Why do people believe so firmly in 'the law'

[dancupid]

I've been on the forum for some time, and it never ceases to amaze me how many people quote the law as if it were physics.
'You cannot do this' as if it were an impossibility, rather than a vague piece of legislation that has never been tested legally ,or no precedent set.

It seems half the people on here think of law as a wall made of molten rock that you can never break through, and it would be better to keep your distance for fear of being burnt.
The other half see the law as a vague line in the sand that you cross and then keep going until a friendly policeman asks you how much you've been drinking, at which point you just pay the fine.

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[Hawker]

I've been on the forum for some time, and it never ceases to amaze me how many people quote the law as if it were physics.
'You cannot do this' as if it were an impossibility, rather than a vague piece of legislation that has never been tested legally ,or no precedent set.

It seems half the people on here think of law as a wall made of molten rock that you can never break through, and it would be better to keep your distance for fear of being burnt.
The other half see the law as a vague line in the sand that you cross and then keep going until a friendly policeman asks you how much you've been drinking, at which point you just pay the fine.

As a species we are prone to disputes that can only be settled with violence.

Laws are a codification of violent enforcement.  The alternative is spontaneous violence.  Since most people know that is a bad thing, there is a strong preference for obeying laws.

[Mike Christ]

It's because they have no principles; when they cannot govern themselves, the only thing left to latch onto, to give them any semblance of a civil society, are the principles other men have cast upon them.  My theory is, when a person is provided with these things, they have a tendency to not develop their own principles, just as a person who is given everything he needs in life has such trouble taking care of himself when his providers leave him.  It's these same people who believe anarchy is chaos--because nobody is providing their principles for them, they immediately acknowledge, though they may not understand, that there would be no order; they acknowledge there's no order within themselves, the very people who would kill at the drop of a dime if their principle-providers asked them to.  The law, then, becomes an irreplaceable gem; without it, how could society survive?  As a convenient example:

As a species we are prone to disputes that can only be settled with violence.

No principles here.

I believe most people aren't like this; I believe the principles are there, and they're very basic; anyone with a reasonable amount of empathy can guess what they are, even if they don't fully realize them, and I do believe they make up the vast majority of people.  So where do these principles go?  My guess: when you violate these principles at a very early age, i.e. circumcision, spanking, abandonment (daycares, babysitters, et al), they tend to drop out of a person.  This person then grows older, goes from "troubled child" to "troubled teen" and then gets unleashed onto society after 14 years of being kept in a box.  The only thing the person has to go from at that point is this: follow the law out of fear (since they have no principles to fall back onto), or overcome this fear and become a law-breaker.  The ones who follow the law out of fear continue to operate without principle however, and support such exploits as taxation, war, and the use of systematic violence against peaceful people.  For this reason, the law appears as a real life force, just as a ghost would, or perhaps God.

[Wilikon]

Laws are coded into our DNA because we are social creatures, the same way whales are social creatures, the same way wolves are social creatures.

Even if we would be 1000% anarchists, we would still need to live next to each other one day. We first would call those codes "rules", but then eventually those rules would be codified into laws.

The only way for you to live with others without any laws is if, maybe, all of the others are perfect clones of yourself. But then, after a while I would guess something similar to a very bad case of cabin fever will take over you and all the other clones.

[Reece523]

Have such individuals ever sought out the real truth and not what gets spoon-fed to them on TV? Sheep, that is what they are. They do what they're told because they don't know otherwise. Weak.

[hilariousandco]

Why do people believe so firmly in God or angels? Some people just go to bits without something guiding them. With law it's just a common set of rules for society to function. Obviously some laws are stupid and shouldn’t be in place, but all we can do as a people is protest and try to change them for the common good so justice can prevail.

[Hawker]

...snip...

As a species we are prone to disputes that can only be settled with violence.

No principles here.

I believe most people aren't like this; I believe the principles are there, and they're very basic;
...snip...

Saying you believe something is entirely different from it being true.  We know for a fact that all human societies are violent.  Even the most peaceful orders of nuns have procedures for dealing with violence. 

If your case, you've posted that you are happy to allow female genital mutilation as long as its not done to members of your family.  I assume you have the same views on things like animal cruelty.  You may believe that left to themselves people won't cut off a girl's clitoris or won't torture their dogs.  But its a matter of fact that people do these things.

[dank]

I've been on the forum for some time, and it never ceases to amaze me how many people quote the law as if it were physics.
'You cannot do this' as if it were an impossibility, rather than a vague piece of legislation that has never been tested legally ,or no precedent set.

It seems half the people on here think of law as a wall made of molten rock that you can never break through, and it would be better to keep your distance for fear of being burnt.
The other half see the law as a vague line in the sand that you cross and then keep going until a friendly policeman asks you how much you've been drinking, at which point you just pay the fine.

As a species we are prone to disputes that can only be settled with violence.

Laws are a codification of violent enforcement.  The alternative is spontaneous violence.  Since most people know that is a bad thing, there is a strong preference for obeying laws.

And what does violence settle exactly?

[evanmcc]

my two cents:

1: people have been "told it all their life". i'm going to use the word indoctrinated in this somewhere, so it might as well be here.
aside from pure indoctrination, there's the simple lack of a second opinion: people don't know that it's possible to NOT follow the law. i barely even see police officers, and i've been exposed to things like anarchism, so the law is a more abstract concept to me, but there are some people who think it's just how the world works: "you do thing A, police show up and take you to court B and jail cell C" and they're thinking "yep, always been that way, always will be that way". they make it an inherent quality of the world and proceed to

quote the law as if it were physics.

2: people have nothing else to cling to. if someone doesn't feel there's any rhyme or reason to the world, they can cop out and say "the government will tell me how to act! then everything will have meaning again!"

3: fear of the most terrifying bugaboo of the day: the dreaded [communist | anarchist | socialist | nazi | terrorist | criminal | insane person | anyone who is waving a gun in my general direction but doesn't have a little flag stitched to their military garb, because that makes it alright to have a gun to point at me]
the problem i have with these people is that if everyone is so terrifying, especially if people are "naturally [greedy | violent | ignorant | made it their life goal to kill me, specifically]", how could you possibly trust a person you haven't met from across a 3,000-4,000 Km country? having common heritage obviously doesn't work forever, since we're all the same species, so what could it be? is it that we all watch the same TV, because if so why aren't we moving TVs out ASAP? is it that the [desert | tundra | <whatever china is considered>] makes them naturally hate you, in which case why don't we just nuke them and get it over with? the only thing that isn't a quick answer like that is that everyone in the military is afraid of everyone else in the military, in which case they should just talk it out and create a dictatorship or something, or a mercenary who joined up with the largest and best paying group!
the most baffling thing is that apparently the army makes you swear an oath to the constitution, so either everyone in the military are blatantly lying about loyalty, or people can actually believe in ideologies, and if people can have opinions, the only enemy is irrationality because everyone else can either be proven wrong or shown that we don't know how do decide.

[bryant.coleman]

As a species we are prone to disputes that can only be settled with violence.

Laws are a codification of violent enforcement.  The alternative is spontaneous violence.  Since most people know that is a bad thing, there is a strong preference for obeying laws.

That is an excellent explanation. Normal people like me don't want to live in lawless societies. As far as I am concerned, I'll break the law only when it is absolutely necessary.

[Carlton Banks]

People forget about the difference between making rules to enforce morality, and making rules to discourage (subjectively) nuisance behaviour. Sometimes nuisances are even cast as immoral (drug use being the all time classic).

Truthfully, enforcing morality isn't necessary in a predominantly well informed and emotionally well adjusted society. History has many an example of this. But misbalances toward more short termist or psychopathic behaviour completely poison the balance of such societies, either from the inside out (depraved culture beds in over the long term) or from the outside in (war and/or genocide).

[Mike Christ]

That is an excellent explanation. Normal people like me don't want to live in lawless societies. As far as I am concerned, I'll break the law only when it is absolutely necessary.

It truly bothers me how many people believe a lawless society is even possible, let alone bad; a lawless society means everyone is actually in agreement.  You create rules only when someone will break them; if people actually got along, they would have no need for them.  This is impossible.

To judge how well any given society is doing, all you need to do is see how many laws they have; the more, the worse off they are.

[Hawker]

That is an excellent explanation. Normal people like me don't want to live in lawless societies. As far as I am concerned, I'll break the law only when it is absolutely necessary.

It truly bothers me how many people believe a lawless society is even possible, let alone bad; a lawless society means everyone is actually in agreement.  You create rules only when someone will break them; if people actually got along, they would have no need for them.  This is impossible.

To judge how well any given society is doing, all you need to do is see how many laws they have; the more, the worse off they are.

The real world is the exact opposite of your theory.  When we look at our societies, the rich free societies have laws by the ton.  

[Carlton Banks]

That is an excellent explanation. Normal people like me don't want to live in lawless societies. As far as I am concerned, I'll break the law only when it is absolutely necessary.

It truly bothers me how many people believe a lawless society is even possible, let alone bad; a lawless society means everyone is actually in agreement.  You create rules only when someone will break them; if people actually got along, they would have no need for them.  This is impossible.

To judge how well any given society is doing, all you need to do is see how many laws they have; the more, the worse off they are.

The real world is the exact opposite of your theory.  When we look at our societies, the rich free societies have laws by the ton.  

It's just stratifications of slavery Hawker, there is literally nowhere on the planet where you are free to live a subsistence lifestyle. Eventually, someone with a weapon and a funny little hat that color matches his outfit turns up, and tells you to pay for some imagined obligation. No money? Only living by taking what you put back to your locale? Welcome to the world of mindless graft.

[bryant.coleman]

Those who wish to control you will most certainly use this against you. Have fun!

May be. But still it is far better than having someone breaking in to your home at will and butchering the residents.

[bryant.coleman]

As if laws protects you from that.

At least the normal people will refrain from doing that, for the fear of law. And if someone breaks the law, in most cases the perpetrator will be punished.

But if there is no law, who will punish the criminals?

[bryant.coleman]

Normal people refrain from doing that regardless.

Law isn't required to punish those who infringe upon the rights of others.

If I am the victim of a crime, then I don't need the law to take care of the accused. But in case of crimes against vulnerable people such as orphans and widows, we need the law to punish the perpetrators.

[Mike Christ]

At least the normal people will refrain from doing that, for the fear of law.

It speaks the world to me that you equate "normal" with "fear".

Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe names to these shadows. According to Plato's Socrates, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.

[Hawker]

As if laws protects you from that.

At least the normal people will refrain from doing that, for the fear of law. And if someone breaks the law, in most cases the perpetrator will be punished.

But if there is no law, who will punish the criminals?

Normal people refrain from doing that regardless.

Law isn't required to punish those who infringe upon the rights of others.

Not true. 

http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/daniel.nettle/ernestjonesnettlebateson.pdf

Perfectly normal people steal if they think they can get away with it.  Its why looting and kidnapping flourishes when the system of law breaks down due to natural disaster or war.

[hilariousandco]

As if laws protects you from that.

At least the normal people will refrain from doing that, for the fear of law. And if someone breaks the law, in most cases the perpetrator will be punished.

But if there is no law, who will punish the criminals?

Normal people refrain from doing that regardless.

Law isn't required to punish those who infringe upon the rights of others.

Not true. 

http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/daniel.nettle/ernestjonesnettlebateson.pdf

Perfectly normal people steal if they think they can get away with it.  Its why looting and kidnapping flourishes when the system of law breaks down due to natural disaster or war.

This is true. How many people steal things from hotels or their workplace etc. I also always find the concept of looting interesting. I think otherwise law-abiding citizens can get caught up in the chaos/excitement and heat of the moment and steal something during riots or civil unrest etc .