Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Fred Matser: Well, in general, I think that law, the human law or environmental law or law on whatever level, corporate law, it needs to reflect the cyclical evolutionary laws of nature or creation and if that in essence doesn't -- human law doesn't reflect -- I mean that the human law, a law that is made by people, in essence, does not reflect this natural law, in principle, I think it is allowed to break the law. But, anyway, it depends of course on the law.

by Fred Matser

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Galsan Tschinag: If the law obviously has been made to penalize us, while it gives others an advantage. And also if it patronizes us too much. Let's suppose there is a law which has been made to justify a war. Then it would be, then it is a must for me, as an advocate of peace, to oppose this law. As a member of a minority in my state I stand against legal requirements and provisions that, from my perspective, are there to authorise a majority to rule over me.

by Galsan Tschinag

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Geert Lovink: The laws are not very well defined eternal values. By the way, law is not something that we should see as a static system that's just there. The whole idea that one has to break the law, I find is already a kind of wrong approach because in court people negotiate about the borders of the law. Laws are getting changed every day, so what was illegal yesterday could be legal today and maybe again could be illegal tomorrow. The major forces in society have a great capacity to circumvent, but also to negotiate and to see how they fit into maybe law systems of other countries. So the mobility actually makes it possible for us to say, well what's law here might not be law somewhere else. In this global society, where people can relatively easy move, although that of course doesn't count for many, we could in fact start to move around a bit more and use that kind of diversity of laws systems to get a greater level field for social action. So when might it become necessary to break the law? I find that a bit boring question.

by Geert Lovink

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Giora Feidman: Why to break the law? Basically, the law should not be exist; even police should not. Don’t call me utopic or dreamer. They are natural law. They are or they are not. They are natural law. We don’t know them; and because we don’t know them, we don’t respect them. And because we don’t respect them, we don’t respect human society. As, of course, to maintain us inside of some kind of conduct, some type of a way to act and react in society was necessary to create this system of punishment, but you see the reality: it doesn’t help. They are more and more everyday more complicated, and more we can say [inaudible] laws and doesn’t help the people; and while you say break the law, I say what value for this law. The solution is to understand first the natural law. To understand the word responsibility and respect and, of course, all will come to the same point. Everything include breaking the law is a question of an unsuccessful system of education; and if we know the reason already, we will find like in this case--we will find the solution.

by Giora Feidman

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Gladman Chibememe: Breaking the law is necessary especially if the law is not people’s law and if the people who are executing the law are doing it for their own selfish gains without thinking about the people. The law in most cases is a system that has been that have, most laws as in most countries are policies and system that are designed not by the populus, very few cases you do find that laws having effective consultations made for the [inaudible] of such laws. And in this case you will find that people who will end up buying or adopting some of the laws they don’t know them, they don’t like them. So, in this case it will be necessary some times when those will impose some laws to people. And people sometimes say ‘no we don’t want these laws’, we need to really move forward. For example, in some countries where some states will just find themselves creating, for example, colonizing those countries or in countries where some laws are taken place and some people just say we are the one who are ruling here or some people sponsoring wars and people are saying, "No, we don’t want it" and they start fighting against it. Such are breaking the law because they don’t approve the system. It means that it is necessary because the law is not the people’s law. It is the law of maybe external organizations or the law of an external peaceful, powerful organization which was to impose on people. So, people will really object. So, they’ve got the right to object because it is not within their interest. People need to develop their own policies, accept the policies, and implement them themselves, not to have [audio ends]

by Gladman Chibememe

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi: Well, who makes the law? We make the law. Does the law provide the opportunities for everyone to feel protected? Often laws are made by people who want to create laws that address the problems on hand. As long as the laws enable everyone to feel secure then there is no necessity to break the law. But often the laws do not necessarily provide a feeling of security of a feeling of being protected. Unless the law provides a sense of security, I do not think people will respect the law and follow the law. The laws are often followed only when people feel secured, not otherwise.

by Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Hans-Peter Dürr: After all a law is a formal crutch to call people’s attention to the fact that the development of personal freedoms cannot be random and has certain limits, what is perceived by every one as a mental bridge to the whole and what gives him a kind of secure orientation. But when this source of orientation is not clear we need laws that point us out where the limits are. And to my mind, the limits are where we can support development that makes sustainability possible, the dynamic development that makes the life of a living. And when someone violates this law, then he harms the possibility of a further development of the living. Now I have to break law, how we formally say: does it offend the things I learnt through my conscience and my mental bridge? I have to break the law, because it is being wrongly interpreted. There we are called upon to do something. The power uses these legalities to show that what they say is right and the laws that are created with big wisdom and cleverness are being interpreted in a way as if it enables to enforce them in the things the power demands. There we have to be very careful. Nowadays we have a newspeak, a language which designs laws and in this way lead to wrong consequences. And we have to fight against these wrong law designs. Even if it means imprisonment for us.

by Hans-Peter Dürr

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Harry Wu: The law is made by people, so it can certainly be broken and it can certainly be changed. When people think the law is not suitable for the reality, they can break it and change it. However, it involves advantages of majority, thus it cannot be determined by a single person.

by Harry Wu

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Helena Norberg-Hodge: I think it will be very difficult to encourage individuals to break the law. But I firmly believe that communities around the world should break the law, when the laws are pressuring them to destroy their own environment to poison their water, their soil, their seeds and when the law commits them to an unjust and inequitable system. The community actions will also almost certainly mean that community groups will have leaders and respect the elders so that there will be wisdom and compassion as part of breaking the law. The individual totally on his or her own, I believe needs to be humble enough to not take steps like this without consulting, without dialoguing with community. So at a community level, I believe that breaking the law is becoming more and more essential. There are many examples of laws now that are going against both human well being and sustainability. These laws need to be broken, but better than this, we need to start an educational process that explains and shows which laws do go against sustainability, against democracy and human well being, so that through an education process, we can work to change the laws, not just have to break them. So we can have a process of simultaneously breaking laws, I believe always with the goal of maintaining wisdom and compassion and acting as a community rather than as isolated individuals. But at the same time, we need to carry out the educational process, which will mean that we can change the laws and we need to do so urgently.

by Helena Norberg-Hodge

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Homero Aridjis: It might become necessary to break the law in order to defend a life, human values, nature and to ensure the safety of our planet Earth.

by Homero Aridjis

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Jerry Mander: Answertext will be available soon.

by Jerry Mander

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Jesper Green: It might become necessary to break the law when a situation allow governments, states or the most powerful society to exploit, kill or refuse other people in society or in the world. You could break oppressor’s law. I think there’s many ways you are allowed to break the law or when you are allowed to break the law. But that’s a perfect line between breaking the law and terrorism. The law is here to restrain us from doing stupid things. But if the stupid things are made by governments or brands or companies to gain more profit or more power, oppress people, then I think it’s all right to break the law. You can do it in an organized way, you can do it all by yourself but not to gain anything for yourself personally but for a greater purpose. Then it would be all right.

by Jesper Green

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Jodie Evans: When laws are unjust. To expose the violence of laws. It's something we think about at Code Pink a lot because as a white woman in the United States, it's very easy for me to stand in the face of laws around getting our voices out about the war, but I can do that because I'm white and affluent. But other people in my country can't do it as easily because that opportunity to disrupt the violence of laws isn't as easy for them because they actually can end up in system and it can be quite violent. And the message wouldn't get out. But you know one of the most important things I think we need to do right now because as we lose of the rule of law, as we lose what even that means, laws have less and less meaning because they're violated every day and it's like who is at the effect of these laws are usually those who are the most powerless in positions where they undermine the power of the powerful. And so we need to continue to be in the face of the powerful by getting arrested, by showing the absurdity and stupidity of their laws and they're not obeying laws that were put in place to create a just society. The absolute disregard for law in the places of power and the place of people with a lot of money in corporations and our government is obscene. And using civil disobedience is a great way to expose that.

by Jodie Evans

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

John Gage: This answer is the answer to the previous question about how high is an element of a society believing in a fiction to some degree of how I truly belong and in reality discovering that I do not have the same level of belonging that as others do. It means the structure of law and allocation of resources is wrong. How do you judge whether a law is wrong? Well, you can judge from the position that there is an absolute law. I think in fact that’s a mistake. I think that every form of law is a contingent form, a contingent reaction to an immediate situation, a particular constellation of power, of distribution of resources. So, I think you each moment must analyze and reanalyze so carefully about how you benefit from a particular institutional arrangement of rule and law. Laws are formed to distribute resources, to distribute and allocate rights, to establish the position of those in a society in relationship to the others, but law brings with it something special, something not in the normal purview of an individual, that is a power of force from the state to enforce a particular distribution of resources or allocation of rights. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states clearly the levels of equality that should hold, but do not in every human community. So, in establishing the basis for your value in an existing system of law, if you are being treated equally, do not have access to the abilities to develop your resources in the ways that enable you to become a fully participant member of a society, then that momentary contingent legal structure should be changed. And often, the only mechanism for changing these sets of rules is to disobey them.

by John Gage

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Jonathan Granoff: It's necessary to break the law when the law breaks the laws of fundamental justice, and - well I mean we're sitting in a square where the venture of Nazism took over this beautiful country of Germany, and distorted the laws of justice, in a most gross and horrific fashion. Imagine the courage of people that broke the laws of the state to honor the higher law of caring for human life. So, you know there are times in which the state which creates the laws that need to be broken can go so out of sync with basic principles of justice and righteousness that the law - that it's better to break the law than to go along with it. But I would add that it's very important that we not fight laws of injustice with violence; that Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ and Socrates have shown us a higher law, a law of giving. That - that - I don't know if I could live up to that law - just seems so lofty. But at least we should set that as our compass point and strive for it. And strive at all - in all instances to bring the laws of the state into accord with that higher law. Would it be right to free slaves when slavery was legal? Would it be right to break the law of Nazi Germany if you were told to kill Jews? Would it - would that be - would it right to have broken the law in Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge were running the country and killing their own population? Would it - would it be right to go along with those laws? Would it be right to go - was it right to go along with the laws of slavery? Was it right to go along with the laws of Nazi Germany? Was it right to go along with Pol Pot? Of course not.

by Jonathan Granoff

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Jonathan Meese: It can always be necessary to break the law. But there are laws, which cannot be broken. This is something everyone has to decide for themselves. Only the psycho-radical form of life will survive. Whatever is going to happen. Laws break themselves and this is the best what can happen if you leave the breaking of the law to the laws themselves. Necessities will arrange themselves according to their determinedness. Then we can relax and let things happen. They are going to do it in a way they want to according to their own standards and someday there will be no law any longer. Only the law of art. Art is outlawed. Then we don't need to crow with our wishes for freedom, which will lead to nothing anyway. Instead we can leave freedom to freedom itself and we can be amazed like children that there are no laws any longer. Only the freak of nature but nature will overcome them. This is wonderful. Light is law, only light is law, only light. Refraction. The laws will focus in chambers, in halls. In halls with mirrors, where they reflect each other until they neutralize themselves. If humans interfere there will be laws for a longer time. Laws of miserableness. Laws of totality can only be broken by themselves and they only come into existence by themselves. They are independent from human beings.

by Jonathan Meese

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

Jonathan Stack: It's always constantly necessary to break the law. Law is oppressive to what your greater moral belief system once you are going to break the law. If you are breaking the law, there are laws that prohibit you from murdering another person. I don't think there is any reason for you to go out and murder another person. It prevents you from rape; there is no reason to ever go out and rape somebody, no matter what you feel or you think is done to you. On the other hand, sitting on the back of the bus like happened in Civil Rights Movement with Rosa Parks or Civil Disobedience as was inspired by the work and spirit of Martin Luther King, that's always -- that's something we should be breaking the law everyday, because everyday there are laws out there that are contributing -- that are against our well being. We don't sit there and work to break the law. We sit out there to -- we are not working on the negative. We are working on the positive. We are trying to find ways to transcend the limitations of law. And so, it's almost if you could make it your goal to wake up everyday to find news laws to be broken I think would be really positive. Just by definition, the law gets broken and that we need to break more laws, not less.

by Jonathan Stack

Sep 9, 2006 11:55:00 AM cite

José Manuel Prieto: I think, that it is necessary to break the law, when it ceases to represent, when the law ceases to represent in situation that has changed, when the law ceases to be a reflection of a persistent situation. There are moments when the law should be broken to achieve a progress instead of stagnation. It is a situation which should be handled with much a lot of []. One shouldn’t shouldn’t always see oneself like [], I think. The laws have been established to be followed, but we shouldn’t feel as prisoners of laws that have ceased to work. [....] The laws [] are made [] to achieve a better living together of the people. That’s what I think about this question. Thank you.

by José Manuel Prieto