That’s your problem, you put value on verbosity over substance. That’s why you think Max is smart, he uses a lot of words to express his hate.
I have to admit this is all informative to me. Was not aware of his legal contributions. I have pretty muched ignored his posts after reading the first few. I just assumed he was some arrogant square conservative teenager. Sort of a Ralph124c mkII.
This toxic bloviating about homosexual rights and then crybaby persecution crap about being called on it sent me to check out this thread.
No offense to Stranger, whose posts I always read, but generally the posters that feel the need to drop their name at the bottom of every communication come off a bit too self important.
Hear, hear
Regards,
Great_Antibob
Heh. I know what “regards” means. 
Speaking of “not lamented at all” self-important, former posters.
IIRC, Max first drew my ire when he said that he would have turned in runaway slaves during the historical era when it was law. A conscience was apparently not as important in his value structure as was the need to follow the law.
That probably really was a prevalent attitude in the time but pretty yucky to say it without misgivings now.
Regards,
Red Wiggler
He gave in on that though when I showed him proof some states ignored the law too.
But it was still really shitty that that’s what it took.
It’s just one in a very long list of times he’s expressed the view that whatever is legal, no matter how repugnant, is moral.
As I understand it his mother is Chinese. He’d still be okay with a Chinese Exclusion Act. His mother being considered an undesirable is a small matter, as long as the law was passed through whatever constitutional provisions were in place at the time, and there was colorable rationale for passing it.
This is the kind of reasoning that impresses some people! So selfless. He’d see his own family sold into slavery so long as the laws permitting it were properly passed.
That really strikes my memory as more of a Smapti thing. Could you go find the relevant quote, please, so we can clear this up?
As it happens, I made the determination many years ago that if Max_S were to post something I needed to read, it would probably be by accident, and would likely be posted by someone else as well. So I PLONKed him. Unfortunately, a lot of Dopers still respond to him, so if I want to understand their posts, I have to unhide his.
Here you go, from upthread. Material before and after as well, but should be a representative sample.
ETA - simulpost with @Joey_P - but there’s a TON of similar material in this thread.
Okay, thanks. I may have been conflating a submission to the Fugitive Slave Act with an inclination to turn Jews over to the Gestapo.
Now, now. He’s not inclined to do it, it’s a moral imperative. He doesn’t have a choice. So he’s in the clear ethically.
Yeah, how will we maintain the social compact if we decide it’s wrong to declare whole groups of people to be sub- or non-human and can no longer hunt them down like animals? Don’t we live in a society?
Like I said.
Then he must not be very good at math, either.
As both an attorney and a math major, I believe I am uniquely qualified to arrive at that conclusion.
I had the same thought, but it’s possible they both said this.
What’s the objective difference? The law said fugitive slaves had to be returned to their masters. The law also said Jews had to live in their designated ghettos. One found hiding in your barn is breaking the law either way. To one equating the law with morality, both are equally illegal and immoral, as fucked up of a viewpoint as that is.
He said the difference was that as a Jew, the Nazi state made him a non citizen and therefore he owed nothing to it and could fight against it.
Likewise, of course a black person would be allowed to resist slavery because the slave state removes his rights so he owes it nothing. But presumably if Nazi Germany was willing to make that black person a citizen he’d be required to turn over any Jews.
So I guess the answer is that there IS NO objective difference, the difference is explicitly subjective.
That’s a valid criticism, though obviously I don’t think I use the law as a substitute for an ethical framework. Rather, I think of myself as refusing to use my ethical framework as a substitute for law. I consciously try very hard to do so - to work from premises to conclusions and not the reverse. Hence why I argued that the air force is unconstitutional - it’s because I think the underlying laws are flawed, not because I want the U.S. to lose military conflicts.
But that’s my own take on what’s going on in my head.
I’m not saying this is your or any other person’s position (sorry if I don’t recall debating with you) - but over the years, I’ve talked with many people who say immoral or unethical law is no law at all. Usually wrt temporal law that conflicts with the Bible, but also on the other end of the spectrum, i.e. conflicts with basic human dignity. If you read my opinions with that perspective, then yeah, I’m going to seem a genuinely horrible person.
~Max
Max, you seem to lack empathy and understanding for other human beings. Does that bother you?