I’ve been thinking about Hamlet’s Pit thread and Bricker’s argument about gay-marriage constitutional amendments. In both cases, people presented the view that although a position was not morally right, it should be supported, because to do otherwise would be detrimental to the functioning of the government/court systems. Also included was the unspoken assumption that further harm to either of these institutions would be worse than whichever specific ill was being advocated.
Is this a sound assumption? To me, government and the courts are both means to an end; that end being keeping people from screwing with each other too badly. But, if a case comes up in which doing the right thing by convential wisdom clashes with what either organization demands, what should be done?
Personally, I feel that the proof is in the pudding: if either system clashes with what should be their reasons for existence, people should go with what they feel to be right.
Now, it may well be possible that the damage incurred by a lack of a strong court system/governmental process would outweigh various individual times in which justice and the law clash. I do not believe that it is necessarily so. Who disagrees with me?