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Originally Posted by JinnKai
A much better analogy, and I even stopped reading to say .. "yea, that's true." However, I think there are a few flaws with this argument. Assuming that no one would obey laws and anarchy would evolve if people chose to break laws ignores the current status of the government. People ignore or break laws all the time, but anarchy has yet to insue.
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Just because
some people selectively break laws in a working system does not mean that it is an acceptable practice. The system has mechanisms to deal with a certain amount of violators, and this should be seen as a strength rather than an attack on the system.
For instance, people are murdered all the time. Our society can and has withstood the strain such actions have, but if
everyone decided it was ok to ignore the law and murder whenever they felt like it the society would fail. To be fair that is a wildly sensational example, but look at a rather mundane comparison. Many people exceed the speed limit and some people completely ignore it. Our society deals with the worst offenders without much event, but imagine if
everyone completely ignored the speed regulations. I suspect that the result would be catastrophic.
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Originally Posted by JinnKai
In a perfect world, I'd agree with you. The law-questioner should always talk with the law-creator, because they might agree with your dissonance -- they might even be pursuaded to remove the law or give you amnesty to it. However, in the enormous republic(an) State that we have now, communicating directly with the law-creator isn't as simple as the kid waiting for the parent to get home. It could take weeks or months to get a reply, and not necessarily a satisfactory one. If the parent refused to let the child play in the street even in the traffic-ending construction, and failed to provide a reason -- then I believe the child would have been correct to disobey it. A law is worthless without a justification. Attempting to enforce a law when it no longer applies is simply asking for rebellion.
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I agree that it can be frustrating attempting to change a pointless law by going through endless bureaucracy, but I don't think the explanation of "Well, asking you if I could play in the front yard would take too long" would fly.
The beauty of a Republic is that everyone has representation. The horror of reality is that mistakes will happen in even the most careful system. While it may be
very tempting to "fix" mistakes on your own, realise that by adopting such a mindset you are destroying all that the Republic you think you are fixing tried to create.
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Originally Posted by JinnKai
Further into your metaphor, what if the parent made a rule to "not tell anyone about our 'special' time." This would be analogous to mistreatment by the government, covered up by laws. Would the child (citizen) still be risking anarchy and de-civilization by refusing to abide by the censorship laws? I, for one, would HOPE that the child would break the law and tell someone that he was being molested.
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I am not disputing that there are bad laws, and at a certain point such laws cannot be obeyed. In your example the parent has made some rules that should not be obeyed, but understand it is the fault of the governing body and not a failing of the concept of rules.
The child is indeed risking anarchy and de-civilization; of course in this situation the child will most likely immediately move into another better form of governing by a foster parent. In some cases anarchy and de-civilization are acceptable risks in order to overthrow an unsalvagable government, but universal disregard to rules makes civilization impossible in the first place.