 #2 (permalink) Fri Aug 13, 2010 12:57 pm issue17@ Our duty to disobey unjust laws |
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My first issue, being hungry for suggestions. Thank you.
"There are two ytpes 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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The speaker asserts that each person has a duty to obey just laws and disobey unjust ones. While I concede that skepticism should be encouraged when laws seem "unjust", but the speaker's assertion is too extreme.
On the one hand, it is hard to distinguish between the just laws and the unjust ones. Groups of people with different values might have diverse view for specific laws, such as, laws about the legal age of driving, smoking, and drinking(,) and when it comes to THE legal issue of euthanasia, people with some religious beliefs and people with other values would make different understanding about its fairness.
Besides, a Another fundamental function of laws is to solve disputes peacefully. Even in a society with A sound legal system, people will always disagree with the fairness of laws for various reasons. It is especially true when it comes to legal cases(.)
For example, a law is designed chiefly to solve the cases such as; one claimS that a certain property belongs to him, and another did so REFUTES THIS CLAIM. In this case, the law can hardly make both the prosecuting and defenCe sides satisfied. Hence, the fairness of the laws, with the foregoing two functions, depend on one's personal interests.
On the other hand, resisting unjust laws would result in the opposite affect of what was proposed. For instance, the tariff system is regarded as unfair by many countries. Accordingly, if governments maintain the tariff rates at too low levels, the populace would buy products from other countries with lower price of labor power, /with less money/MORE CHEAPLY/. For that BECAUSE OF THIS many domestic manufacturers would probably shut down. This situation only compels THE government to /mark up/INCREASE/ the import tariff in order to fend off the danger of deflation.
Secondly, resisting unjust laws would even lead to THE sanctionING OF all types of illegal behavior. Consider, for example, many Chinese and even Westerners argue that the Chinese law, the family planning LAW that regulates only one child BEING BORNE BY each COUPLE of couple can birth, is unjust in one respect or another. Yet the result of resistance is to endanger the prosperity and stability of society. In turn, the population explosion causeS serious societal problems like high unemployment rateS, egregious criminal conduct, famine of large areas. In short, the resistance of unjust laws will jeopardize legal rights and THE safety of innocent people.
In sum, drastic behavior such as resistance and disobedience is rarely justified merely by people’s personal interests and values. It is absurd to encourage the behavior of disobeying unjust laws.
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A good argument Paul. Good examples, and a well covered topic.
Kitos. 8/10
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Keep it simple ... Keep it interesting. |
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 Kitosdad
Language Coach
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
Posts: 13417
Location: ESSEN, Germany, (but English.)
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| #3 (permalink) Fri Aug 13, 2010 13:03 pm issue17@ Our duty to disobey unjust laws |
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Thank you, Kitos. You are always kind.
And, I come across a problem. First, I am afriad that my word count does reach ETS's requirement. Because, I find that many issue articles' words are more than 500 words.
And, I am not sure that I have communicated my ideas well. |
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Paul.CA
I'm new here and I like it ;-)
Joined: 23 Jul 2010
Posts: 13
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