Disagreeing with laws and upholding laws and arguing they should be upheld

Or the Soviet military personnel who refused to fire on protesters during the coup against Gorbachev.And the mutinies and acts of sabotage committed by US miltary personnel during the Vietnam War.These are the two that come to mind -- I'm sure there are other examples in history of military personnel and/or entire units that violated not only their orders but the law itself.

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It has become fashionable on the left and in Western Europe to compare the Bush administration to the Nazis. The comparison is not without some superficial merit. In both cases the government is run by a small gang of snickering, stupid thugs whose vision of paradise is full of explosions and beautifully designed prisons. -- Matt Taibbi

that's pretty much the gist of it. but they aren't permitted to express political opinion while in uniform. unfortunately, there's often an overlap and it's not always easy to tell. sure, you refuse to rape the girl in the camp with a machete, but when your job is to arrest the man stealing water because the government aid prevented the emergency relief water from coming, you kind of have to do it.i recently took the foreign service exam. if i pass this part and then the oral and i receive a commission, i will be banned from expressing public disapproval for any foreign policy decision. i really don't know what to do about that. is the internet safe enough? no. but that's the responsibility that i will accept if i am commissioned. i will not just a citizen, i will be a representative of the government and specifically of the state department. i will be a target to those who seek to express something to the government and i will be a mouthpiece for that body. he was a private citizen, as far as i know. the problem is that their defiance may put lives at risk. it seems very simple, but it's not.

moreover, our system of judicial review half depends on civil disobedience. i can't think of anything that better describes the whole of american history.

we also, at least theoretically, maintain the right to violently overthrow our government. that sounds easy enough, but with a population as big as ours, we have a lot of idiots... unfortunately, sane people here tend to not vote. the same reason the church used to support the legalization of abortion and then turned tail when it finally happened. idiocy.

We don't. So, the sane people would rather defy laws passed by idiots than vote?

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

no. most of the sane people are too lazy to do that either.i think the problem is that we have this cowboy self-identity (i say we...) in which we are islands and nothing affects us. voting doesn't matter because my vote doesn't count and they wouldn't listen to me and the laws don't really affect my life anyways.it's a disease.Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.

Yes.

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Good.After the revolution, we'll take care of you.

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Real things always push back.
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So you're agreeing with me, basically, that changing laws by breaking them is undemocratic.

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

That's interesting. How does that happen, exactly?On Monday, 51% pass Prohibition. On Tuesday, 49% defy Prohibition. On Wednesday, 2% change their minds. On Thursday, 51% repeal Prohibition. On Friday, 51% miss work.How do we know what changed the two-percenters' minds?

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

no.also, what does democracy have to do with a discussion about the us?Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.

you will kindly recall that citizens don't vote for amendments.our representatives listened to the reactionary teetotalers and thought it would be better for society if we didn't drink. they quickly realized that it created more crime and didn't solve the social ill.Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.

I've been talking about democracy since word one. I didn't bring up the U.S. I will now. Will you kindly recall that not everybody on earth needs to know that? I've been talking about the general principle of upholding the law (especially in a democracy). I don't plan to waste an entire thread fending off a handful of americocentric examples.

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

but, more to the point. the point of democracy is to preserve the rights of the individual. if individuals are not being represented, they need to make their plight apparent. if you're going to ask why we were so insane as to do "X" you'll need to understand how our government works. you chose to discuss american prohibition. it's a faulty principle. you chose to discuss american policy.

Not only is this wrong, it's a practical impossibility. If the U.S. or any political subdivision thereof tried to enforce every law on the books, it would have to devote virtually every resource in that body to the effort.Law enforcement, whether you are talking about the police or the prosecutors, has limited resources. Thus, one of the policy decisions that the heads of the various branches of law enforcement has to make is how to use those limited resources. At any given time, some laws are enforced more vigorously than others, and some are even ignored.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat