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This is the attorney equivalent of "I was just following orders", which has been rejected many times as a defense against war crimes... While your viewpoint is

This is the attorney equivalent of "I was just following orders", which has been rejected many times as a defense against war crimes... While your viewpoint is a reasonable interpretation of "the law", it completely ignores the higher-order responsibility for "justice" to serve as a moral compass and balance of power.

rayiner 4y ago
It’s not my “interpretation of the ‘law’” but rather the philosophical underpinning of how our legal system fits into our system of democracy. Lawyers have tremendous power over how the legal system operates. If they substitute their “moral compass” for that of the public, that undermines both the rule of law and democracy. Your comparison to “following orders” is specious. Lawyers are bound by criminal laws the same as soldiers are bound by the laws of war. “Following orders” isn’t a defense in either case. But soldiers aren’t expected to independently apply their moral judgment. “War crimes” are defined by international consensus. And soldiers are bound to “follow orders” when they’re not being asked to commit war crimes.