Do you obey the law?

[Olas]

So I've made this point before, but I don't think I've ever gotten someone to agree with me on it.

If you have respect and trust in your government as a whole, you shouldn't break any laws, even the laws you disagree with personally. You may think a certain law is unnecessary or amoral, but you shouldn't let your own personal beliefs trump that of the legal system you've put your trust in. The entire point of having laws is to save us from the moral whims of individuals, and if you only obey the laws you think are justified you're effectively turning the laws into a set of suggestions and turning yourself into the highest authority.

Now you can and should try and change laws you don't agree with, but still follow the law until you do, and if you can't change the law then you should accept it as a price of living in the society you're in. You can disagree with the law, hate the law, openly speak out against it, but you should still obey it.

If there's a law you can't accept, and can't change, that's when you should reject the society and government as a whole, perhaps move or try to overthrow it.

However, there's no virtue in living within a society, but breaking laws you don't agree with, it's just hypocritical.

To answer OP: not deliberately, in a long long time.

 

[sageoftruth]

All I have to say about law judging is, if you're going to declare a law to be stupid and worth breaking, make sure you either: a) know why it was passed in the first place, or b) are an all-knowing god.
If you aren't the latter, be sure to do your research before you go with your gut on this one.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

These days yes, primarily because I've grown bored of all the things that I liked doing that were illegal. If it wasn't for that I'd probably be pretty much continually breaking the law.

Captcha: learn from your mistakes. Yeah, took a while though.

 

[Olas]

I do, because it is troublesome not to. I consider that all current governments on Earth are psychotic and working directly towards the death of all humanity. The laws they make have no purpose, good or bad, they are just manifestations of insanity. A new law made is no different to a lunatic in an asylum screaming out gibberish.

But the government does have power, and so the best thing to do is live your life as well as you can, while keeping apprised of the laws and trying to obey them. Not because they are right or wrong, but because you will be destroyed if you don't.

So you don't agree that stealing is wrong? That property rights should be upheld? That it's wrong to physically hurt or kill someone without cause? Those are laws in most places, and they definitely weren't instated arbitrarily.

I'm not sure if you realize it but saying something so incredibly radical and then not supporting it with any rationale makes you sound like a lunatic screaming out gibberish.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Eh yes and no. I judge the risk/reward of breaking it and go from there.

Hypothetically the sneakypenguin might ride the Cherohala skyway or BRP at 75-80 or carry a firearm anywhere he damn well pleases or shoot fireworks , break every workplace safety law thats posted. Honestly I don't really give a whole lotta thought to what the law is but rather go by "is this going to hurt me or others". I don't flaunt breaking the law when I know a penalty is absurd but I still tend to do what I want.

 

[sneakypenguin]

So I've made this point before, but I don't think I've ever gotten someone to agree with me on it.

If you have respect and trust in your government as a whole, you shouldn't break any laws, even the laws you disagree with personally. You may think a certain law is unnecessary or amoral, but you shouldn't let your own personal beliefs trump that of the legal system you've put your trust in. The entire point of having laws is to save us from the moral whims of individuals, and if you only obey the laws you think are justified you're effectively turning the laws into a set of suggestions and turning yourself into the highest authority.

Now you can and should try and change laws you don't agree with, but still follow the law until you do, and if you can't change the law then you should accept it as a price of living in the society you're in. You can disagree with the law, hate the law, openly speak out against it, but you should still obey it.

If there's a law you can't accept, and can't change, that's when you should reject the society and government as a whole, perhaps move or try to overthrow it.

However, there's no virtue in living within a society, but breaking laws you don't agree with, it's just hypocritical.

To answer OP: not deliberately, in a long long time.

Eh that runs into issues though with laws that are good but impractical to always obey. Just to use an example my old dirtbike isn't street legal and can't be driven on roads (a law i'd agree with) except our property was on both sides of the road I'd pull my bike out of the garage and stop at the end of the driveway then hop across the road to where we'd ride. To obey that law i'd have to load it into a truck move it the 8 feet to the other side unload it, and to change that law idk where you'd even start cause cops/city council would probably just give you a quizzical look and say some variation of "I don't give a shit if you cross the road on your dirtbike" . There's all sorts of examples of laws that are good but would be absurd to practice in every single instance they'd apply and that to change would require the most tortured text just to create those exceptions.

 

[Olas]

So I've made this point before, but I don't think I've ever gotten someone to agree with me on it.

If you have respect and trust in your government as a whole, you shouldn't break any laws, even the laws you disagree with personally. You may think a certain law is unnecessary or amoral, but you shouldn't let your own personal beliefs trump that of the legal system you've put your trust in. The entire point of having laws is to save us from the moral whims of individuals, and if you only obey the laws you think are justified you're effectively turning the laws into a set of suggestions and turning yourself into the highest authority.

Now you can and should try and change laws you don't agree with, but still follow the law until you do, and if you can't change the law then you should accept it as a price of living in the society you're in. You can disagree with the law, hate the law, openly speak out against it, but you should still obey it.

If there's a law you can't accept, and can't change, that's when you should reject the society and government as a whole, perhaps move or try to overthrow it.

However, there's no virtue in living within a society, but breaking laws you don't agree with, it's just hypocritical.

To answer OP: not deliberately, in a long long time.

Eh that runs into issues though with laws that are good but impractical to always obey. Just to use an example my old dirtbike isn't street legal and can't be driven on roads (a law i'd agree with) except our property was on both sides of the road I'd pull my bike out of the garage and stop at the end of the driveway then hop across the road to where we'd ride. To obey that law i'd have to load it into a truck move it the 8 feet to the other side unload it, and to change that law idk where you'd even start cause cops/city council would probably just give you a quizzical look and say some variation of "I don't give a shit if you cross the road on your dirtbike" . There's all sorts of examples of laws that are good but would be absurd to practice in every single instance they'd apply and that to change would require the most tortured text just to create those exceptions.

I suppose in circumstances like that you could say that what you're doing is implicitly legal because the law was never intended to forbid people from traveling across 8 feet of road and even a cop who saw you wouldn't have a problem with it. My point isn't so much about minor technicalities as it is about people who break the law but have found ways to morally justify it to themselves ie some digital content pirates.

The thread I first brought it up in was about piracy and was filled with people who defended their right to do it on all sorts of grounds. My point was that it doesn't matter if you think it's a morally justifiable thing to do because it's still illegal and your personal (and incredibly biased) views shouldn't be more important than those of the people we've elected to make laws.

I'll make another caveat that in places where the law has completely fallen behind technology to the point where the laws that were made were based on assumptions that are no longer true, then it's okay to break the law as long as what you're doing is something you don't think the original lawmakers would have wanted to make illegal.

 

[Signa]

All I have to say about law judging is, if you're going to declare a law to be stupid and worth breaking, make sure you either: a) know why it was passed in the first place, or b) are an all-knowing god.
If you aren't the latter, be sure to do your research before you go with your gut on this one.

Of course, if you apply that logic to income tax law, you might find more reason to ignore it. Basically, I'm not Al Capone, and I'm not moon shining, so obviously, I don't need to pay my income taxes.

I do try to apply "A" to any law I'm evaluating. I'll usually see what it's preventing, and then just not do that because it probably needs to be prevented. The problem is a lot of laws are written to close previous loopholes without regard of other similar innocent situations that are not exploitable.

 

[Jessta]

Here's a crappy situation that's food for thought and is somewhat relevant to the subject at hand

Alright, for the last two months my landlord has fallen into a drunken depression and isolated himself from society, he would be sober about one day per every two weeks and he would be incredibly hungover that day. A month and a half ago his ex wife came and banged on the door for hours demanding money for child support while he hid inside his room. Then a couple of weeks after that his ex employees came to his door one after another demanding their last months pay + compensation. Each time he would respond the same way by running and hiding and refusing to answer the door.
Then a month ago his land lord came to the door looking for rent that he apparently didn't pay, turns out he was actually subletting without letting either of us know.
So this was a bit of a fiasco but we all agreed verbally that we would all play it out till the end of august
on july 15th we talked to him again and told him that we would be moving out on the 15th of august and he agreed that we could do that for half a months rent.
A little bit after that he sells his car and all of his stuff with high value and bulk orders a bunch of shit on e-bay which he in turn gives to his dad to store so he can sell it on the side. fair enough guy's getting another little business going sounds good.
first of august rolls around and we have the rent all ready to be paid but he runs and hides in the back room and refuses to talk to us
super strange
second comes around same thing
third comes around we already have a Uhaul rented and ferry tickets to take the first load of stuff, we spend all day packing our stuff into the uhaul try to knock on his door (to no avail he's still hiding, clearly in there because we live below him and could hear him walking around but he just wont talk to anybody) so we opt to leave a note on the door saying we'll be back in four days to get the rest of our stuff.
As we're pulling out of the drive way (Seriously like cars started and we're rolling out) He bursts out the door and comes yelling 'wait' 'wait' I need you to pay you're months rent.
Now we're pretty agitated as it is right now because we're worrying about our damage+Pet deposit (Which was equal to one months rent) and as it is it's looking like he has no intention to pay it so we say alright once we get back but we want some insurance you'll be paying us back out deposit when the time comes to which he responds "I have 30 days after it's due, that's irrelevant, you can't just withhold rent like that I NEED IT NOW" well no way we just had 600 dollars on us right there and then and there was no chance in hell we'd be able to get to the nearest bank with our Uhaul and still have time to catch the ferry so we basically tell him to bad we don't have it right now we'll have to talk about it later to which he responds 'FINE THEN I'M TAKING LEGAL ACTION'
So we continue with the trip to deliver our stuff get home 4 days later coming home late at night eviction notice hanging on the door saying we have to be out by the 13th (Yeah well whatever our original agreement was to leave on the 15th anyways) but there's a subclause at the bottom, you have five days after the eviction notice is filed to dispute the claims, then they can file an 'order of possession' which pretty much makes it so you have to leave immediately, AND he gets to keep the damage deposit as compensation for the rent plus anything left in the house by the end of the due term.
I've still got till the 13th at 1pm to be out of here with all of my stuff but it's looking like I have no chance of getting my damage deposit back + now I have a black mark for failing to pay rent and being forcibly evicted + I can't even take revenge by fucking up the house because it's not even really his.

 

[zarguhl]

So you don't agree that stealing is wrong? That property rights should be upheld? That it's wrong to physically hurt or kill someone without cause? Those are laws in most places, and they definitely weren't instated arbitrarily.

I'm not sure if you realize it but saying something so incredibly radical and then not supporting it with any rationale makes you sound like a lunatic screaming out gibberish.

I said "living life as well as you can". If to you it isn't implicit in that statement that one wouldn't steal and murder, I don't think I can say much in response.

Basic morals saying that murder and theft are wrong have existed from the moment groups of humans gathered together. Nothing to do with modern laws and government.

Any sane person can manage to not be a dick without needing laws to tell them that.