• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

How inclined are you to follow immoral laws?

How inclined are you to follow immoral laws?

  • I do not follow immoral laws even if the chances of legal consequences are high and severe

    Votes: 4 11.8%

  • I do not follow immoral laws only if there is a moderate chance of legal consequences

    Votes: 3 8.8%

  • I only ignore immoral laws if there is a small chances of legal consequences

    Votes: 5 14.7%

  • I follow all laws, even if I don't morally agree with them

    Votes: 3 8.8%

  • I do what I want!

    Votes: 8 23.5%

  • other (please explain)

    Votes: 4 11.8%

  • taco rootabegas

    Votes: 7 20.6%
  • Total voters
    34
Slartibartfast

Slartibartfast

Jesus loves you.
Supporting Member
DP Veteran
Monthly Donator
Joined
Jan 8, 2010
Messages
71,969
Reaction score
58,548
Location
NE Ohio
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Liberal
I am curious how people differentiate between legality and morality in their every day actions
 
If I know I will get away with it, I have absolutely zero concern whatsoever for the law. I have a moral code that supercedes the law, and that is one of peace and tolerance. I believe without a victim there can be no crime, and I try to live my life as to do no one harm.
 
I tend to ignore laws unless there is a cop car around or something and follow my own moral code.
 
Last edited:
It really depends on what you define as immoral laws. I don't necessarily see law and morality as the same thing. Some laws are moral, but not all morality is law. I tend to go by my own personal ethical standards. I can think of anything I would do that is illegal. Smoking pot may be the exception, but the legal status prevents me from doing so, as I am not willing to risk my professional license for it.
 
lizzie said:
It really depends on what you define as immoral laws. I don't necessarily see law and morality as the same thing. Some laws are moral, but not all morality is law. I tend to go by my own personal ethical standards. I can think of anything I would do that is illegal. Smoking pot may be the exception, but the legal status prevents me from doing so, as I am not willing to risk my professional license for it.
Click to expand...

My personal view is that legality and morality have nothing to do with one another. At best, one could say that legality is the morality we could best agree on as a society, but that's all distorted with stuff like campaign contributions, lobbying, and other influence peddling these days and laws don't work very well as a reflection of our society as a result. too many people playing the game.
 
I do not follow immoral laws, regardless of the potential consequences. There is no way anyone will ever take my firearms from me. Nobody will ever possess weed in my home, no matter how "legal" it is. Some things are just beyond the bounds of decency, no matter what the situation is.
 
tacomancer said:
My personal view is that legality and morality have nothing to do with one another. At best, one could say that legality is the morality we could best agree on as a society, but that's all distorted with stuff like campaign contributions, lobbying, and other influence peddling these days and laws don't work very well as a reflection of our society as a result. too many people playing the game.
Click to expand...
A law without a moral foundation is simply the whim of the rulers. Any law that runs counter to an objective moral code is immoral. It is always the ability to make a moral argument against existing law that leads to its undoing. Slavery is a perfect example. The arguments of Lincoln and MLK were moral arguments which helped lead to the end of slavery and segregation.
 
Fletch said:
A law without a moral foundation is simply the whim of the rulers. Any law that runs counter to an objective moral code is immoral. It is always the ability to make a moral argument against existing law that leads to its undoing. Slavery is a perfect example. The arguments of Lincoln and MLK were moral arguments which helped lead to the end of slavery and segregation.
Click to expand...

Yet all too often today our laws and regulations are not based on Morality or Values, but rather on the whims and emotional reactions of lawmakers and their constituents.
 
Fletch said:
A law without a moral foundation is simply the whim of the rulers. Any law that runs counter to an objective moral code is immoral. It is always the ability to make a moral argument against existing law that leads to its undoing. Slavery is a perfect example. The arguments of Lincoln and MLK were moral arguments which helped lead to the end of slavery and segregation.
Click to expand...

Thats nice and all, but in a society with 300 million people all slightly different moral codes. There can't really be any laws with a moral foundation (even citizens like tigger are for murder). and because we are a republic, we are our own rulers, so that part of your argument doesn't work very well either.

everyone thinks that their moral code is the best one, so nobody in the end is in a position to say their moral code is the best one. I can explain that further if you don't get it though, but basically nobody's view is superior and in the end there is no objective way (and please dont go all natural law on me, that's not a superior position, even though libertarians tend to think it is, its still just an opinion, as valid as the guy down the street's)

So, really, because of that, what I am really asking is how one interprets legal functions and internalized them, the philosophy behind why is unimportant for this query, as I already explained
 
Tigger said:
I do not follow immoral laws, regardless of the potential consequences. There is no way anyone will ever take my firearms from me. Nobody will ever possess weed in my home, no matter how "legal" it is. Some things are just beyond the bounds of decency, no matter what the situation is.
Click to expand...

I cannot support this kind of wanton anarchism. People like you are why we have society and the state. It's high time we began enforcing our laws and re-instilling discipline in those who would flout them like yourself. The Lord ordained that we set ourselves up in a society of laws, it isn't up to you to pick and choose what you would obey or disobey. You utterly fail to comprehend the responsibilities of citizenship.
 
Sherman123 said:
I cannot support this kind of wanton anarchism. People like you are why we have society and the state. It's high time we began enforcing our laws and re-instilling discipline in those who would flout them like yourself. The Lord ordained that we set ourselves up in a society of laws, it isn't up to you to pick and choose what you would obey or disobey. You utterly fail to comprehend the responsibilities of citizenship.
Click to expand...

LOL. I'm almost as much an Anarchist as I am a female. I'm an Authoritarian. However, I do not and never have seen a need or responsibility to claim any allegiance or show any respect to a government that does not have true morality and values at its heart; and the US government doesn't even come close to having either of those ideals as a basis for its society. It did in the past, but has not for a century and a half now.
 
Tigger said:
LOL. I'm almost as much an Anarchist as I am a female. I'm an Authoritarian. However, I do not and never have seen a need or responsibility to claim any allegiance or show any respect to a government that does not have true morality and values at its heart; and the US government doesn't even come close to having either of those ideals as a basis for its society. It did in the past, but has not for a century and a half now.
Click to expand...

And you consider yourself the arbiter of picking and choosing which laws are worth obeying? Which meet the standard of 'justice'? This is exactly the kind of slipshod leftist moral weakness that is ruining our country. Take a crack at the book sometime and learn your place in our social order.
 
Sherman123 said:
I cannot support this kind of wanton anarchism. People like you are why we have society and the state. It's high time we began enforcing our laws and re-instilling discipline in those who would flout them like yourself. The Lord ordained that we set ourselves up in a society of laws, it isn't up to you to pick and choose what you would obey or disobey. You utterly fail to comprehend the responsibilities of citizenship.
Click to expand...

Bahahahahaha, you waltzed right past several libertarians saying the exact same thing, but then attack Tigger, the most fascistic, nanny state poster on this forum, and call him an anarchist?

Are you for real?

Sherman123 said:
And you consider yourself the arbiter of picking and choosing which laws are worth obeying? Which meet the standard of 'justice'? This is exactly the kind of slipshod leftist moral weakness that is ruining our country. Take a crack at the book sometime and learn your place in our social order.
Click to expand...

**** your laws. Your laws are made by lobbyists buying politicians. Your laws have people locked in cages for harming no one. The only thing that matters is minding your own business and doing no harm to your neighbors.
 
Sherman123 said:
And you consider yourself the arbiter of picking and choosing which laws are worth obeying? Which meet the standard of 'justice'? This is exactly the kind of slipshod leftist moral weakness that is ruining our country. Take a crack at the book sometime and learn your place in our social order.
Click to expand...

No, I don't consider myself the arbiter. I simply compare the law to True Morality and when they don't match up, I ignore the law.

The United States hasn't been interested in Justice for more than a Century. It hasn't been interested in Decency in almost as long.

Which "book" would that be?
 
lizzie said:
It really depends on what you define as immoral laws. I don't necessarily see law and morality as the same thing. Some laws are moral, but not all morality is law. I tend to go by my own personal ethical standards. I can think of anything I would do that is illegal. Smoking pot may be the exception, but the legal status prevents me from doing so, as I am not willing to risk my professional license for it.
Click to expand...

I occasionally drink beer in public - usually either while mowing grass or at one of my favorite fishing holes. I have yet to be arrested for this serious moral offense.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Bahahahahaha, you waltzed right past several libertarians saying the exact same thing, but then attack Tigger, the most fascistic, nanny state poster on this forum, and call him an anarchist?

Are you for real?
Click to expand...

I think he did so because of Tigger's utter rejection and implicit embrace of vigilantism.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Bahahahahaha, you waltzed right past several libertarians saying the exact same thing, but then attack Tigger, the most fascistic, nanny state poster on this forum, and call him an anarchist?

Are you for real?



**** your laws. Your laws are made by lobbyists buying politicians. Your laws have people locked in cages for harming no one. The only thing that matters is minding your own business and doing no harm to your neighbors.
Click to expand...

We've talked like a hundred times on here. God how does no one remember me? This sucks. I'm CLEARLY aping him.
 
I answered "I do what I want". I also have my own code which supercedes "the law". For example, I smoke pot, but use my turn signals and come to a complete stop at stop.signs.

If I'm gonna do something that has severe possible consequences I manage those risks appropriately.

I
 
tacomancer said:
Thats nice and all, but in a society with 300 million people all slightly different moral codes. There can't really be any laws with a moral foundation (even citizens like tigger are for murder). and because we are a republic, we are our own rulers, so that part of your argument doesn't work very well either.

everyone thinks that their moral code is the best one, so nobody in the end is in a position to say their moral code is the best one. I can explain that further if you don't get it though, but basically nobody's view is superior and in the end there is no objective way (and please dont go all natural law on me, that's not a superior position, even though libertarians tend to think it is, its still just an opinion, as valid as the guy down the street's)

So, really, because of that, what I am really asking is how one interprets legal functions and internalized them, the philosophy behind why is unimportant for this query, as I already explained
Click to expand...
If you are going to reject out of hand an appeal to natural law--what is right based upon the nature of man as man, then I have no answer for you.
 
Fletch said:
If you are going to reject out of hand an appeal to natural law--what is right based upon the nature of man as man, then I have no answer for you.
Click to expand...

That works. I tend to prefer conversations with substance rather than rote recitals. Human nature doesn't fit neatly into logical proscriptions, same reason why communism fails too.
 
Tigger said:
No, I don't consider myself the arbiter. I simply compare the law to True Morality and when they don't match up, I ignore the law.

The United States hasn't been interested in Justice for more than a Century. It hasn't been interested in Decency in almost as long.

Which "book" would that be?
Click to expand...

Seriously? The Bible. The book of our Lord.


Titus 3:1 - Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work,

Romans 13:1 - Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

1 Peter 2:13-17 - Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme

Feel free to go on spouting your godless anarchism that you twist into a morality argument, it is what it is. Discipline, obedience, and faith are what you and so many Americans need.
 
Peter King said:
What do you mean with immoral laws?
Click to expand...

Generally those with no victim, save for offending the sensibilities of prudes. Drinking beer in public (say at a park or while fishing) is one that comes to mind. No, I am not condoning drunk and disorderly behavior - I simply see no harm in someone enjoying a cold beer on a hot (or any other) day. ;)
 
Sherman123 said:
Seriously? The Bible. The book of our Lord.......

Feel free to go on spouting your godless anarchism that you twist into a morality argument, it is what it is. Discipline, obedience, and faith are what you and so many Americans need.
Click to expand...

No, the book of YOUR Lord. I made the mistake of following that bologna for more than a quarter century before my eyes were opened. I've learned more about the reality of the world in the 13 years since I gave up on that horse crap than I had in the 27 years I followed it.
 
Peter King said:
What do you mean with immoral laws?
Click to expand...

I will use one of my own morals for example.

I very strongly believe that copyright law is immoral in that the balance between rewarding the creator versus progressing society is way off. In fact, I believe the US founding fathers had it about right 14 years plus a 14 year renewal (actually in the speed of today's economy 20 years is still way in favor of the creator versus society), while in the US, copyrights can go for as long as 75 years after the creator's death. Mickey Mouse should be public domain as well as Elvis songs. Our cultural heritage has value that is priceless and is more valuable than money or property.

So I pretty much ignore copyright law as a result (unless I am at work). I do so because I know that statistically, I am very unlikely to get caught, especially as I employ techniques to mask my identity as I do not believe I should be punished for something that I don't believe is wrong. If copyright law were such that I believe it to be reasonable, I would be more inclined to pay for media of a certain age.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom