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So my question is should you always follow the Law? Socrates seems to think so when he was condemned to death. But is it good enough when a law is passed by, say a despot, so it then has some sort of sanctity? Then what the hell does the rule of law mean in such circumstances? And when the law is hi-jacked is that any better? Certainly Professor Dworkin didn't seem to agree. And I struggled with this for a long time until I realized that we make the laws and when we are conned into believing that the are to our benefit, when they are not, then all bets should be off.

Azaz8899 5 Feb 18
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I did write a humorous on this but on a more serious note.
Sometimes taking the law into your own hands can be the only effective way to get any form of justice. The legal profession and authorities for obvious reasons take a dim view on this but that presupposes that they are an effective method of redress.
The most striking example in my experience is in cases of sexual assault. Often indifference, incompetence, and downright prejudice will wreck a case before it starts. Even if the law is on your side and the whole team gets behind you? it is difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. A classic case of "He said, she said".
On the few occasions where friends have come to me with this kind of thing, I have told them in all honesty that they would be far better getting the guy beaten up than going through the courts.
Imagine the scenario in the cases of Catholic priests, where instead of making formal complaints the father of the child had attacked the priest with a baseball bat? Yes, he may well have been arrested, charged and even have gone to court. But he could rightly use self-defense as a not-guilty plea. (If you shoot someone who is about to shoot someone else then there is no case to answer.) The man has done it before and despite complaints has done it again. The church and the law had done nothing to stop him and so it would be perfectly reasonable to act in this way. When applied here moreover the whole corrupt cover-up would be working for you. I doubt if the Catholic church would want its handling of this matter to be aired in open court.

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Rosa Parks is hailed as a hero for her peaceful non compliance of an unjust law. Sometime laws conflict. According to an urban legend there was a chap who practiced his bagpipes on Hampstead Heath charged with a violation of an Victorian era by-law that banned the playing of any musical instrument on the Heath. He countered with an old law that classed bagpipes as a weapon of war and cited bylaws that encourage the use of common land for weapons practice. We don't need to search hard to find listicles of outdated and ridiculous laws still in force around the word.

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Three old vets meet in a Spanish bar. A Frenchman, Yugoslav and a Czech.
The subject of WW2 came up and the Frenchman said: "I was in the French resistance and we killed many Germans".
The Yugoslav "I fought under Tito and we killed many Germans too".
The Czech says "Unfortunately killing Germans was against the law in Czechoslovakia"

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I follow morals,ethics,and laws as a way of belonging in a society. It's a social pact. If that society passes a law I consider wrong or inconvenient. I break it. and suffer the consequences if I want to remain in that society. But, I can work towards changing that law. By voting or protesting. There are so many laws on the books now, I'm sure we all break several. They can choose to let it pass or prosecute you depending on whether you need to be silenced...

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The perfect illustration is Heinz’s dilemma from Kohlberg’s stages of moral development.

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Did Socrates espouse allegiance to the law? It's been a while since I've read much about his teachings, but I don't specifically remember that. In fact, his death seemed in some respect to be a defiance of the law, a political statement of sorts. From what I recall, the death sentence was supposed to be countered by the defendant (Socrates) with a more reasonable punishment, but he said that for "corrupting the youth" he should be given free meals for the rest of his life. This forced the hand of the officials to carry out the death sentence, as there was no acceptable punishment put forth by Socrates. If anything, Socrates used his life (or the ending thereof) to protest the law. Am I misremembering the tale?

NO, that is pretty much how it went.

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So very true . Not all laws are valid or reasonable . Unfortunately , we don't , as individuals , get to decide which laws we should feel we should abide by and which we feel we ignore . Unless you happen to be Trump , in which case all bets are off .

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