Issue17 倒计时7天 求拍

qyr1987UID: 2754639

TOPIC: ISSUE17 - "There are two types of laws: just and unjust. Every individual in a society has a responsibility to obey just laws and, even more importantly, to disobey and resist unjust laws."

History has seen the significant transitions of human societies, from monarchy to dictatorship, from dictatorship to democracy, along with which laws as subordinate of the political system change. Different laws of different times or of different societies serve for different purposes, and even within the same political climate, the notion of just laws may vary from person to person. However, if we define just laws as bulwark of the well-being of the general populace, then undoubtedly we should obey them, no matter how unjust they seem for certain individuals.

Admittedly, in a monarchic regime or one at the mercy of a dictator, it is reasonable and even esteemed to resist unjust laws because whether catering to those seize the power is the overriding criteria, laws without exempting from that. Laws in these political systems can mostly be tools to exploit the masses, rather than to serve for them, since these obligations deprive some, if not all, of people's freedom of them to serve for the king or dictator. Freedom had been lost, let alone the well-being. Given that pioneers, such as William Wallace, George Washington, had not dedicated their lives for resisting these laws, query whether Scotsman, Americans and people from other countries can enjoy the freedom we have today. The laws of those regimes were not designed for people, and accordingly people in turn had no obligations to obey them.


However, the democratic political climate has pervaded the whole world, the imperative of which is to protect the civil rights of every citizen, thus, just laws are the dominant ones and should be obeyed by anyone. After all, when most of the citizenry enjoyed the rights granted by the laws, the objective of them would be accomplished. Meeting everyone's need is neither possible nor necessary. To the extent that greed is part of human nature, everyone wants more rights for themselves, no matter whether they have had enough. Definitely, this longing for rights becomes desperate when they are being threatened. Consider, for example, a law that regulates the toxic effluents a certain factory can emit to a nearby river; public health are greatly threatened by undue emission, while complying with this regulation might be too costly to the factory, and it might force the factory to lay off some employees; all the rights granted by law have been involved, and at the same time, threatened: employees have rights to get employed, nearby citizens to keep healthy, factory owners to create fortune; if everyone sticks to their own rights, laws can never be just for any of them and chaos will ensue. Only laws have the coercive power and authority to force some people sacrifice their rights for the greater good, and ultimately serving to be just for most people to obey.

Although everyone should comply with the laws, laws should be perfected with civil disobedience rather than fierce disobedience or resistance. Laws can not be well completed from their very enacting, but by revising generation after generation. If Martin Luther King openly disobeyed or even violated the laws unjust for the black people, would he be esteemed, followed by so many of them? Would they affect and inspire so many white people to join them to ask for their granted rights? Would they finally compel the government to reconsider fulfilling the promise made decades of years before? Emphatically, no. Therefore, civil disobedience should be the second to none choice to help jurists or legislators weigh the merits of revising some laws to make it more just for more people.

In the past, there were no just laws, and they were reasonable to be disobeyed or resisted. At present, both just and unjust laws co-exist and should be obeyed, and relatively unjust laws should be revised through civil disobedience. In the future, laws could be well completed and strike more balance on all the rights to be just for everyone to obey.