Mirror uses stock image of American child for front page UK foodbanks story

[grumbler]

Can you give me an example where the "spirit of the law" is immoral?  There are bad letters of the law, but I know of no case in which a legislature has said "let's make an evil law!  Might be fun!"

Well, slavery being legal comes to mind. Laws outlawing sodomy. The law that expelled the Jews from Spain. The executive order that had Japanese Americans rounded up in camps. There are lots.

What law made slavery legal?  And what was its spirit?  In the case of the US, allowing slavery was seen as a necessary compromise to gain Southern support for independence, and so the spirit of the law was to permit US independence.  Only Neil thinks that evil.

Laws outlawing sodomy were in the spirit of saving souls.  Hardly evil.

Expulsion of the Jews was in the spirit of saving souls.  hardly evil.

The executive order regarding the Japanese was intended to prevent sabotage.  Hardly evil.

There don't seem to be "lots."  In fact, there don't seem to be any.  But I can be convinced otherwise, with actual evidence.

[Valmy]

What law made slavery legal?

Well the 1664 Act of Maryland stated:

Be it enacted by the Right Honorable, the Lord Proprietory, by the advice and consent of the Upper and Lower House of this present General Assembly, that all negroes or other slaves already within the Province, and all negroes and other slaves to be hereafter imported into the Province shall serve durante vita. And all children born of any negro or other slave shall be slaves as their fathers were for the term of their lives

Before that black slaves could work off a labor contract, like an indentured servant, or convert to Christianity.  Now they were slaves forever.  Wahoo!  But this was done to preserve the slave economy of Maryland so...hardly evil?

Laws outlawing sodomy were in the spirit of saving souls.  Hardly evil.

Expulsion of the Jews was in the spirit of saving souls.  hardly evil.

The executive order regarding the Japanese was intended to prevent sabotage.  Hardly evil.

Basically anything you do that is horrible that you can find a lame rationalization for to justify is not evil.

[grumbler]

What law made slavery legal?

Well the 1664 Act of Maryland stated:

Slavery was legal before 1664.  The Romans had slaves.  The Greeks had slaves before them.  The institution of slavery goes back before the institution of laws, I'd bet.

Basically anything you do that is horrible that you can find a lame rationalization for to justify is not evil.

  That argument came out of the blue. I don't agree, but, whatever.

[Valmy]

Slavery was legal before 1664.  The Romans had slaves.  The Greeks had slaves before them.  The institution of slavery goes back before the institution of laws, I'd bet.

Slavery, in the form it existed in Colonial Maryland, was created by this law.  Before the idea slaves were bonded for life and that the children of slaves were slaves was not the way it worked.  But I guess more to the point: so what?  A law cannot be evil if it addresses something that already exists in some form or has happened before in the history of the world?

  That argument came out of the blue. I don't agree, but, whatever.

That is entirely your argument grumbler.  This is not evil, this lame rationalization will explain why.  That may not be what you mean but that is what you said.

[The Brain]

And Sweden expelling them before they even got there.

That's just solid planning.

[Valmy]

And Sweden expelling them before they even got there.

That's just solid planning.

[grumbler]

Slavery, in the form it existed in Colonial Maryland, was created by this law.  Before the idea slaves were bonded for life and that the children of slaves were slaves was not the way it worked.

I don't know where you are getting this impression, but it isn't true.  Roman slaves were slaves for life, and the children of slaves were themselves slaves.

But I guess more to the point: so what?  A law cannot be evil if it addresses something that already exists in some form or has happened before in the history of the world?

That you would ask this question tells me that you don't have any idea what the debateI am in with LaCroix, MiM, and Jacob is about, so I'll stop right here.  We aren't talking about "evil laws."

That is entirely your argument grumbler. 

Okay, thanks for telling me what my argument is.  Always nice when someone tells me what I think.

[Razgovory]

Now I'm trying to think up a law enacted to be evil.  I can think of laws that were thought of as a "lesser evil".  Perhaps some of the more mad or decadent kings.

[Sheilbh]

I think lots of the coercion laws passed about Ireland in Gladstone's government that, for example, suspended habeas corpus would be an example of that. They were passed despite Gladstone's philosophical opposition, despite the fact that he didn't think they would work but because the government thought they were politically necessary to get through a positive agenda Irish land reform, disestablishment of the Church of Ireland and establishment of a Catholic university.

They were bad laws that the government didn't believe in and didn't believe would have a positive effect, but that the government passed as a political trade-off for good laws that they did believe in and did believe would have a positive effect. I don't know if bad faith law-making goes against the spirit of the law, but they're certainly an example of it. And of course more than once Gladstone's positive agenda was defeated, while the coercion laws always tended to get enough votes.

[grumbler]

I think lots of the coercion laws passed about Ireland in Gladstone's government that, for example, suspended habeas corpus would be an example of that. They were passed despite Gladstone's philosophical opposition, despite the fact that he didn't think they would work but because the government thought they were politically necessary to get through a positive agenda Irish land reform, disestablishment of the Church of Ireland and establishment of a Catholic university.

They were bad laws that the government didn't believe in and didn't believe would have a positive effect, but that the government passed as a political trade-off for good laws that they did believe in and did believe would have a positive effect. I don't know if bad faith law-making goes against the spirit of the law, but they're certainly an example of it. And of course more than once Gladstone's positive agenda was defeated, while the coercion laws always tended to get enough votes.

Okay.  I'm convinced.  On reflection, I'd add those laws whose spirit was motivated by willful ignorance.  For example, the Butler Act of 1925 in Tennessee, which banned the teaching of any story of man's origin save that of the biblical account (see:  "Scopes Monkey Trial").  True ignorance allows for moral motivations for bad laws, but willful ignorance does not.