Does being legal hold any moral value?

Let us consider this:

* The law should be the codified moral of a society.
* All laws have to be as general as possible and worded thus.
* No lawbook can cover all cases.

At some point a guy comes up and breaks the spirit of the law, but can show that if you understand that wording thus and this one so, and consider this and that he should go free.

Then the guy claims to have "won" against the system.
Is that person orally okay, since they did not break the law in a fashion that judge and jury found them guilty?

@ponderable said
Let us consider this:

* The law should be the codified moral of a society.
* All laws have to be as general as possible and worded thus.
* No lawbook can cover all cases.

At some point a guy comes up and breaks the spirit of the law, but can show that if you understand that wording thus and this one so, and consider this and that he should go free.

Then the guy ...[text shortened]... on orally okay, since they did not break the law in a fashion that judge and jury found them guilty?

Good stuff ponderable . The guy could sit down with his friends and say he won against the system, sure, which would be frankly, correct. We are a system of laws, he won legally and fairly under the law. Beyond that, there is no recourse other than to actually change a law so that it would not be so simple in its application for someone to prevail in such matters.
So, forgetting him and his win, legislatures would convene and fix this situation so it could be made more moral. Average Joe has no idea how they could do that. The basic premise for me would be one might consider it immoral if another person is (innocently) harmed by it. So, if two businessman are traveling under the law, like bankruptcy provisions, and one man is hurt by the result, feeling morally screwed, he should have been aware of the laws governing his business, and certainly have been aware of the people he was dealing with . That is, everyone is subject to those laws, and they need to do what we call due diligence, as they get deeper into a situation.
It Is probably impossible to balance morality with law. Life ain’t perfect. But it’s all we got. It is true that all of the workers that work for the loser’s company that is screwed, like the contractors, would be hurt by the loss of a job. Again life ain’t perfect and they would have to MoveOn maybe in a job where they are more comfortable with with less likelihood of this happening to them. They have to think, and not rely on the government to take care of them. By that I mean when they take the job they need to be sure they are paid somewhat regularly so maybe they would only lose a weeks wages. Common sense.

@AverageJoe1
It would not be exactly correct to just out of hand say that bankruptcy as a bad thing. It has tremendous purpose and keeping companies where they can restructure and keep things moving and provide goods and services

@averagejoe1 said
Good stuff ponderable . The guy could sit down with his friends and say he won against the system, sure, which would be frankly, correct. We are a system of laws, he won legally and fairly under the law. Beyond that, there is no recourse other than to actually change a law so that it would not be so simple in its application for someone to prevail in such matters.
...[text shortened]... be sure they are paid somewhat regularly so maybe they would only lose a weeks wages. Common sense.

I thought yours was the party of the Constitution, isn't that what you claim?

The Constitution states that it is an attempt to make a "more perfect" Union which indeed tries to balance morality and law. Do you conveniently forget that the government is intended to be a "government of the people, by the people, for the people", according to Abraham Lincoln?

@suzianne said
I thought yours was the party of the Constitution, isn't that what you claim?

The Constitution states that it is an attempt to make a "more perfect" Union which indeed tries to balance morality and law. Do you conveniently forget that the government is intended to be a "government of the people, by the people, for the people", according to Abraham Lincoln?

I simply just said it is a difficult balancing act. Was I wrong? What part of that do you take issue with?
I agree with the Lincoln statement, thus the purpose of the the Constitution, which begins EXACTLY with those words. So, in closing, I agree with your second sentence above, and I believe that the government is intended to be a government of the people by the people for the people. So I don’t know where you’re going with all that.
As you are saying the Republicans are the party of the constitution, are you saying conversely the Democrats are not? Would it not be so difficult to base all conversations on the fact that everyone believes in the Constitution? You must admit the Democrats are having trouble with it , because they are having to go around the impeachment process as clearly set out in the constitution. Come on Suzisnne, you know that sucks. Yeah, now that Ive thought about it, we are definitely the constitution people. It was nice to read a coherent statement from you thank you

@averagejoe1 said
I simply just said it is a difficult balancing act. Was I wrong? What part of that do you take issue with?
I agree with the Lincoln statement, thus the purpose of the the Constitution, which begins EXACTLY with those words. So, in closing, I agree with your second sentence above, and I believe that the government is intended to be a government of the people by the ...[text shortened]... are definitely the constitution people. It was nice to read a coherent statement from you thank you

How are the Dems "having to go around the impeachment process as clearly set out in the constitution"?

Everything is above board, with evidence (that you said was lacking in the first impeachment hearing). How are they trying an end run around the Constitution?

No, I said you claim to be the Constitution people, but at every turn, you try to deny the Constitution. That is my point.

@suzianne said
How are the Dems "having to go around the impeachment process as clearly set out in the constitution"?

Everything is above board, with evidence (that you said was lacking in the first impeachment hearing). How are they trying an end run around the Constitution?

No, I said you claim to be the Constitution people, but at every turn, you try to deny the Constitution. That is my point.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/12/once-trump-leaves-office-senate-cant-hold-an-impeachment-trial/
I am not being sideways with you, Suzianne, the facts are enough interest in themselves. Please breeze over the attached, it is not long. I would br curious if anyone on this forum can disagree with the postion put forward here. We will discount comments of people who just absolutely hate Trump, and please stick to the wording of the Constitution.

This guy is much better writer and explainer than I am. Seriously, now, it is a just a discussion of a major issue going on right now, 11:30 ET on MSNBC. The dems are simply ignoring the Constitution.

@ponderable said
Let us consider this:

* The law should be the codified moral of a society.
* All laws have to be as general as possible and worded thus.
* No lawbook can cover all cases.

At some point a guy comes up and breaks the spirit of the law, but can show that if you understand that wording thus and this one so, and consider this and that he should go free.

Then the guy ...[text shortened]... on orally okay, since they did not break the law in a fashion that judge and jury found them guilty?

laws often don't keep up with morality. They are more about setting a sense of order and punishing those that break that order (whatever it is at a given point in time).

Morality should be enforced to a certain degree by judges who may decide that even though someone is in breach of some law, they should be shown leniency because there are attenuating circumstances or be punished to the full extent because there are aggravating circumstances.

On the other hand I don't agree that if someone is found not guilty to have broken any laws that he should be punished, because he broke the spirit of the law. That would be taking it too far. It means the law is badly written. It should fall upon us, the citizens to lobby for the law to be changed.
I can't believe that incorporating your company in the cayman islands to avoid paying taxes is legal. I however don't want a judge to randomly decide someone broke the spirit of the law to "not steal from your country" and put Bezos or Zucky in jail. I want everyone to start screaming at their elected officials to change the laws to make it illegal.


"All laws have to be as general as possible and worded thus."
I don't know about that.
Consider a law: "Don't kill". General idea, you can't be more so. But wait. What if someone kills a person in self defense. We need to modify the law. What if someone backs out of his driveway and kills someone by mistake. Is that the same kind of murder as stabbing someone repeatedly during a mugging? What if someone kills themselves? If someone survives a suicide attempt, will that someone be guilty of attempted murder?

"Don't steal" should be general enough but multibillion corps can steal legally (by not paying taxes).

We can't have general laws. We have constitutions for that. We need to codify all the circumstances that appear in an increasingly more complex society.

In my view laws and morality are somewhat separate. The former should derive from the latter but it is not often the case and it (laws) doesn't automatically keep up with current morals of a society. We must be objective in deciding whether someone is guilty of breaching laws and we should be as humane as possible in deciding the punishment (according to morality) but that's it.

Is this what you meant for the debate to be?

@zahlanzi said
laws often don't keep up with morality. They are more about setting a sense of order and punishing those that break that order (whatever it is at a given point in time).

Morality should be enforced to a certain degree by judges who may decide that even though someone is in breach of some law, they should be shown leniency because there are attenuating circumstances or be ...[text shortened]... e punishment (according to morality) but that's it.

Is this what you meant for the debate to be?

Thank you very much yes.

I see that I made a mistake there:

Laws need to be worded precisely enough to be clear and general enough to be applicable also in cases not forseen by the lawgiver.

So if I just take your example of "Don't kill". This is very general and you correctly pointed out that we need to take into account the circumstance. So if I kill by intention should be considered differently from killing by accident. Killing by accident is further different if there was intention to harm or not. And even intentional killing could be excusable if it was the only way to avoid being harmed very much (how much?)...