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When might it become necessary to break the law? |
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by Abbas Beydoun | 0 votes | 
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Alvaro Restrepo: I think that if the law is based on illegitimacy, on arbitrariness, on imposition of interests that are threatening human dignity, then I think than this is not a law anymore, I think that then it changes into another concept. Whenever a law protects insane commands, then they can no longer be seen as law and turns out to be an outrage on dignity. And in such cases it is legal, from every point of view, to break the law, the arbitrariness and the illegitimacy. |
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by Ana Lucy Bengochea | 0 votes |
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Andries Botha: Those are not necessarily truths. Those are merely mechanism or device, systems can be held in some form of social equilibrium. It is necessary to break the law, when in fact the law opposed something which is not morely defensable. The laws of a country merely bind power in some sort of binary relationship with the citizens and I think there are justifiable reasons where in fact power itself acctually negates, the very thing that it actually was meant to actually bring into harmony. As a result of that, they are justifiable reasons to contest the validity of those laws and to break them especially when they violate the humanity that they are professed to actually respect and uphold. |
Angaangaq Lyberth: What is the law? What is the law you want to break? The lawlessness exists everywhere. And you know that, Matt. It exists in the United States, in Canada, in Mexico, in Alaska, in Greenland and any other country on Earth. It doesn’t matter what kind of law we have created. People break it. When is it necessary to break? When the safety for all is compromised then the law is not working. And when it doesn’t work, what good does it do when it doesn’t work? You and I we’re responsible for that safety for all. But when you and I we don’t do it what are we expecting? What are you expecting, Matt? That you break the law when you don’t like the law? What’s the point in having law when you don’t respect it? What’s the point in having a law when the nation does not respect their own laws? What’s the point in creating commissions all over the world to have international law when nobody respects it? So you are responsible, Matt, to ensure that law is upheld everywhere. In your home, in your community, in your nation and in your world. You are responsible, as I am, as everyone else is responsible for that law is upheld. There should be no fear amongst us. There should be recognition and acceptance of everyone. But do we do that, Matt? Have you ever walked downtown in San Francisco? You should try it. You realize that the lawlessness is within. |
Anthony Arnove: The question when it’s necessary to break the law is an important one because we have seen throughout history a social change has occurred in circumstances when people almost without exception have had to challenge on just laws, have had to go outside the framework of existing laws to make change. For example, in the United States, there was a law called the Fugitive Slave Law, which made it illegal to help slaves struggle to find freedom, to escape slavery. And that was a law, which in retrospect people now understand to be an inhumane, an indefensible law, just like all of the laws that preserve the institutions of slavery and racism. And yet, at the time, those laws were vigorously defended and people who violated those laws were rigorously prosecuted. And it was necessary for people of conscience to challenge to confront those laws, to defy those laws, and that has been a constant in history. Really, there is nothing, which is in itself just about law. Laws tend to reflect the values of institutions that have been set up in our society on the basis of inequality and the basis of oppression. And so, there is nothing inherently correct in saying that you should obey the law. We have to ask the question of what the origin of the law is, what the law entails, and what obedience to that law entails? And then, if we reject that law, we have to then understand how effectively we can challenge it and how effectively we can go beyond it. |
Anuradha Koirala: When there is injustice, you have to break the law. |
Anuradha Mittal: I think it becomes necessary to break the law when we have asked the question that whose law it is, whose process is it, whose rule is it. Because if you look at law, apartheid was once a law, was legal. Women not having the right to vote was legal. Segregation based on race was legal. My country India was colonized like many other countries of the world and that was legal. So, I think it becomes important to break the law when we know that it is basically a golden law, i.e. person who has the gold has made the law. If it is a law which reflects the aspirations of the most of the humanity, that’s wonderful, that’s such things like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for example. But as long as it is a law, which is created by people in power to protect the interest of a few and it’s a law which is based on the exploitation of the masses, of the majority of the people, if it is a law which denies opportunities to the majority of the people, if it is a law which is based on discrimination, if it is a law which is based on depriving people of opportunities, it cannot be a law that needs to be maintained. We saw with segregation, we have seen with colonization, we have seen with apartheid that whenever legal laws are made which discriminate against people, which take away opportunities from them, which are about exploitation, they are broken. And that learning has to happen from social movements today, farmers’ movements which are refusing to give in to the big agro businesses. We have to look at the people, for example in Bolivia, Cochabamba, where privatization of water was supposed to be the legal thing to do. It was to be a law, but people are breaking it; or we have to think of the townships in South Africa where people will not pay for the metered water. So, it is really laws which take away our basic human rights, those laws have to be broken because those laws are made to be broken. |
Ashok Gangadean: This is a great question in terms of breaking the law, because what law are we speaking of and what is the basis of law and is this a just law? This question is as old as culture itself and certainly our great heroes, cultural heroes across the world have always been in some form of conscientious, conscious, conscience objection to laws that are unjust and to the extent that the laws reflect an ego-based culture, which is inherently corrupt and unjust and distorting of the true law. So, for example, whether it’s a law brought by Moses or the law spoken of Jesus, the law of love or the dharma, the universal law that’s spoken of by Buddha, those laws inscribed an awakened global consciousness and spirituality. The laws inscribed in the structure of reality itself. There is a great disparity between the ego-made laws that deform and distort the true law. So, it is our duty to question those ego-based laws in the light of a deeper, righteous, profound law that’s inscribed in nature and reality itself in the global dharma, the global law. And, teachers like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, who were in conscious objection to the laws of regime that were improper and unjust and violating of humans, it is our duty to speak out. And, that’s what Jesus modeled for us in confronting unjust laws of the regimes and empires of the day in order to bring truly human laws. So, I would say that it is always our right and our duty to step up in the power of one, to speak out against unjust laws, and to bring true laws. In a way, the founding of America is based upon challenging laws of the old regime that were found to be repressive and unjust and so the birth of America is opening a space for creation of a higher form of deep democracy and equality and human rights, is pattern of moving into this more just form of law. |
Audrey Kitagawa: When laws themselves are unjust and laws themselves inherently violate morality, then you have to take a stand and be able to say that this law is unjust, this law is immoral, this law cannot be abided by. In those circumstances, we must fall upon our moral conscience to be able to guide us and to see how laws that are unjust and immoral compel us to stand up against its enforcement. |
Benjamin Fahrer: It becomes necessary to break the law when the law no longer is applicable to the common good. Laws are set up in a way to help retain an order and a function, in a way to benefit the whole, benefit the people. However, a lot of our laws today have been changed that take that focus out of the common good and put it into the select few who can then benefit from these laws. You take this law, put it in against those human dignities that everyone must have and if they are in extreme conflict, which many laws are, then we must, not necessarily break them but change them. We must be like those who that benefit from these laws because really these laws are to benefit us. So if you find a need to break a law, you must look at, how can I change that law? Is it to write my congressman, to write the person in Parliament? Is it to run for Congress? Is to run from Parliament? Is to run for city council? To help be a valuable contribution in changing the law, to serve your needs but the common needs. And really it’s not about your needs; it’s about all of us together. If you separated as your own need then it becomes something that you are target at or a target for. And that really needs to be everyone’s law, everyone agrees upon. And that’s what really government should be there for, is to continually change the laws to best serve the people and be appropriate to the time. |
Benson Venegas: From country to country this perception is different. I would like to say or share with you that breaking international law is nothing for some corrupted governments and corrupted corporations. There are no punishment for them. That impunity can create a dangerous downward spiral of the respect of laws, so we need to break the law that really foster corruption and impunity, to have, in order to have a healthier society. So this is a challenge. So there is when sometimes people have to stand up and really break those laws. But it's the laws that really favor impunity and also reinforce corruption in our societies. Because who made the laws are human being, and sometimes systems - regime systems - create fictions of constitutions and laws for their societies. And those are the laws that at some point in life people need to stand up and say no more. We need to create, rule - a set of rules of laws, that bring justice, inssure freedom, bring dignity, human dignity as part of it, and also create the conditions for [equating] social care, self-determination and other values that are important to have a fair and a more democratic society. |
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by Beverly Schwartz | 0 votes |
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Currently video only.
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by Bianca Jagger | 0 votes |
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Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon. |
Bill Joy: Well, I think if the law—it’s necessary to break the law if the law is unjust and you can break the law with passive resistance or with—to rebel against tyranny. Or if you have a moral objection, say, a conscientious objection to serving in the military or performing some action even if a tyrannical or a government proposes such a law, or passes such a law, I don’t think you have to obey it. But in general breaking the law for personal convenience or in a kind of capricious is very damaging. The law I think serves as an alternative to conflict. The people with the most power and the most money are supposed to be constrained by the law so that everyone can have freedom. And this is an imperfect bargain, an imperfect bargain invented by the Greeks. But it’s still a lot better than the alternatives that we have. And in this century as we struggle to preserve the rule of law against forces like terrorism or whether it’s individual small group terrorism or state-sponsored terrorism we need the law and we need to find ways to strengthen the law. And as much as possible obeying the law and realizing that breaking the law should be an exception rather than the rule for extreme cases. It’s very important to preserving our freedom. by Bill Joy |
Bora Cosic: Clearly then when law its self is a mistaken: set by will of minority, used for dictatorship and in so is an illegal it self. In that case I believe its regular breaking it; however we should first try to change mistaken laws. by Bora Cosic |
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Currently video only.
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by Brian J. Weller | 0 votes |
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Brian J. Weller: Answertext will be available soon. |
Catherine David: I believe, I do not know if it is necessary and I do not know if this is a necessary question. I would say that each time the question of this subject rises emotions. It is always a little bit complicated because you can confront us with not observing the law very immediately without thinking to create a philosophy thesis in 10 minutes. If you see a citizen or no matter who in the street who is beaten by the police and even this person is beaten because he or she did something that is not allowed; we do not have to beat other people. If you see how the illegal immigrants are treated and I think that there are thousands of them, if not thousands, there are at least a lot of situations where the application of the law is in absolute contradiction to the respect for people. In these cases, and the moment is not the tribune or the philosophical thesis, we have to oppose and not to respect the law. In these situations, one cannot respect the law in a calm and quiet way and I believe that a certain number of persons behave illegally; once again, because their conscience forbids them to accept a certain number of behaviours that are the opposite to what people respect. It all begins with the people’s respect. Thus I believe there are evidently, if not thousands, many reasons, not to respect the law and if the law is unjust, I believe that a diplomat that did surely not publish his name said: “there is no justice, but there are laws”. So it seems to me that this is undoubtedly another and more difficult way to answer to this question. |
China Keitetsi: For example, the soldier where they use order, because order is bigger than the soldier and you are ordered to massacre people. You should break that order or that law to disobey. For example, if you find people jailed and you think listen to your consciousness, to your heart and if it's wrong, break the law, disobey the order and release them. But it also depends on where you are. As long is it doesn't hurt nobody, then you can break the law. |
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