issue17【加州阳光】第十次作业 拍的响亮~

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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.

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1、确实应该遵守合理的法律
2、历史上的一些事件似乎为“不遵守不合理的法律”提供了支持
3、然而，在更多情况下，并没有标准来衡量法律的合理性。因此，如果认为法律不合理，依然应该通过合法的手段来向政府反映，而不应该通过违法的手段解决，因为可能危害大中的利益和社会的和谐。

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The speaker's assertion consists of two claims: (1) that laws can be categorized as just ones and unjust ones, and (2) that people should obey the just laws and they also have the responsibility to disobey the unjust ones. I strongly disagree with both of the assertions. Because there is no general and accurate standard to judge the fairness of laws and the author recommends a bad solution to reform the so-called “unjust law”.

Turning to the threshold claim that the law is either just or unjust, the speaker is oversimplified the fairness of laws, I find that the speaker begs a key problem—how to judge whether a law is just or unjust? It is indisputable that there is no clear standard to judge the reasonability of a law and if the general and accurate standard exists, the unjust law would certainly not have a chance to be a law. As my observation, the fairness of a law in one’s mind is tightly related to what the benefit and loss the law would bring to that person. For example, a ban of fishing in certain region is set to avoid overfishing so as to protect the marine animals, which is definitely reasonable and just for most people. However, this law would harmful the benefit of a company that usually fish in that region and sells the relative commodities and might cause higher cost, declining profit and even increasing unemployment. And from the company’s respect, the local government set this ban considering apart their benefit and hence is unjust. In a word, whether a law is just or not is a complicated issue and as a result, this category is oversimplified and illogical.

Turning to the ultimate claim, do people have the responsibility to disobey the unjust law while they obey the just ones, as the speaker claims? Although this statement rests on an illogical assumption, it seems to be reasonable at first glance and also appears to receive support from some historical facts. Consider, for instance, the slavery, which has once been the part of the mainstream culture in the United States, obviously reveals the unequal right among different races and as a result, is considered as an unjust law. To struggle the equal statue for Black, the Civil War broke out, as a famous representative of human events to resist the unjust law, which eventually ended up with the abolishment of slavery and also led the United states to a brand new epoch. Another telling example involves the resistance of the unjust law set by Hitler—any Germany who opponents the slaughter of Jew and saves Jew would be killed. Although majority of Germany were scared by Hitler's law, there were also numerous people who cannot be silent under the cruel and inhuman rule to help the Jew escape from the slaughter.

Conceding the existence of unjust laws, I do believe that disobedience is an inefficient and harmful solution. As far as I am concerned, even though some laws in certain nation are strongly opposed by the majority people, the opponents should convey their opinions to the government by legal ways-perhaps by parade or a letter with the signatures of all opponents-rather than the illegal way- to purely disobey it. In the first place, after all to disobey the law amounts to break the law and in this way, opponents might harm the harmony of society and at last would jeopardize the benefit of public, which violates their original intention. One example has to do with the tax. Although tax in some region is high for some individuals, public should avoid evasion, which would severely impede the development of local economy, to reflect their anger. Secondly, conceding the responsibility of disobedience so-called “unjust laws” amounts to provide any crime a official reason, which renders laws that ensure the safety of populace and the well-being of society out of function. In a word,

In conclusion, any individual should indisputably obey to the law, even though in personal opinion it is unjust. While I concede there must be some flaws in any nation's law system, what we should do is striving to revise it rather than simply disobey it, which might harm the harmony of the whole society and the benefit of the public.