If you want to change the law, you are potentially a 'criminal'. How much of this if any of it, holds true ?

Question

This is what a university lecturer said during a computer class, most people thought he was hilarious...I found him to be a fraudulent fat **** with no personality.

I can see what he meant though, if you wish to ammend the laws of the land ,in theory you are a criminal.

a) to change a law means to change it for YOUR betterment

b) or to make it such, that you can conduct activities which the current law in place would deem criminal (so when you commit them, they are legal/borderline legal

i have no answer to this, which is why I posted this on here to seek opinions/answers from all types of ppl from all walks of life.

so, if u want to change the law are you a criminal ?

Answer 1

You are not officially cirminal, but you certainly get treated like one.

Answer 2

If you go through the proper channels to amend or write a law you are not a criminal unless you break the law first.  Most times a law will be amended after someone has been convicted of it and it is shown to be an unfair or unconstitutional law.  Congress usually will not make it retro-active so if you were convicted before it was changed you will serve your term.  However Iif it is deemed unconstitutional, you shall be released from prison.

Your professor is assuming the persons proposing the amendment are the ones that broke the law.  This is often not the case.

http://www.aclu.org/legislative/index.ht...

Many times Congress (Or the party controlling at the time)  will pass a law they know is unconstitutional.   They know that it will be challenged and thrown out however by passing the law they make their elective base happy because they think they are getting what they want eventually even if it is unconstitutional!

http://www.leg.state.or.us/process.html

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/lawmaking/e...

Answer 3

No I do not think wanting to change a law makes a person a criminal. Some states still have laws on the books referencing hitching horses in front of stores and such, it may have been a relevant law when it was written but not for the last 60 plus years. Wanting to legalize Weed does not make you a criminal, selling it or growing it for distribution while it is still against the law does though and in most states using it.

So again, no, wanting to change a law does not automatically make you a criminal, it may just mean you have seen the light and realize that something has got to give.

Answer 4

In the one man show Thurgood, a biography of Thurgood Marshall starring Lawerence Fishburn, there was a little story which is illustrative.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Thurgood Marshall disagreed about civil disobedience. King thought it was an effective way to show the rediculousness of the law and work to change. Marshall thought of the law as a tool to affect change, which one should work within. Marshall said that everybody has two rights, the right to break the law and the right to go to jail for it. King would speak of Henry David Thoreau, author of Civil Disobedience. Marshall, then would remind King that Thoreau wrote Civil Disobedience from a prison cell.

Both King and Marshall sought to change the law in very similar ways and both were very successful in their efforts. King did it by breaking the law. He was, technically, a criminal, but the laws he violated were unjust and he broke them to prove that point to encourage change. He served his time in jail and used the opportunity to write his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, one of the most influential works of his career. Marshall argued Brown v. Board of Ed and other landmark civil rights cases, challenging the constitutionality of the law and bringing change within the system before ultimately become the solicitor general and then a justice of the Supreme Court, bringing about tremendous changes in the law.

Answer 5

The idea is not even interesting on a hypothetical level.This presumably is explained by the fact that the guy was lecturing I.T not jurisprudence.  

Answer 6

Bollocks.

I want to change the law so that people who ride those motability scooters have to take a test before they're allowed on the road/pavement.

How does that make me a potential criminal?

Answer 7

a:  Changing a law or advocating for change is not criminal in the United States so you would not be breaking any laws by doing so.  If that were true, all of our representatives and senators would be criminals as they have all advocated for changing laws.

b:  If you break a current law to bring attention to how absurd the law is then you are a criminal.  If the law is changed and meets it's effective date, then conducting the previously criminal activity would no longer be criminal as the law has changed.  It was once illegal for a black man to drink out of a white fountain.  That law was changed.  It is no longer illegal for a black man to drink out of any fountain.

Answer 8

I agree with you he must be a fraud. Though I would rather say ignorant.

Question: What is parliament there for?

Answer: To make new laws and change current laws.

He might have argued that they only make new laws that sum up to the old ones, but history would prove him wrong. New laws change or substitute old ones (Civil right act made Jim Crow laws illegal).

You might disagree with the purpose of the legal reform, but asking to change a law that prohibits same s*x marriage -or that allows it- would not turn you into a criminal in any sense, weather you are for or against.

Answer 9

Depends on the nature of the change.  If you want to increase the fines or sentence for an existing offence then that can hardly be seen as criminal.

It is a bit difficult to comment since the remark is quoted out of context and filtered through your admitted antipathy towards him.