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>"it's the duty of every American to disobey unjust laws..." Is this what universities are teaching? Where did you get this from, honestly? This is a terrible

>"it's the duty of every American to disobey unjust laws..." Is this what universities are teaching? Where did you get this from, honestly? This is a terrible assertion. The subjectivity of what is just or unjust would lead to overwhelming violent lawlessness if this were true. Thankfully, we have no such duty. Please, stand up for what you believe is right within the legal framework. This is a largely just society, by comparison. Maybe travel a bit to see what an unjust society looks like. Weigh your options, at least, before resorting to criminality as a lifestyle choice.

LexiMax 1y ago
Being law abiding in a society run by lawless and violent thugs isn't contributing to a social fabric. It is a survival mechanism at best.
- trimethylpurine 1y ago
  The fact of their being lawless would preclude the argument. If the government is lawless then by definition they are not law enforcing. Not a government. I don't see that remotely fitting the United States as a generalization. I would argue that if you do, you are either poorly traveled, or fanatical. I would hope it's the prior, for everyone's sake. Try hailing a cab at midnight in the middle of Mexico before declaring the US to be ultimately lawless. Maybe don't actually try that. Regardless if you find the government to be so unjust as to convince you to break laws and become violent, you belong in prison and the majority of people will help to put you there, make no mistake. Regardless of leadership, I highly value that about the US. I hope you'll change your mind before that happens.
  - LexiMax 1y ago
    > Try hailing a cab at midnight in the middle of Mexico before declaring the US to be ultimately lawless. I've been to Portland, does that count? > I hope you'll change your mind before that happens. I don't think you do. I think that you fantasize about throwing your political opponents in prison, and uttering a veiled threat cloaked in empathetic language makes you feel powerful and clever. In any case, I'm not sure what you took away from my response, but survival isn't a bad thing - at least not for the individual. It's clarifying, putting one in the proper mindset from collaborative to transactional and opportunistic. Of course, systemic myopia and brain drain can hurt an organization worse than any direct action could ever aspire to, but organizations run by violent thugs aren't known for known for advancement based on competence as opposed to loyalty.
    - trimethylpurine 1y ago
      No. Travel to Mexico, or Africa, or other such places if you want to see what lawlessness does to society. >I think that you fantasize about throwing your political opponents in prison That's a xenophobic and false assumption. It's illegal to imprison your political opponents. I just said don't break the law, right? Do you want to put people who disagree with you in prison? It's perfectly legal to make a political statement in the US. It's illegal to harm people and property. Don't conflate those.
      - LexiMax 1y ago
        > I hope your assumption isn't projection, but I think it is based on the rest of your comment. You appear to be making an effort to organize violence, so I'm going to step out of the discussion here. The domestic use of ICE and the military is plainly the actions of an organization of violent thugs by anyone with eyes to see. I do not advocate for violence - to the extent I am advocating for anything, I am explaining to you the foreseeable results of ideology-based institutional rot. You are aware of this, don't appreciate the implications of what I am saying, and have seemingly resorted to yelling "violence" at the top of your lungs in the hopes that I am intimidated by such an accusation and become defensive.
        trimethylpurine 1y ago
        >resorted to yelling "violence" at the top of your lungs Shouting at the top of my lungs? If you can hear me shouting through the glass then you can probably hear my eyes rolling right now too. Of course I did neither. You should consider how often you might be doing this in your daily life, because assuming the worst in the people you interact with is a sure way to be treated like garbage (and justly so). Back to the point, I understood from your commentary that you mean violence when you refer to unlawful behavior. If you don't then you have every opportunity to say so. I don't think I was presumptuous in my understanding, because I can't think of a way for you to interact with violent, armed forces, unlawfully, without inciting violence. And that's my point. That and more so that it's not a duty of every citizen to behave unlawfully. In fact, it's been the successful approach of maybe 10 such citizens in history. You can see the other commentor's examples. It's unlikely you're going to be one of them. It would show humility to, in the least, admit as much. Also because you've made no substantial justification for it to be a duty. Afterall, that's the comment you responded to.
weavejester 1y ago
>> "it's the duty of every American to disobey unjust laws..." > This is a terrible assertion. The subjectivity of what is just or unjust would lead to overwhelming violent lawlessness if this were true. Thankfully, we have no such duty. The United States was founded by people defying unjust tax laws. It wouldn't exist as a country if its people had quietly accepted British law. The idea that it's the duty of Americans to disobey unjust laws is very much in line with its founding. And when we look to history, the people who advanced freedoms and civil rights, the people we really remember - a great many of them were lawbreakers. Mahatma Gandhi was arrested for defying the British salt tax and colonial rule. Nelson Mandela was arrested for opposing apartheid. Martin Luther King Jr was arrested for breaking segregation laws and marching without a permit. Every person who signed the US Declaration of Independence was committing treason against the British crown.
- trimethylpurine 1y ago
  >"The United States was founded by people defying unjust tax laws." It is not the duty of every American to establish their own tax laws and form their own confederacy of themselves and do whatever they feel like. You're comparing the establishment of a government to the duty of a citizen. I think you can see how that makes no sense, right? MLK was a non-violent pacifist, and his march was legal. Overly restrictive permitting laws violate the first amendment and he made that clear by exercising his civil liberties, lawfully, in the face of disagreement and unlawful arrest. Gandhi was arrested by an opposition government. He broke none of his nation's laws. Mandela fought a war. He participated in revolution. Are we all supposed to lead revolutions? Every week a new AR-15 carrying psychopath should shoot people up that he disagrees with? - Obviously not. Disagreeing peacefully with unjust laws is a protected right. But violence and lawlessness is absolutely not a duty. It's not even advisable. And promoting it as such is completely senseless in a country where peaceful discourse is a protected right. You already won! You have a peaceful way to make a difference! Why would you break laws to make a statement when you can already make a statement without risking a prison sentence? None of the people you've listed had that option. I'm very much horrified that a clearly educated person could arrive at such a misguided and dangerous conclusion.
  - 1y ago

LexiMax 1y ago

Being law abiding in a society run by lawless and violent thugs isn't contributing to a social fabric. It is a survival mechanism at best.

trimethylpurine 1y ago
The fact of their being lawless would preclude the argument. If the government is lawless then by definition they are not law enforcing. Not a government. I don't see that remotely fitting the United States as a generalization. I would argue that if you do, you are either poorly traveled, or fanatical. I would hope it's the prior, for everyone's sake. Try hailing a cab at midnight in the middle of Mexico before declaring the US to be ultimately lawless. Maybe don't actually try that. Regardless if you find the government to be so unjust as to convince you to break laws and become violent, you belong in prison and the majority of people will help to put you there, make no mistake. Regardless of leadership, I highly value that about the US. I hope you'll change your mind before that happens.
- LexiMax 1y ago
  > Try hailing a cab at midnight in the middle of Mexico before declaring the US to be ultimately lawless. I've been to Portland, does that count? > I hope you'll change your mind before that happens. I don't think you do. I think that you fantasize about throwing your political opponents in prison, and uttering a veiled threat cloaked in empathetic language makes you feel powerful and clever. In any case, I'm not sure what you took away from my response, but survival isn't a bad thing - at least not for the individual. It's clarifying, putting one in the proper mindset from collaborative to transactional and opportunistic. Of course, systemic myopia and brain drain can hurt an organization worse than any direct action could ever aspire to, but organizations run by violent thugs aren't known for known for advancement based on competence as opposed to loyalty.
  - trimethylpurine 1y ago
    No. Travel to Mexico, or Africa, or other such places if you want to see what lawlessness does to society. >I think that you fantasize about throwing your political opponents in prison That's a xenophobic and false assumption. It's illegal to imprison your political opponents. I just said don't break the law, right? Do you want to put people who disagree with you in prison? It's perfectly legal to make a political statement in the US. It's illegal to harm people and property. Don't conflate those.
    - LexiMax 1y ago
      > I hope your assumption isn't projection, but I think it is based on the rest of your comment. You appear to be making an effort to organize violence, so I'm going to step out of the discussion here. The domestic use of ICE and the military is plainly the actions of an organization of violent thugs by anyone with eyes to see. I do not advocate for violence - to the extent I am advocating for anything, I am explaining to you the foreseeable results of ideology-based institutional rot. You are aware of this, don't appreciate the implications of what I am saying, and have seemingly resorted to yelling "violence" at the top of your lungs in the hopes that I am intimidated by such an accusation and become defensive.
      - trimethylpurine 1y ago
        >resorted to yelling "violence" at the top of your lungs Shouting at the top of my lungs? If you can hear me shouting through the glass then you can probably hear my eyes rolling right now too. Of course I did neither. You should consider how often you might be doing this in your daily life, because assuming the worst in the people you interact with is a sure way to be treated like garbage (and justly so). Back to the point, I understood from your commentary that you mean violence when you refer to unlawful behavior. If you don't then you have every opportunity to say so. I don't think I was presumptuous in my understanding, because I can't think of a way for you to interact with violent, armed forces, unlawfully, without inciting violence. And that's my point. That and more so that it's not a duty of every citizen to behave unlawfully. In fact, it's been the successful approach of maybe 10 such citizens in history. You can see the other commentor's examples. It's unlikely you're going to be one of them. It would show humility to, in the least, admit as much. Also because you've made no substantial justification for it to be a duty. Afterall, that's the comment you responded to.

weavejester 1y ago

>> "it's the duty of every American to disobey unjust laws..." > This is a terrible assertion. The subjectivity of what is just or unjust would lead to overwhelming violent lawlessness if this were true. Thankfully, we have no such duty. The United States was founded by people defying unjust tax laws. It wouldn't exist as a country if its people had quietly accepted British law. The idea that it's the duty of Americans to disobey unjust laws is very much in line with its founding. And when we look to history, the people who advanced freedoms and civil rights, the people we really remember - a great many of them were lawbreakers. Mahatma Gandhi was arrested for defying the British salt tax and colonial rule. Nelson Mandela was arrested for opposing apartheid. Martin Luther King Jr was arrested for breaking segregation laws and marching without a permit. Every person who signed the US Declaration of Independence was committing treason against the British crown.

trimethylpurine 1y ago
>"The United States was founded by people defying unjust tax laws." It is not the duty of every American to establish their own tax laws and form their own confederacy of themselves and do whatever they feel like. You're comparing the establishment of a government to the duty of a citizen. I think you can see how that makes no sense, right? MLK was a non-violent pacifist, and his march was legal. Overly restrictive permitting laws violate the first amendment and he made that clear by exercising his civil liberties, lawfully, in the face of disagreement and unlawful arrest. Gandhi was arrested by an opposition government. He broke none of his nation's laws. Mandela fought a war. He participated in revolution. Are we all supposed to lead revolutions? Every week a new AR-15 carrying psychopath should shoot people up that he disagrees with? - Obviously not. Disagreeing peacefully with unjust laws is a protected right. But violence and lawlessness is absolutely not a duty. It's not even advisable. And promoting it as such is completely senseless in a country where peaceful discourse is a protected right. You already won! You have a peaceful way to make a difference! Why would you break laws to make a statement when you can already make a statement without risking a prison sentence? None of the people you've listed had that option. I'm very much horrified that a clearly educated person could arrive at such a misguided and dangerous conclusion.
- 1y ago