issue17 新手，不限时，参考了些资料，有点长，请大家指教*^_^*

stickyUID: 193063

17. 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.


Law, the body of official rules and regulations, an important aspect of our civilization, is used to govern a society and to control the behavior of its members. There is no doubt that we all have a responsibility to obey just laws. As to unjust laws, I do agree that it is also our responsibility to disobey and resist them. But when opponent voices arise, how can we justify such disobedience or resistance?

Rousseau, the French political philosopher once said, in obeying laws each citizen is pursuing his own real interests. Does it mean that, an individual who disobeys a law must be failing to look at things from some certain moral standpoint? Yes, provided these premises held: it is `in a democratic society~ and `the state represents the general will of the citizens~.  However, this is an ideal state we are not living in. Not all the countries in the world has a democratic society, let alone `ideal~. If it was not for those like Nelson Mandela who fought against the brutal laws in South Africa, people there would still be living like slaves. By following the old laws to the letter, South Africa can never be a free nation. According to Thoreau, `the law never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.~ Unjust laws do exist, because our civilization is still developing. To remove the fetters that shackled this development, it is men's responsibility to change unjust laws.

Opponents may also argue that, if each individual choose to disobey unjust laws, the society would be pushed into chaos. But what is the definition of unjust laws here? If justice is simply judged by one's own interest and point of view, no law would be valid and justifiable. One may refuse to pay taxes for a government program of which he disapproves or from which he derives no benefit. But what if the program serves the common interest of the majority of people? Without the guide of higher moral purpose, arbitrary disobedience would certainly lead to the destruction of fabrication of the society. But things are entirely different when a right judgment of whether a law is just or not is present. Here I would like to quote the definition of just law by Martin Luther King: `a just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.~ If profound questions of moral principle are at stake, even social instability or so called chaos caused by resistance can not stand as the reason not to resist unjust laws, quite on the contrary, it may be what we must afford to change the current system to a more harmonious and civilized one.  

In addition, unjust laws can be phased out by a much reasonable way of resistance in many cases. As advocated and demonstrated by Gandhi and King, even in their times of difficulty, non-violent civil disobedience is chosen and it did work. In modern societies, authorized body such as a legislature or a court makes and changes the law. There are political processes for evaluating proposals and making amendments of laws. As long as the society has a healthy mechanism of balancing the rights of people and administrative, unjust laws can be changed through peaceful ways, sometimes even without deliberate disobedience. In a democratic society, rather than directly conflicting with the state's coercive power, various actions can be taken, from expressing ideas in newspapers and TV programs, to marching in front of the congress building.

Disobedience and resistance of unjust laws are no departure from democracy, but the essence of it. By making clear what are unjust laws and how to resist them, people can contribute to the improvement of the society though resistance. Neither Gandhi nor King is teaching us to defy the law arbitrarily, instead, they are teaching us to recognize the real value of the law and truly respect it.

poohUID: 146994

Does it mean that, an individual who disobeys a law must be failing to look at things from some certain moral standpoint? Yes

must be failing to ... 有这种用法吗

后面用些~~~~~~~~~这种号，是什么意思

总的来说写得不错

stickyUID: 193063

那个must be failing to的确比较诡异-_-bb 写成must have failed to就可以吧？
那些符号～啥的是因为我把写字版的字体改成GRE机考字体，发现双引号居然要用` 和 ~ 来输入。。。好奇怪啊，不懂的说。所以那些符号其实是引号：）

这篇文章我写的时候总觉得找不到分论点来正面论证，最后其实是搞了两个反对的观点来驳。。。是不是不能这样写啊？

再次感谢pooh jj ~~ KISS~ *^_^*