there was a law that said everyone had to wear the color red on Tuesdays. Would we have to follow this ridiculous law? According to the answers I have heard on this subject, yes, we would have to obey this law and be forced to wear red on tuesdays seeing as it doesn’t directly transgress a law of God. Now this seems totally off to me, and I am wondering if the Church has any sort of doctrine on law in general and what we are expected to follow. Now the example of wearing red is extreme, but there are tons of laws already on the books of equal ridiculousness and annoyance, so my quesiton is how far must we go in compliance with the law?
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Read this article and tell me what you think: lewrockwell.com/orig11/barr-j1.1.1.html
 
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