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"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 242 ✭✭Sociopath2


    Well when I pressed it giving the 40 min for ambulance example, their reason for having to wait was for company insurance reasons. Nothing to do with it being medically best for the person. You'd think a possible death on their hands would be a bigger worry for them.

    But yeah you're right, this isn't a law and so my example is not suited to this thread.

    I think the effect on their insurance caused by an untrained work experience student moving a critically injured casualty against all medical advice is what they were worried about.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 274 ✭✭Betty Bloggs


    Sociopath2 wrote: »
    I think the effect on their insurance caused by an untrained work experience student moving a critically injured casualty against all medical advice is what they were worried about.

    Well no, as I already mentioned I can't even drive. I asked them if another person (ie another employee) could do it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 242 ✭✭Sociopath2


    Well no, as I already mentioned I can't even drive. I asked them if another person (ie another employee) could do it.

    If its a bad idea for you to do it, why would it be a good idea for someone else to, unless they happened to be driving an ambulance?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 274 ✭✭Betty Bloggs


    Sociopath2 wrote: »
    If its a bad idea for you to do it, why would it be a good idea for someone else to, unless they happened to be driving an ambulance?

    There are some medically trained staff on site.
    To be honest I think the lady just wanted me to stop asking questions because I did actually ask what you just said, "what if the emergency line or ambulance give the go ahead to drive the person?"
    She just said, "they would never say that", so I just left it at that.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,780 ✭✭✭Frank Lee Midere


    A lot of this thinking seems to have become more prevalent since property tax and water charges were mooted. It is essentially Freeman on the Land stuff. Before that it usually featured in TV licence discussions. And always with some reference to slavery and apartheid.

    How very convenient that this high moral stance on human rights just happens to justify people not paying out money.

    If the OP wanted that argument he would have made it. In the general sense is it ok to disobey unjust laws or not?

    Not rocket science. Answer is yes.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 242 ✭✭Sociopath2


    There are some medically trained staff on site.
    To be honest I think the lady just wanted me to stop asking questions because I did actually ask what you just said, "what if the emergency line or ambulance give the go ahead to drive the person?"
    She just said, "they would never say that", so I just left it at that.

    A three day occupational first aid course does not make you medically trained staff.

    If someone asked me "if an employee was injured and if it was serious and if the ambulance was going to take 40 minutes and if I had a car and if I could drive should I do the opposite of what I have been just told", I'd want them to stop asking questions too and focus on something that's not a waste of time.

    There's a reason they would never say that because its a guaranteed way to kill someone.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 274 ✭✭Betty Bloggs


    Sociopath2 wrote: »
    A three day occupational first aid course does not make you medically trained staff.

    If someone asked me "if an employee was injured and if it was serious and if the ambulance was going to take 40 minutes and if I had a car and if I could drive should I do the opposite of what I have been just told", I'd want them to stop asking questions too and focus on something that's not a waste of time.

    There's a reason they would never say that because its a guaranteed way to kill someone.

    Well I think leaving someone to bleed profusely for 40 mins instead of driving them 5 mins to the hospital is a guaranteed way to kill someone.

    Anyhow, as already mentioned my scenario is not suitable to this thread, so probably dragging it off topic, so I'll bow out.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 397 ✭✭S.O


    At the moment with the greyhound bin strike dispute, as some people are probaly aware the company got injunctions against the workers and anyone who is picketing at the companies entrance, there was even talk earlier on facebook that greyhound might be bring some of the striking workers to court over loss of money/revenue etc, but as it stands with the injunctions in place the people picketing greyhound are breaking the law, but if you ask me if I think they re right to disobey the law/injunctions and keep picketing in this industrial dispute ? I would say yes the workers and those who support them on the picket are right to disobey the law and disobey any injunctions.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,680 ✭✭✭policarp


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    This is a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson. I personally agree with it. If a law is unjust it should be broken. For example if a man is gay in a country where it is illegal you can't possibly expect him to obey that can you? The only issue with this view imo is what is considered unjust is very subjective. Do you think the law comes before what you consider to be just or that personal ideas of justice should come before the law of the land?

    Edited for clarity: Does legality go hand in hand with morality. Is it ever immoral not to break a law?

    Further edit: My thinking here is in relation to laws retrospectively seen as unjust slavery ect and laws a sizeable amount of people consider unjust. NOTHING to do with property tax or any monetary regulation in Ireland today.

    What is just?
    What is a just war?
    What is just right?
    Just asking. . .:pac:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,076 ✭✭✭✭Czarcasm


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Just to clarify when I started this thread it was because this quote is framed on the side of UCD's new law building. I haven't any Irish laws in mind at the moment.


    The quote itself should be taken in context as part of the Declaration of Independence which Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1776 and isn't actually seeking to justify individuals breaking the law -

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.-- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.


    Source:
    The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription



    When read in context, it is saying that the people of a nation have a moral imperative to fight to challenge Government and laws that they as a society feel are unjust.

    It's been co-opted over the centuries by individuals who would like to think that the quote justifies their individual behaviour, and that's why you end up with idiots arguing nonsense about their individual freedoms and so on - because they either completely misunderstand the paraphrased quote, or they're deliberately selectively quoting to suit their own individual argument that they feel justifies their individual behaviour.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,059 ✭✭✭Uriel.


    I wrote a paper on this earlier this year, concluding that it depends on the situation

    I looked at
    1 oppressive regimes (E.g North Korea)
    2 fundamentally just systems, but having unjust laws (eg the civil rights era in the US)
    3 mmodern Western democratic societies.

    In 1 I found it to be morally acceptable to break laws, in 2 that civil disobedience could be permitted, providing you are prepared to take the punishment and in 3,there was no morally acceptable reason to break laws, given the other means to make changes


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,169 ✭✭✭The Peanut


    Comment deleted.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,481 ✭✭✭Barely There


    Amazing how many people will try to use that quote to justify not paying their property tax or water charges.
    I laugh when they try to portray themselves as some kind of modern day Ghandi.

    The reality is that they're just leeches who want everyone else to pay for the benefits in society that they enjoy.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,442 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    Czarcasm wrote: »
    The quote itself should be taken in context as part of the Declaration of Independence which Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1776 and isn't actually seeking to justify individuals breaking the law -





    Source:
    The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription



    When read in context, it is saying that the people of a nation have a moral imperative to fight to challenge Government and laws that they as a society feel are unjust.

    It's been co-opted over the centuries by individuals who would like to think that the quote justifies their individual behaviour, and that's why you end up with idiots arguing nonsense about their individual freedoms and so on - because they either completely misunderstand the paraphrased quote, or they're deliberately selectively quoting to suit their own individual argument that they feel justifies their individual behaviour.

    It should also be noted that all these men were highly educated and would have been educated in both classical and enlightenment philosophy. In that time they would have been heavily influenced by philosophers like Hume and Rousseau. When they decided something was unjust it was after long mental deliberation. It wasn't a snap decision.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,087 ✭✭✭Potatoeman


    Amazing how many people will try to use that quote to justify not paying their property tax or water charges.
    I laugh when they try to portray themselves as some kind of modern day Ghandi.

    The reality is that they're just leeches who want everyone else to pay for the benefits in society that they enjoy.

    You dont get to choose what taxes you pay however you could argue that the government increased spending during the boom so they should cut it during a recession. Most people pay tax at source anyway.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,442 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    Potatoeman wrote: »
    You dont get to choose what taxes you pay however you could argue that the government increased spending during the boom so they should cut it during a recession. Most people pay tax at source anyway.

    The government was spending at something like 140% of their income when the recession hit. After all the cutbacks they were still at something like 120%.


  • Site Banned Posts: 2,922 ✭✭✭Egginacup


    Great, let's all be selective and follow laws only when it suits us

    I don't think he's stating that, in fairness. There's no need to be flippant.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Music Moderators, Politics Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 22,424 CMod ✭✭✭✭Dravokivich


    I've decided rockets are unjust

    What if I only had the 1?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 25,000 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    What percentage of the Irish population routinely break the prohibition of marijuana or the licensing laws around alcohol?

    Certain laws are ignored because they're idiotic and they aren't struck off because our system of government doesn't provide a mechanism for direct democracy, relying instead on elected representatives to choose which aspects of law they want to address with legislation or to put to the electorate via referendums.

    A referendum granting gay people marriage equality would pass in the morning. Any referendum on the legalisation of marijuana would almost certainly pass too (as even most who don't smoke it recognise the benefits of taxing it and removing it as an income source for organised crime).

    If it wouldn't already, a legalisation of abortion referendum will pass in the next decade, as is likely imo that referendums to remove the compulsory nature of Irish or to remove religion from our education system.

    A society should have the right to bypass it's parliament and to force a referendum within a short time period once a reasonable level of support for something has been demonstrated (say a petition signed by 5% of the electorate, roughly 150,000 signatures in the case of Ireland).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,611 ✭✭✭Valetta


    Sleepy wrote: »
    What percentage of the Irish population routinely break the prohibition of marijuana or the licensing laws around alcohol?

    Certain laws are ignored because they're idiotic and they aren't struck off because our system of government doesn't provide a mechanism for direct democracy, relying instead on elected representatives to choose which aspects of law they want to address with legislation or to put to the electorate via referendums.

    A referendum granting gay people marriage equality would pass in the morning. Any referendum on the legalisation of marijuana would almost certainly pass too (as even most who don't smoke it recognise the benefits of taxing it and removing it as an income source for organised crime).

    If it wouldn't already, a legalisation of abortion referendum will pass in the next decade, as is likely imo that referendums to remove the compulsory nature of Irish or to remove religion from our education system.

    A society should have the right to bypass it's parliament and to force a referendum within a short time period once a reasonable level of support for something has been demonstrated (say a petition signed by 5% of the electorate, roughly 150,000 signatures in the case of Ireland).

    I understand what you are saying, but we would need an awful lot more of a safeguard than allowing 150,000 signatures trigger a referendum.

    Within no time the same 150,000 nutters (and there are that many, at least) would grind the country to a halt and make it un-governable. (sp)


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 310 ✭✭Glock Lesnar


    Not a f*cking hope in he'll that N plates are going anywhere near my car, the blasphemy laws can go do one as well and if I ever feel the need to take a drug or two on a night out I'll do that too


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,164 ✭✭✭Savage Tyrant


    I have my own moral compass. What I consider right and wrong, or actions I consider justifiable in certain situations, may not always conform rigidly to the letter of the law.
    The way I see it, if I can justify it to myself. Look myself in the mirror and feel no guilt, then I'm not going to worry too much about the views of the so called law makers.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,047 ✭✭✭Jamiekelly


    If someone mentions the name Rosa Parks, the majority of people in most western countries would know who she is and what she stood for.

    She didn't get that kind of status from shutting her mouth and being an obedient little negro.

    If the law can be construed as violating someones human right then the individual would be spineless not to challenge direct injustice. Whether it be drug laws, the old condom ban in place only 30 years ago or you're right to fish and feed yourself when you're starving without getting hassled for license.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,971 ✭✭✭Sh1tbag OToole


    The law is as flawed as the politicians that make it


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,611 ✭✭✭Valetta


    I have my own moral compass. What I consider right and wrong, or actions I consider justifiable in certain situations, may not always conform rigidly to the letter of the law.
    The way I see it, if I can justify it to myself. Look myself in the mirror and feel no guilt, then I'm not going to worry too much about the views of the so called law makers.

    Have they mirrors in prison cells?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 397 ✭✭S.O


    As I type this, with the greyhound strike/dispute some of the workers involved in the strike are up in court tomorrow morning with the possibility of being imprisoned for disobeying an unjust law , ie injunction for picketing greyhound premises .


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,570 ✭✭✭Mint Aero


    wazky wrote: »
    So if I decided that outlawing beastality is unjust, I can just go out and take my pick of the nearest sheep without fear of repercussions?

    What is your argument to say it is unjust?


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