Why do you obey the law?

[Velveteenfruitbowl]

Something I am reading made me wonder so I want to do a poll. Ignoring situations where the law coincides with your morals (e.g. you think it’s wrong to kill people so you don’t commit murder), why do you follow the law? You can take speed limits for example. Do you not speed because you don’t want to pay a fine or do you actually believe that going a few miles over the speed limit is wrong in some way?

YANBU = I follow the law because it’s the law!

YABU = I only follow the law because I don’t want to be punished.

I tend to obey my own moral compass before the 'law' but luckily they often tend to coincide!

I'm sure I break some small laws, but never anything that would impact on somebody else. That's my line in the sand, I guess.

One of the more intellectually interesting threads I've seen on here. Well done OP.

I reckon everyone chooses to ignore some laws.

Suppose you're driving out of town. You pass the last building/junction on the main road out of town. The road is wide, safe and completely clear. There are no cameras or camera vans. From where you are it's another 100 yards of clear road (and absolutely nothing else) to reach the sign where the speed limit changes from 30 to 60.

How many of us trundle along at 30 until level with the sign before accelerating up to 60??? People with a black box fitted and absolutely no one else, I bet.

that's almost as asinine as obeying the law blindly

Why?

To me it means i wouldn't obey or support a law that conflicted with my morals and that if i wanted to do something badly enough then I'd do it, and do actually do it, regardless of consequence

Quite alot of things i enjoy, probably more than most, involve contravening a law

I don't obey any law that conflicts with my interests

If we all lived that way then there would be anarchy. Why do your interests trump mine?
The Anne Frank case is an example of one's perspective being considered, I say terrorist, you say freedom fighter. The Resistance wasn't considered to be a heroic organisation by those then in power, the Nazis.
'History is the story told by the victors' or something like that.

'History is written by the victors' Winston Churchill, I should have googled mit earlier!

No, fair enough DGRossetti, you are right. I guess I was mostly thinking about people breaking fairly minor laws out of sheer self-interest, in countries with a democratic and non-repressive system.

If you put law-breakers into 3 groups:

1. Serious criminals (theft, violence, major fraud etc)
2. People who break more minor laws for their own convenience and for things they are unlikely to get caught for
3. People who protest against and deliberately break laws which they view as being against human rights

the 3rd group is the only one I'd consider justified, and even then it would depend on individual views on the law in question. But this thread seems to be largely about group 2.

I don't speed because speed frightens me.

I don't kill because I think that's intrinsically wrong. I don't steal because... I suppose a bit of a mixture of thinking it's wrong and being afraid of getting a criminal record. I can't put my hand on my heart and say I would
i never
steal from someone who could well afford it and would never know, if I was in genuine need.

When I think back over my life, the things I've done that feel most "wrong" don't involve breaking the law. I think I've failed one of my DC emotionally in various ways. That was down to lack of experience and insight rather than any malicious intention, and there's absolutely zero chance that I could be arrested for any of it.

Americans have a slightly different take, because they are mainly descended from traitors and criminals. Jefferson suggested it was not only alright to break an unjust law, but a civic duty - certainly he oversaw it's incorporation into the Declaration of Independence:

"...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..."

The British (that's us) imposed a salt tax in India en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March which was hardly a just law.

Lots of laws coincide with my morals -including speeding - particularly in 30mph zones.
Where a law had no relation to my morals its the liklihood of being caught combined with the penalty if i am caught that has an impact.

Why do your interests trump mine?

Mostly they don't

tbf some of the laws i like to break do have a social impact but i try to minimise that

I can't really explain anymore without going into specifics which i don't really want to do.

I'm a combination of both groups B and C as listed above

Personally, the starting point (for me, others may vary) is the very biblical "do unto others as you would have others do unto you". (Really, that's all the Bible needed, but then you can't win, some people are distrustful of the simple ...).

Most things pretty quickly fall into place from there.

However, some laws have nothing to do with anything other than enforcing someone elses morality. Bigamy (for example). Not that I'm inclined to have more than one wife, and no one I know wants more than one husband. But there's a law against it. Why ? If two women want to enjoin in the construct of marriage with another person, why not ?

I would usually only break the law if it was OK with my morals and didn't impact on anyone else.

I'll speed on a motorway if it's clear and dry, otherwise I don't see the point. Driving in a 30 zone for 2 miles at 35mph only saves you 34 seconds, why take the risk (of hurting someone else, not getting caught!).

I suppose most people have drunk alcohol underage too.

If I lived in a country where laws impacted on my human rights I would probably break them too - eg having an illegal abortion if I needed to.

There are probably laws and offences around children that parents break all the time too - smacking, taking them out of school, not using the correct car seat.

Because I'm a good Christian

My reasons:

Too tight/poor to pay a fine

Don’t like being disliked

Don’t like being told off

Would rather spend my time doing fun and more productive things than the admin involved in dealing with above

I'm an Aspie and I see the world very much in black and white - if it's the law it's obeyed without question. Even if a situation happens where I accidentally break the law it causes me untold anxiety so I try and avoid doing so where possible. My dh on the other hand sees laws as being able to be bent where necessary and it winds me up something chronic (thinking planning laws specifically) and there may have been several rather heated rows in the Who household about this recently!!

I don't obey any law that conflicts with my interests

statements like that without question make me snigger.

@seaweedandmarchingbands even procedural laws? Or laws which a purely moral (surely it’s not legitimate to legislate your morality into others?) like a ban on elective abortions?

Sorry, OP, I wasn’t sure what you meant by this. Laws do exactly that: they enforce the morality of some on to others. But the idea is that, because we do that through the processes of a representative democracy, the laws aren’t oppressive, they are legitimate.

Because I don’t want to go to prison. And I’m not smart enough not to get caught.

Otherwise a lorra, lorra people would be pushing up the daisies. 🔫 💣 🔨

Butchyrestingface

😂

Mainly because I don't want to be punished. Obviously, there are many laws which are in tune with my own moral compass (laws against theft, violence and so forth), but some I don't see in a particularly moral light (e.g. and without wanting to derail the thread with an argument about a particular law, I personally believe the requirement to hold a TV Licence is out of date) and for those, it's purely a matter of not wanting the consequences of failure to comply.

I don’t always follow the law. I feel entitled to do whatever I wish within the law but sometimes I break it too if I feel a law is stupid or the risk is low.

I think most people are the same.

I don’t consider the law to have any real moral value nor that it is just.

interesting thread.

like most on here, I don't steal or kill because both are bad, but also I wouldn't want either done to me. (I have been a burglary victim and it is not fun) If I had a dog that had bitten or threatened, I would muzzle or shoot it because I wouldn't want it to attack again.

Unlike most on here, I don't speed because a) most roads have a limit set for a reason and b) I am a bit bothered about climate change and I know that drag goes up as square of speed. So going at 80 on a motorway uses unnecessary amounts of fuel. (if you speed and think yourself an eco-warrior, you aren't - you are a dick)

We have laws where we used to have religion - the latter was invented because in a world where most were short of the basics, stealing from someone else was hard to resist. Now (hopefully) fewer believe, we have laws to get those who are still a menace to society off the streets.

luckily I don't live in a dictatorship - would I be brave enough to resist, I wonder?

luckily I don't live in a dictatorship - would I be brave enough to resist, I wonder?

You’d have to be pretty brave. It always makes me laugh when people talk about things like why the German people didn’t just rise up against Hitler, or why they didn’t do more to stop the Holocaust... and I think, “Because by the time it was obvious what was going on it was fucking terrifying and they had kids/houses/jobs/parents/lives to lose?” It’s easy to talk about being brave.

mencken:

I suspect there's also an element of herd behaviour when it come to your choice of speed. If you drove at 55mph you'd use a lot less fuel, but you'd be an outlier, in the slow lane.