How do people feel about something regarded as law?

Question

Here's what i mean, there have been answers I've seen to different questions with the response of "its the law!".

I'm curious if people really regard the law as being infallible (meaning it can't be wrong). I find it a weak argument to state that something is "the law" because if I'm not mistaken less than a 100 years ago it was the law that women can't vote in America. No one in their right mind would argue that it was right.

Shouldn't answers in this forum be based on reasoning and providing some sort of insight into that reasoning and not just stating "its the law"?

Opinions?

Answer 1

Yes you are right.  People who are not creative and are followers point out "it's the law."  Take a look at false domestic violence.  That's the law and look how many fathers and children suffer.  

Answer 2

Even if you don't like the law, you are supposed to obey it.

If you feel strongly about it, move to a different country or challenge the law politically, don't just sit around whining about "the law isn't fair".

Answer 3

I have challenged a few laws in court, small stuff, and won three out of four times.  Usually it was in regards to road laws specific to where I live.

The argument that the law is infallible is used too often, but lawmakers, enforcement agencies and some courts are making it harder to challenge laws without extreme risk of high costs.  Governments defend their laws, because it costs them if one person wins a case.  

Western societies are bound by crippling numbers of petty statutes and so much legalistic framework that it is a serious encumbrance. It is expensive to administer and enforce, and every new bit of legislation requires a monstrous bureaucracy to administer it.

Do what I now do: keep your head down.  The easiest way to make revenue for the government is for them to enact rafts of petty laws with fines attached and then to limit the right of the citizen to challenge the law without a high financial cost involved.

Answer 4

I rarely use that argument myself, except in a few situations.  If somebody asked why a judge makes a decision on something for instance, it could be a valid answer.  However, that's not the case for much on here.  It's rarely a good answer.  Pretty much everyone thinks some law somewhere is stupid.  If we all thought like this all the time, we'd still have slavery, no women voting, etc.

You have a very good point.

Answer 5

You make an excellent point.  However, often I do use some form of "it's the law" when pointing out an uneven enforcement of a law.  We can debate whether or not a law is good, but if a law is a law it should be enforced evenly.

Answer 6

Generally speaking, yes, not every law is justified on grounds of what people believe to be correct or what is morally of ethically seen as fair. I seldom use the argument as well.

Nevertheless, since you ask this question in GWS, then the point is that not all people must agree that a specific law is fair or necessary, since at least women (but other social sectors as well) might have a different perspective of fairness as used to be the case when women did not vote. Most men and women considered it was fair that women couldn't vote, but a minority pushed for an amendment on woman's political status. So laws can protect minority opinions that are fair as well as hinder minority opinions when they aren't.

So most laws have been construed through reasoning which leaves those opposing them the burden of argument.

Answer 7

It's perfectly acceptable to question the law or even try to change it. It's better than civil disobedience.

Answer 8

I do certain things for no reason other than that it's the law.  

I work with a relatively harmless attenuated strain of bacteria that, were it ever to revert and become virulent (unlikely)and accidentally infect someone (also unlikely), can be easily treated.  It's not especially contagious.  It can't survive outside of a host for very long.  Even without treatment, it's not generally fatal except in the highly immunocompromised.

However, I am legally obliged to treat it as though it is incredibly dangerous and do ridiculous amounts of paperwork to keep track of every single vial.  If, heaven forbid, I ever wanted to ship the stuff, I think there are even regulations about the weight of dry ice that should be included in the container, and the precise placement of stickers on the package.  Before it became legally required to do the extra paperwork and take the extra precautions, the lab did not have any of the kinds of problems that the law is supposedly designed to prevent.  Ordinary lab safety procedures worked just fine.

I don't believe all the extra precautions to be useful, but because I would like to stay on the right side of the law and out of trouble, I follow the rules.  If somebody else asked me whether they should use all the extra precautions and do all the paperwork, I would tell them they should do it because it's the law.

Answer 9

Much has changed in regard to the law in the last 100 years.  In my personal opinion, to use examples of the laws of yesteryear as reason to discredit the validity and necessity of the law is as grave a mistake as it is to accept it blindly at face value.

However, with the acceptance of case law and the disparaging common practice of using legislators, many of which have ZERO background in legal experience, to write law,  I would have to agree that it is a misstep to believe the law to be infallible.  

Let us not forget that even at it's highest esteem, the law is nothing without interpretation of the people.  Unless people become infallible, the law never will be.