Law, Force, and Community Standards

[jennythe_reader]

The law does not force people to behave in a particular way. The law codifies what a community already believes about how people should behave and lays out consequences for people who choose to go against this consensus

Comments

[lawchicky]

Some people may argue that there are devine laws, meaning laws that exist whether or not we recognize them (ie laws of physics or laws of nature). I know that's not wheat you're talking about here, but thought I should mention it

[jennythe_reader]

And that was the part of my thought process that got left out when I tried to put it into words. :/ It always happens. Something always gets forgotten or badly translated.

Insert, in between the part on civil disobedence and the part on the four camps, this:
In this country, that consensus is filtered through the lens of our complex governmental system, with its multiple administrative levels and division of duties between multiple branches of government at each level. This results in new societal consenses becoming new laws extremely slowly.

[finding_helena]

I would say groups 3 and 4 are definitely different. Group 3 might make the decision to do something that is more work in order to minimize risk, whereas Group 4 won't. When that comes to, for example, using illegal drugs, group 3 might split between "it's worth the consequences because I like they way they make me feel so much" and "it's not worth the consequences because they're not that great" and group 4 would split between "it's easy as crap to find them and they're fun, so why not" and "eh, I'd have to make effort to get them". So both groups might go either way sometimes, but for different reasons.

[finding_helena]

My example doesn't really relate to my point. Sorry. I think both halves of my disjointed comment are valid though.