A True Test of Morality

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by Libertarian ForOur Future, Jul 30, 2013.

  1. Libertarian ForOur Future

    Libertarian ForOur Future New Member Past Donor

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    Department of Justice Honors Slave Catchers for Their Service to the Law

    So, for all of those that stand on the premise that law is law, and no matter what, folks should oblige by it. How do you feel about the above article? Do you agree with giving the officers of the 'law' this award?

    What I want to see is how you truly feel. Here's my answer, I absolutely, positively, disagree with giving them this award. Slavery isn't something that should be honored, not even when it comes to honoring someone for upholding the law on slavery. I have no remorse over those that were killed by this heinous act against human rights.

    Now, for everyone else, I want to see if you'll remain consistent or not. If you agree that law is law, then you should stand with the Department of Justice and honor those fallen men who've upheld the law. If you disagree with this award, then law isn't law and to make the claim that law is law goes to show that it's no longer a valid argument.

    Let's see who takes the test...any takers?
     
  2. DonGlock26

    DonGlock26 New Member Past Donor

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    Government is always a double-edged sword, but I err on the side of having law enforcement officers obey the laws rather than break them.

    So, the listing of the names of people killed in the line of duty (what award?? sounds like they got hot lead to me) should stand.

    I hold the civilian elected legislators, elected executives, and elected or appointed judges responsible for the law's justice or lack their of.

    Ultimately, the people are to blame for unjust laws in our constitutionally-limited republic.
     
  3. Libertarian ForOur Future

    Libertarian ForOur Future New Member Past Donor

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    I appreciate your honesty. However, if the cops didn't do anything to with the slaves, during that time, they technically wouldn't have broken any laws.If they purposely went out of their way not to return the slaves or whatever, then it can be stated that they broke the law.

    In my opinion, by simply not enforcing that law isn't really breaking the law. How many times have cops caught someone speeding and just gave them a verbal warning? Would you consider they broke the law because the individual should've gotten either a written warning or a ticket? I don't, thus, I don't believe that if those cops didn't enforce the slavery law, they would have been breaking the law.

    They chose to uphold a heinous law, met an untimely end because of it, and should've shown moral judgement instead.
     
  4. DonGlock26

    DonGlock26 New Member Past Donor

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    They took an oath to uphold the laws. Not just the ones they like. Their office was set up by law.


    He received a complaining letter for assistance. It was his duty to act.
     
  5. Libertarian ForOur Future

    Libertarian ForOur Future New Member Past Donor

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    Not saying they didn't, all I'm saying is if they didn't uphold that law, it isn't breaking a law.

    My point is cops act under the context of law and it doesn't always lead to great things (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/27/police-shoot-dead-grandfather-72-while-searching-the-wrong-home-for-burglar-blame-poor-lighting/). Cases like this will always occur, the police officer won't be identified, the wife of the man will be paid off, and it will be quickly brushed under the rug as a 'mistake'. You can say these cops were upholding the law as well, but they killed an innocent man, because of "dim lights" & being in the wrong house.

    My point is just because they have an oath to uphold the law doesn't make it a valid argument of law is law. Hypothetical, if there was a law that stated that if anyone with a gun could be shot on sight by an officer, without penalty under the law, would you still support the officers who shoot and kill every one with a gun, even if they pose no threat to them?

    Better yet, what if this law was in place and the arresting officer of George Zimmerman shot & killed him because Zimmerman told him he had a gun, would you still support that officer?
     
  6. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Right, the officers can't be blamed. They are just doing their jobs! :roll:

    Personal responsibility is also a double-edged sword. If one is called upon to commit immoral acts, even in the course of one's duties, one is not absolved of responsibility because there is a human being who claims to be a higher authority. If it were true what you argue, then government can absolve anyone of any responsibility whenever it wishes to do so. From where does it lawfully obtain this power and authority?
     
  7. JoeSixpack

    JoeSixpack New Member

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    Let me not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously observed.

    Abraham Lincoln

    Laws should be just and consistent, no one class of people should be exempt, or be given special consideration or preferential treatment, or be allowed to use the law for their own specific benefit. These are not laws but impositions.
     
  8. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them. Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general.

    Frederic Bastiat
     
  9. Dispondent

    Dispondent Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The problem I see here is that we are placing today's standards on those that lived in a different time with very different standards. They did their job as it was given to them, under the standards of the time. I don't feel we are able to fairly judge those of times past, as none of us can say we wouldn't do the same in their circumstances, we can only pretend we would do as we think we would now...
     
  10. Flintc

    Flintc New Member

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    I agree entirely with DonGlock26 here. It isn't up to individual law enforcement people to decide which laws they feel like enforcing. As social mores change over time, laws change to fit. We could go back through time finding large numbers of laws that today we'd find absurd, offensive, or immoral. And people generations from now will find that true of many of OUR laws as well.

    How arrogant, to blame a law enforcement officer for enforcing the law, because he's too immoral to realize that the law itself will be poorly regarded 150 years in his future. He did his job.
     
  11. Rapunzel

    Rapunzel New Member Past Donor

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    Yes, Hitler's henchmen were only doing what their Fuhrer told them to and we see how that ended.
     
  12. Libertarian ForOur Future

    Libertarian ForOur Future New Member Past Donor

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    Morality is morality, Dispondent. Meaning, you're either moral or immoral. This is like saying that all of those folks, in the North, that broke the 'Fugitive Slave Act' should've been sent off to jail because they never returned the slaves to the their Southern owners. At some point, you have to ask yourself that moral question, thus the premise of this thread.

    There's morality all around us. Do you feel the same way about entitlement programs? Do you feel the same way about the poor? Do you feel the same way about abortion? All of these things tie in with morality. The moral standards, that by which each of us live by, is the crux of the argument that I'm getting at.
     
  13. Flintc

    Flintc New Member

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    Yep, heard it all before. There is only one morality, and it's absolute, and by happy coincidence it happens to mine.
     
  14. Libertarian ForOur Future

    Libertarian ForOur Future New Member Past Donor

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    This isn't about upholding a law, it's about morality. If you deem something as immoral, to the very basic fibers of your being, would you still follow along with it because it's law? That's the issue here. If you believed that something was wrong, would you still honor it?

    If I believe said issue is immoral and I disagree with the validity of it, I'll begin to question the law itself. Some people probably believe that if slavery was legal today, they'd legally own slaves. Thus, morality doesn't change over time, you either believe something is moral or immoral, it won't change anything.
     
  15. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The question becomes, does law, as in legislative decree, indicate or define moral action?
     
  16. Flintc

    Flintc New Member

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    Morality changes both with the times and with the person. Read a book from 100 years ago, and you will soon find yourself going down in moral maple syrup for the third time! Times do change.

    But I'm not putting down personal morality, whether or not I agree with it. The gung ho patriot may feel disgust for the conscientious objector, and vice versa, but these can both be accommodated. To take a particularly virulent case, some people feel that legal abortion is immoral, while others feel that cramming one's religion down another's throat is immoral. In cases like that, there may be no accommodation acceptable to both moralities, because both sides feel their morality is so obviously superior. So we muddle through.
     
  17. Flintc

    Flintc New Member

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    In general, yes, no. Legislative action is grounded in moral sensibilities for the most part - these sensibilites form the playing field. They do not CREATE the playing field, and the legislation played out on that field is morality twice removed. But morality is difficult to differentiate from practicality in human affairs. Laws generally reflect what's thought to be most workable, and it would not BE most workable if most people didn't find it morally supported or at least acceptable.

    Maybe better to consider legal cases. Sit in a courtroom for a while. Watch civil suits. What you will find is that almost invariably, BOTH sides consider themselves to have the moral high ground. And both postures are supportable, because fact situations are often ambiguous and complex. But what you're going to notice is that morality lines up perfectly with self-interest. There's an old proverb: When two monkeys want the same banana, in the end one monkey gets the banana and the other hollers morality. Doesn't matter which monkey is which.
     
  18. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well, then, replace "morality" with "ethics." In the case of the Fugitive Slave Act, anyone who gave food or shelter to an escaped slave faced fines and imprisonment, requiring that a person who believed that ethics required helping fellow human beings to act unethically by ignoring their plight. How does a legislative decree absolve one of responsibility to one's fellow humans beings to act ethically and not harm them?
     
  19. Liberalis

    Liberalis Well-Known Member

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    If the law is unjust those who enforce it should not be honored. The Nazi genocide of the Jews was done according to German law, that does not mean Germans should be celebrating the Nazis for upholding it.
     
  20. Flintc

    Flintc New Member

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    Not sure I understand this. At the time, there was a poweful difference between those who regarded slaves as property (and invested a LOT of money accordingly) and those who regarded the slaves as people (but had no skin in the game). So (Im guessing here) the crux of the issue is, what is a "fellow human being?" Is a slave a fellow human being, when if it IS, you lose all your money? Is a fetus a "fellow human being" when if it is, you lose control of your body? And so, as always, ethics follows the money (or personal self-interest).
     
  21. Flintc

    Flintc New Member

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    And exactly how is it to be determined that the law is unjust? Is this a matter of individual whim? Should due process of law matter? Should due process of law even be applied? These are HARD questions. The Nazis did nothing illegal. In their eyes, they did nothing immoral either. In our eyes, they did. So should it be the case that the victors get to define morality? Should we fight a global war to decide if axis or allied morality is REAL morality? At least for a couple of generations.
     
  22. Liberalis

    Liberalis Well-Known Member

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    To answer your questions requires knowledge of ethics. There are many different theories as to what is morally just--utilitarianism, libertarianism, liberalism, etc--so it would depend on what those theories have to say about it. As a libertarian, I would arguing slavery is unjust on the grounds that it violates the non-aggression principle. Thus those who enforced slavery should not be honored. Victors to not define morality, because the victors are not necessarily morally right. If you want to argue that slavery and mass genocide are morally just, be my guest.

    But assume for a moment there is a universally accepted idea of justice. It is irrefutable, and everyone acknowledges this. Say such an idea holds that slavery is unjust, thus the laws being enforced were unjust. Would you celebrate the enforcers of unjust laws, given that we do have knowledge that they were unjust? That is the point that is relevant here--not what is unjust, but whether or not the arbitrators of injustice should be celebrated.
     
  23. Libertarian ForOur Future

    Libertarian ForOur Future New Member Past Donor

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    Only to some does morality change. In the case of abortion, I believe in every life should be respected and given the full opportunity to bloom. However, I also don't believe it's a judgement call I can force a woman to make. Thus, morally, I won't ever agree with that practice and none of my children will ever be aborted. Religion & government are almost always one in the same, they both wish to force their morals onto others. It doesn't work and it will only make actions, against them, seem immoral because of the immoral implication they took to approach the situation.

    The reality is that because a law is there, doesn't mean it's so. Unjust laws are unjust and civil disobedience is an effective means of utilizing the 1st amendment to protest against it. MLK was locked up several times for breaking the law that he felt was unjust. He did so by practicing civil disobedience. As such, this quote, by MLK, is probably the second best to his 'I Had A Dream' speech:

    [​IMG]
     
  24. LowKey

    LowKey Well-Known Member

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    Let me see if I've got this straight? I either have to hoorah slave catching or I have to consent to anyone proclaiming actions legal or illegal based on personal morality?
     
  25. Flintc

    Flintc New Member

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    This sounds incoherent. If you're saying that good goverment will back off whenever possible and let the individual people decide for themselves, that sounds good to me.

    Laws, in general, must pass the test of public acceptance. What's publically acceptable changes over time. Civil disobedience is ineffective without public support. We have jailed many millions of people for marijuana possession. So far, no improvement in national morality, no moral outrage at the injustice. Nothing but an expensive well-funded machine wrecking lives for hire.

    King had plenty of predessors whose timing was worse. They got lunched and hung. Nobody even recorded who they were. Public support is essential. John Brown thought that freeing and mobilizing a few slaves would start a revolution. Nope - the slaves could see that the forces of repression were as strong as ever, and the forces of liberation weren't anywhere handy.
     

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