> If legality is determined based on what's beneficial to the rich and powerful, then this is equivalent to saying "most importantly, does it benefit the rich and powerful?" which is, of course, the point of the person you're arguing with. So this is not the gotcha you think it is.
I don't think it's true that legality is determined based only on what's beneficial to the rich and powerful.
In any case, if you think asking if something is legal before deciding whether it's ok to do it is some kind of gotcha, then you're throwing out the whole concept of law and order - of society. I'm not sure where you go from there.
> This does not feel like a good faith argument. [...] You're saying that the status quo is intrinsically good and everything must be done within the legal system as it's set up. That gives no redress to the people for whom the legal system has been specifically designed to fuck over. Your argument completely falls apart if the legal system is not 100% foolproof, and I simply don't believe anyone could argue in good faith that it is foolproof.
Wow, you're making a lot of assumptions there. I don't think the legal system is 100% foolproof, not at all, nor do I think it's intrinsically good. No sane person would argue that.
But there are a lot of ways to deal with that fact, a whole spectrum ranging from "doing nothing" through "trying to change the legal system" through to "just agree to ignore the legal system". You're arguing that if the system isn't perfect, we should skip right to ignoring it.
I'm arguing that we improve the system. Keep working on it, keep arguing and persuading and sometimes getting our way and sometimes not.
When did we get so jaded and decide things can't improve? Western civilization has gotten vastly better for most people, things that are considered moral absolutes today were not even considered in polite company less than 50 years ago (not to mention some things less than ten).
> But I also recognize that if the legal system is not producing justice, people will find ways to bring about their own version of justice. This is a predictable consequence of a system that has been specifically designed to never hold anyone in power accountable for anything. The way to stop vigilante justice is to improve the legal system so that people do not feel that it is necessary.
I strongly disagree with the idea that the legal system never holds anyone in power accountable, there are myriad counterexamples to that. And not as many actual examples of "the system" letting people be unaccountable.
And there's a gigantic difference between understanding that sometimes people want vigilante justice, and excusing it or cheering it on. Of course it's understandable. There are even more clear cases - family members of murder victims would totally understandably want to kill the people who murdered their loved ones. I would very much empathize if someone were to do that; I'd still condemn it as wrong. Wouldn't you?
> I don't think it's true that legality is determined based only on what's beneficial to the rich and powerful ... I don't think the legal system is 100% foolproof
Nor do I, but it sounds like I (and likely some of the others responding to you) think it leans a lot further in that direction than you do. That's a worthwhile discussion, but my point was that "the most important question is whether it's legal or not" feels out of place -- almost bad faith -- in a discussion about whether the legal system is working or not.
> When did we get so jaded and decide things can't improve?
When we saw the United States backslide into 1960s-era Jim Crow discourse, and even 1930s-era Totalitarianism discourse, that we thought we were over and done with.
> Western civilization has gotten vastly better for most people
Over what timeframe? "Western civilization" has gotten worse for almost everyone since the 1980s by many measures. We're drowning in multiple forms of debt. Wages have stagnated. Expected lifespan has plateaued or even declined. Racism and sexism seem to be on the rise. Medical issues can bankrupt even privileged rich kids. More people are in prison or homeless than the 1980s. The rich have much more societal power over the poor than they have since the gilded age. How far back do you expect us to go to maintain this positive outlook? Telling us it was much worse 90 years ago feels hollow when it was better 10 years ago, better than that 20 years ago, even better 30 years ago, and better still 40 years ago. The only thing that's significantly better is technology and science, especially medicine -- but most of us aren't really reaping the benefits of those improvements in medicine for risk of going bankrupt.
> I strongly disagree with the idea that the legal system never holds anyone in power accountable, there are myriad counterexamples to that
Are there myriad counterexamples? There are some salient ones like Elizabeth Holmes, SBF, and Bernie Madoff -- who all fucked over other rich people in addition to the poor. But there are many more counter-counterexamples: our incoming president was convicted of 34 felonies with no consequence and has openly stated he's going to pardon all his buddies for any level of corruption they might be guilty of. The Panama Papers, the Epstein files -- people aren't seeing anyone held accountable for these things. Meanwhile compare the response of the NYPD to the CEO's murder versus the murder of a black teenager in a poor neighborhood. What's the difference, really? Both are a private citizen being murdered. Why the different response? What's really different about those two people?
> law and order - of society ... If our society functioned via "well I'm sure I'm right about what is moral, so I can execute people based on my morality", then pretty soon we'd have total anarchy
A lot of your arguments have this feeling of "maintaining order in society is more important than individual justice or morality". That's a rather authoritative/totalitarian stance, which I don't say just to dismiss it -- it's a valid political viewpoint, and there arguably can be "good" kinds of totalitarianism. I think there are hypothetical societies where I would agree with you, and societies where I would strongly disagree. In the United States in 2024, I medium-disagree. "Maintaining order" usually just means "maintaining the status quo", so you have to actually look at the status quo. The status quo is that people are getting charged $291 for a 10-minute virtual followup consultation, $6000 for an ambulance ride, going bankrupt if they need major surgery, and sometimes just dying without treatment if they need major intervention but get denied by their health insurance. The status quo is that the rich can legally murder others stochastically if it increases their profits, and can even commit actual felonies without very much risk of consequence. The status quo is that few of our representatives are willing to challenge these systems, and those that do get ostracized, and even then their efforts are struck down by an openly corrupt supreme court. The status quo is that overwhelming waves of disinformation and rage-bait have made it impossible to "out-vote the ignorant" to enact any meaningful change in the system. The status quo is absolutely fucked for the vast majority of people. So no, in the United States in 2024, I don't think "maintaining order" -- preserving the current winners and losers in society -- is more important than individual justice and morality.
I don't think it's true that legality is determined based only on what's beneficial to the rich and powerful.
In any case, if you think asking if something is legal before deciding whether it's ok to do it is some kind of gotcha, then you're throwing out the whole concept of law and order - of society. I'm not sure where you go from there.
> This does not feel like a good faith argument. [...] You're saying that the status quo is intrinsically good and everything must be done within the legal system as it's set up. That gives no redress to the people for whom the legal system has been specifically designed to fuck over. Your argument completely falls apart if the legal system is not 100% foolproof, and I simply don't believe anyone could argue in good faith that it is foolproof.
Wow, you're making a lot of assumptions there. I don't think the legal system is 100% foolproof, not at all, nor do I think it's intrinsically good. No sane person would argue that.
But there are a lot of ways to deal with that fact, a whole spectrum ranging from "doing nothing" through "trying to change the legal system" through to "just agree to ignore the legal system". You're arguing that if the system isn't perfect, we should skip right to ignoring it.
I'm arguing that we improve the system. Keep working on it, keep arguing and persuading and sometimes getting our way and sometimes not.
When did we get so jaded and decide things can't improve? Western civilization has gotten vastly better for most people, things that are considered moral absolutes today were not even considered in polite company less than 50 years ago (not to mention some things less than ten).
> But I also recognize that if the legal system is not producing justice, people will find ways to bring about their own version of justice. This is a predictable consequence of a system that has been specifically designed to never hold anyone in power accountable for anything. The way to stop vigilante justice is to improve the legal system so that people do not feel that it is necessary.
I strongly disagree with the idea that the legal system never holds anyone in power accountable, there are myriad counterexamples to that. And not as many actual examples of "the system" letting people be unaccountable.
And there's a gigantic difference between understanding that sometimes people want vigilante justice, and excusing it or cheering it on. Of course it's understandable. There are even more clear cases - family members of murder victims would totally understandably want to kill the people who murdered their loved ones. I would very much empathize if someone were to do that; I'd still condemn it as wrong. Wouldn't you?