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Quote of the Day: Civil Disobedience
“Rules were made to be broken.”
“Don’t disagree. Indeed they are. Providing, however, that the one breaking the rules is willing to pay the price for it, and the price gets charged in full … Otherwise breaking rules becomes the province of brats instead of heroes. Fastest way I can think of to turn serious political affairs into a playpen. A civilized society needs a conscience, and conscience can’t be developed without martyrs — real ones — against which a nation can measure its crimes and sins.” — Eric Flint, Crown of Slaves
This would be the flip side of my previous quote post about enforcing the law. If one truly feels like a law is unethical, break it — but understand the price that will need to be paid. As for martyrs, well — would Letters from a Montgomery Home ever had the power as Letters from a Birmingham Jail?
Our protesters are so accustomed to the notion that their vandalous “protests” will go unpunished that when one is arrested, one can find shock and outrage that any price will be demanded at all. Which is why, yes, “civil disobedience” is now the province of brats and our serious political affairs have devolved into a playpen.
Published in Policing
Each person has to calculate his own risks. Of course, there is always the possibility of shifting strategies if caught, in a case like that.
As always, there’s a “Yes Minister” quote for this:
@sabrdance can go into this more, but let me explain it in as what it means for me. As a member of the Missouri Bar Association, I have sworn to be an officer of the court. This means I am charged with doing my part to uphold the law. If I were assigned by the court to defend a child rapist whom I knew was guilty, I don’t get to shirk my duty to defend him zealously. If you are part of the government machine, your job is to do what the people have told you to do. And if the people don’t like it, it’s their job to change their mind, not yours.
After all, isn’t that what the whole “Deep State” leaking and low level rebellion is all about? They think their ethical duty is to undermine the will of the people and violate whatever laws they think are unethical to do it.
Couldn’t there be police nullification by not being able to find anyone to enforce certain laws? On the other end of the spectrum, it would be equally unethical to not enforce just laws.
Bingo.
The thing is that if the law is that odious, it would probably never have passed in the first place. Is it possible? Sure. And it’s possible the sun could go nova next week, but a physicist should know just how unlikely that is. I have been around the law my entire life. I have studied human nature all my life. I would figure the sun’s going nova next week is a higher probability than that there will ever be a law that nobody will enforce. People enforced the Nazi laws, after all.
Right, which is why the Obama Administration has a lot to answer for in preventing the enforcement of immigration laws. Oh, is that not what you meant by a just law?
Maybe the oath that Bar Associations make you take is unethical.
Maybe it is. I mean, I know the “good guys” are nominally in charge right now, but I have to admit, it’s nice to see people questioning the legitimacy of presidential power, even if they probably won’t take home the complete right message that the presidency and the government is too powerful to begin with.
Aren’t there plenty of laws that aren’t enforced and even forgotten about right now?
Badum Ching!
With the number of laws and regulations on the books? Of course. And every once in awhile, someone resurrects one. We had an incident some years back where some kids were ticketed for their language. The law was still on the books and still perfectly legal to cite them with. An uproar ensued and the law was repealed. That sort of thing happens, and if mores have changed, it incites action to repeal the law.
But the fact that there are too many laws on the books and too many regulations to be enforceable is not a law enforcement officer’s initiative to change. It is for legislatures to change, and they can.
Do or do not, there is no try.
Thank you, Yoda. But the point is that it is neither legal nor ethical for LEOs to take things in their own hands. We have a phrase for that, “Playing judge, jury, and executioner.”
It was just a joke to cap things off as I was going to bed.
Good night, Johnboy.
Great post and comment section Amy. When will it end? I fear only when some serious economic or natural disaster disintegrates that playpen and hard reality returns seriousness of thought and action.
Aside from the issue that we don’t want police officers determining on an ad hoc basis that which is just or unjust (as it undermines the rule of law), such a system could yield very nefarious or discriminatory results. Police officers investigate when a white woman says she was raped by a black man, but don’t investigate or do much when the victim is black. Police officer thinks domestic violence laws are unnecessary, so he takes his sweet time responding to DV calls or fails to file reports from them.
A lot of us do not want to vest such veto power over our objective and (reasonably) just laws into unaccountable parties whose decision-making isn’t any better or more pure than anyone else’s.
Well, the ones who are wrong obviously shouldn’t do it, right? I know this sounds strange because so many people are wrong, but that shouldn’t be a reason for the good ones not to do the right thing. Obviously, despite you not wanting to vest veto power in police they are doing bad things right now anyway, so why should the good ones refrain from doing the right thing?
Not very often and not very many. Most are professionals these days, at least in the US. Now, Venezuelan police may be another matter. I don’t know. But most US police are not “doing bad things right now…”
I might agree. I’m not familiar with the statistics. I was just talking about the ones doing obviously bad things like not investigating rapes or domestic violence.
That was an illustration of why we don’t want police nullification. Since we do want them to investigate and respond to these things, whether they believe these acts should be criminal or not, we require them to do so. I also doubt there are very many LEOs who meet the illustration.
You keep trying to make some point, unfortunately, the rest of us are on planet Earth, not whatever hypothetical planet you are on.
boom! *mic drop*