Following rules: inherently a virtue?

[MaryKB]

Hey, now you're goin' overboard there, lady.

At least I'm consistent

 

[Farm Boy]

How does America produce young men like that?

I've been thinking about this in the context of the video. From beginning to end, there was a pretty drastic difference in the efficacy of deployed American military personnel. The draft boarded conscripts of the 60s were not the later term lottery conscripts of the 70s. This matches pretty well with how the guys ~my father's age talk about the people that were replacing them as they cycled out. Which is weird, because their local government intentionally picked and sent them to go, whereas the lotto was at least theoretically more fair, until you look into deferments and bone spurs and whatnot.

It's too simple, but I think the core of the answer almost has to be(and it's going to be in anything sorta crazy like this), belief. The whole thing is an idea. People can make ideas true. All it takes is lifetimes of effort.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm not assuming the premise "everything is functional in this sense."

Name something that isn't functional in that sense, then.

 

[Lexicus]

I believe rather violating these types of rules are motivated out of greed, laziness, and general selfishness, and then people try rationalizing them with silly scenarios. I feel it is morally and ethically wrong to say "I don't agree with how our society has agreed to do this, so I'm just going to do whatever I want for myself."

I guess I'm greedy, lazy, and selfish then. Nothing I didn't know already.

Obviously there are going to be extreme circumstances where the law really is wrong: slavery, oppression, etc. But this conversation didn't come up because of those. It came up about deciding you don't want to pay for something but want it anyway, so is it okay for you to just take it? I feel it's very dishonest to say something like "Because slavery is wrong, anything goes!"

What I want to know from bringing up those cases is how you, personally, decide when a law is too unjust or too silly to be followed. For example, you said you were offended that I even suggested you would turn in people to ICE, but how did you decide that US immigration law was so unjust it should not be followed?

 

[Gorbles]

Lexicus, you're doing that thing again where you're taking Mary's point about general belief and translating it to an attack on your person. We have enough like that already, don't join them!

(this post is in good faith, no snark intended)

 

[MaryKB]

I wouldn't turn you in for piracy either. I'm not going to call the IRS because I think someone is evading taxes. I'm not going to report you for shoplifting (but I would try to talk you in to taking it back)

I'm not attacking you personally, I'm talking about how I feel about breaking rules like that in a general sense, and why I feel breaking laws is wrong.

I'm not going to get into some sort of line-drawing argument, I believe each case is individual, but I do believe there's a long way from stealing for personal gain versus people trying to live, and I feel sickened that the latter is being used to justify the former.

I really don't want to be hard on anyone, I'm mostly a little frustrated that I feel my point of view is being misrepresented to make me some kind of crazy villain or something.

 

[Farm Boy]

A young woman or man stealing one unit of formula probably needs a hand from society temporarily acquiring small amounts of formula. The people doing white collar like it's going out of Enron style probably need a hand inspecting the underside of a tree branch.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

What I want to know from bringing up those cases is how you, personally, decide when a law is too unjust or too silly to be followed. For example, you said you were offended that I even suggested you would turn in people to ICE, but how did you decide that US immigration law was so unjust it should not be followed?

This is a circling back to something that came up before the topic moved to this thread. In fact it is a circling back to the thing that really motivated me to start this thread. You are making a step from "follow rules" to "help enforce rules when others don't" and that step is, thankfully, unwarranted. @MaryKB can be the most law abiding person on the planet and still have no inclination to turn someone over to ICE, because there is absolutely no law saying that she has to. You are in fact suffering from, and promulgating, a false impression that the cops really appreciate that tells people the exact opposite of the truth. There are, in fact, no laws telling the average citizen that they bear any responsibility whatsoever towards the enforcement of laws in any way.

So she does not have to arrive at "US Immigration law is so unjust it should not be followed" in order to say that she wouldn't turn someone else in for not following it, because she can follow it and still not turn them in. She can follow every law governing intellectual property and not turn you in. She can follow the US tax code right to the very last letter and not turn me in.

Please stop doing the work of law enforcement agencies for them by promulgating this idea that average citizens are somehow obligated to enforce the law. I'm saying this specifically to Lexicus right now, but it is a message that I think everyone needs to hear, every day.

 

[Truthy]

Name something that isn't functional in that sense, then.

I dunno. Exorcisms, loafers, and other things of that nature

 

[Farm Boy]

Yeah, Tim, but I put most of the tax dodgers that don't look like they could use a hand with the formula in with the Enron crowd. They still need the latter hand.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yeah, Tim, but I put most of the tax dodgers that don't look like they could use a hand with the formula in with the Enron crowd. They still need the latter hand.

I agree. But here's the question...since we all can pretty much see the obvious tax dodgers who are really getting away with sums that genuinely hurt, how is it that the assigned enforcement agency is really more interested in catching people like me* who most people would look at and say "maybe that guy does need a hand" and will only go after people like the Enron gang if they are outright forced into it?

*For the record, I am not really a "tax dodger." Technically, under the law, I might be a tax avoider, in that I have not filed the required return forms so neither I nor the enforcement agency is in a position to say whether I ever owed any taxes or not. However, the enforcement agency really has no way to prove whether I went through the applicable "who must file" procedure and determined that I did not have to, or just blew them off and didn't file even though I knew that I did have to. Therefore they have no real access to proving intent, unless they can show that I so obviously met the requirements that "any reasonable person" would have known they needed to file. That would be extremely challenging. This is a much different kettle of fish than tax fraud, which involves the critical piece of evidence the inaccurate return that the criminal filed.

 

[Lexicus]

So she does not have to arrive at "US Immigration law is so unjust it should not be followed" in order to say that she wouldn't turn someone else in for not following it, because she can follow it and still not turn them in. She can follow every law governing intellectual property and not turn you in. She can follow the US tax code right to the very last letter and not turn me in.

There are absolutely circumstances under which someone could be required by the law to cooperate with ICE and in effect turn undocumented people in.

Lexicus, you're doing that thing again where you're taking Mary's point about general belief and translating it to an attack on your person. We have enough like that already, don't join them!

Well, I fit the description. I do consider it to be an attack on my person. I am sure Mary would not like to hear my "general belief" about the motives and psychology of people who follow the law because it's there, so that's why I didn't offer it and don't plan to.

I dunno. Exorcisms, loafers, and other things of that nature

Exorcisms seem to me to clearly fulfill a social function in the same sense that building the pyramids does...

I believe each case is individual,

This is exactly what I'm trying to argue. Laws need to be evaluated on their merits.

 

[Truthy]

Exorcisms seem to me to clearly fulfill a social function in the same sense that building the pyramids does...

Sarcasm? Exorcisms are like... agent detection + crap knowledge of mental illness gone haywire. Loafers are even worse.

What else is getting is going down as pointless because it didn't advance workers rights? The Sistine Chapel? The Apollo Program?

 

[MaryKB]

This is exactly what I'm trying to argue. Laws need to be evaluated on their merits.

As a society yes, but not every individual doing whatever you want.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There are absolutely circumstances under which someone could be required by the law to cooperate with ICE and in effect turn undocumented people in.

Bull.

I'm an employer. I am prohibited by law against hiring someone without documentation. My legal responsibility ends there.

I'm a property owner. I am prohibited by law against renting to someone without documentation. My legal responsibility ends there.

If I were a local law enforcement officer, in my state anyway, I am required by law to enforce all local, state and federal laws which I am not specifically released from enforcing or prohibited against enforcing...and immigration law is included in the latter so they not only have no legal responsibility to turn undocumented people in they are specifically prohibited from asking people if they are undocumented.

Federal law actually prohibits ICE from asking you to assist them.

 

[Lexicus]

What else is getting is going down as pointless because it didn't advance workers rights? The Sistine Chapel? The Apollo Program?

Um...what?? I'm not trying to argue that the Pyramids were "pointless." I'm saying that the "point" of the Pyramids was not to "build group solidarity" or whatever else modern academics project onto it, but quite literally to house the Pharaohs in the afterlife. My point is that there is a large degree of truth in the idea that cultures need to be understood on their own terms, and that trying to interpret them on terms comprehensible to modern Westerners is often a mistake.

Federal law actually prohibits ICE from asking you to assist them.

Can you cite that?

 

[Truthy]

Um...what?? I'm not trying to argue that the Pyramids were "pointless." I'm saying that the "point" of the Pyramids was not to "build group solidarity" or whatever else modern academics project onto it, but quite literally to house the Pharaohs in the afterlife. My point is that there is a large degree of truth in the idea that cultures need to be understood on their own terms, and that trying to interpret them on terms comprehensible to modern Westerners is often a mistake.

Yeah, I'm not saying the pyramids were a corporate team-building exercise that went off the rails. I'm saying kooky ideologies create coordination and that's what makes things like the pyramids possible

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Can you cite that?

Not off the top of my head today and I'm not up for the redoing the search, but it is the core argument every time the conservatives try to challenge what they insist on calling "sanctuary cities" so if you want to see it it won't be hard to find. Immigration enforcement is specified to be done by federal agencies only. Now, people "of conscience" are always being encouraged to "if you see something, say something," so generally speaking under the law there is nothing prohibiting someone from reporting a possible undocumented person to ICE; like if someone applies for a job and can't show me the documentation that I am required by law to see before I can hire them ICE would like me to feel obligated to report them even though I am actually not. However, state law here specifies that local and state law enforcement agents cannot do anything that would lead to a person revealing their immigration status to said agent...so any local or state LEO who "feels obligated" to report someone to ICE "even though it isn't their job but they are just being a good citizen" has in fact admitted to their own violation of state law, in that they are reporting something they were enjoined against finding out in the first place.

The issue of whether e-verify is an end run around the law that in effect passes the responsibility for enforcing of immigration law off to every participating employer so in fact the entire system is operating illegally remains to be resolved.

 

[Ferocitus]

Yeah, I'm not saying the pyramids were a corporate team-building exercise that went off the rails. I'm saying kooky ideologies create coordination and that's what makes things like the pyramids possible

Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces.
Marcel Proust, 1920.

 

[Truthy]

Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces.
Marcel Proust, 1920.

Relevant: Most of what you read on the internet is written by insane people (I think all of us are included)