I thought right wingers were all for obeying laws. I guess you consider laws the same way you do the Bible. Go with the parts you like, and ignore the parts you don't like, right?
It’s curious isn’t it? Throughout human history, the most lauded people are not those who upheld the law, but those who stood up against laws that were wrong. Laws that were unethical, immoral, or unconstitutional. Rosa Parks is talked about in history classes far more than Elliot Ness. Ghandi is a hero of an entire nation. The Founding Fathers committed Treason by the standards of the day to form a new nation. The Underground Railroad violated state, and federal law and are lauded as hero’s.
Then you can go back farther in history, to the Bible itself, and Daniel is famous because God protected him and his friends from the penalties of violating the Kings Law, but upholding God’s law in the process.
Saint Augustine taught us that Just is far more important than the word of the law. It is why you hear Just wars discussed. Because Saint Augustine taught that an unjust law, is no law. So we have the Bible, History, and Religious Philosophy all saying that it is the duty of man to oppose unjust laws.
Who are the bad guys from the Civil Rights era? Is it the guys who were trying to uphold the law preventing Blacks from voting? Or those who went and opposed those laws? Is George McGovern a hero for upholding the law regarding segregation? Or is McGovern an ass for opposing the equality of the individuals?
History tells us who the good guys were, and it is almost never those who upheld the laws. Martin Luther is a major point in history because he dared to oppose the Catholic Church. Lutheran is now a recognized religion, and has been for a long time, because he opposed the order of the era.
Even Catholics admit that Martin Luther had some good points today.
So is it only the criminals who oppose laws that are unjust, or unconstitutional? Or is it the conscience of the people? I’m not talking about bank robbers, I’m talking about those who stand up and say this is wrong, and I won’t do it. I won’t obey that law because it is unjust. I’m talking about women who stood up and said that laws prohibiting Abortion were wrong and demanded that they be overturned by the courts. I’ talking about those who stood up and burned their draft cards to protest an immoral war.
We have a lot of examples in our history, as a world, and as a nation. Are you going to claim that all of them were wrong now to justify your opposition to the Right? That obedience to a law, no matter how unjust, or immoral, is the only choice? Or is opposing unjust, or immoral laws only something permitted for the Left?
