As the topic title says, do you consider that there can be any reason that can be justifiably argued for the Setting aside of a law in the land, for whatever reason?

I have a particular instance in mind ( UK Law ) but until I have a link I would suggest it can be open to anything that springs to mind, Terrorism, Adultery, National Security, Murder, what's your views?

Good luck

Moss

Interesting you should say this. A couple of days ago, in one of the papers, a woman was crowned "hero" of the week, for turning her own son in for some crime. I forget what the crime was, but I recall being surprised that a mother would turn her own son in to the law.

I unequivocally think that there can be situations whereby (and depending upon) certain factors can lead to sensible people making their own minds up. By "Sensible Person", I mind somebody with a sense of a largely agreed upon set of morals, or principles, if you will, on how to live and behave among a community.

The law, after all, was traditionally introduced to curb those unsensible people. Over the years, and perhaps in no small part due to the lack of community self-enforcement of moral norms, the law has become more and more, "THE LAW". Thou shalt obey thy Government.

Problem is, it's getting more and more out of hand. there's controls upon controls upon controls, and it's frankly becoming ever more stifling to live as a supposedly free man. Where is self control? Not just the individual, but I mean the community. We shake in our boots every time we hear of another stabbing or shooting, and are quick to point our fingers (at the TV) as we watch the 10 o'clock news, but what are we, the people, doing about it.

We practically beg the gov't to take all of our little worries away, (all the while bitching at ever increasing taxes)

Now, I have no desire to get into the age old argument of, "Would you rather live under Stalinistic Russia?. and whatnot. Of course I wouldn't. Nor would I wish to live as a chinese person in China. Having said that, I felt a much freer and more welcome person in the (mostly poorer) countries where I've lived as an expat, with a far higher quality of life and satisfaction.

I live in the UK now, and am relatively happy to do so. If the Gov't were to succeed in stamping out crime and all the other things we think we (as a people) wish them to take care of, then we would in fact be living in a fascimile of Stalin's Soviet Union. Frankly, I don't see how else HM Gov't would succeed.

All I'm saying is I find the ever increasing (and often futile) attempts at micro-managing the country are irritating, somewhat worrisome, and sometimes laughable, and so I guess my point is: How can I, as a reasonably sensible person, be expected to take the LAW seriously.

An example from current affairs (to scale, in a manner of speaking) has just sprung to mind. I hadn't seen it until just now, only read about it. But watching it just now, and I have to say, I agree with Noel. He says, among many other things, that he like to think he's a law abiding citizen, but he fears that just by going out of his home he's probably breking the law in coutnless ways he's not even aware of.

vdo follows:

The "Concentration Camp " guard defence, can never be right. I was just following orders, thus "I just murdered three truck loads of women and children, because he told me too, ".................does not really wash.

So I suppose in extreme cases where the law was clearly against any decent yard-stick of hummanity, I would oppose it. However, the law would have to be so blatantly wrong and impossible to change by democratic means, before I would go down that path. Total disregard for laws because " you do not like them " is anarchy and with anarchy, comes the strong taking from the weak and inevitable dictatorship.

That's the Nuremberg defence suiging.

If the law of the land is change by a majority vote of elected representatives, or by an individual with the executive power to do so than that is the new law.

Moral objections count for nothing if the law is changed legitimately.

The only recourse that people have in a democracy when they consider their government has acted illegally or immorally is to vote them out at the next election.

Indeed it is.................Try remembering that with the hangover I'm nursing.

The only recourse that people have in a democracy when they consider their government has acted illegally or immorally is to vote them out at the next election.

Or take to the streets. They are your streets after all. And the elected officials are your employees.

If you hired someone to work for you, gave them a 3-4 year contract, and then found out months later that person was stealing from you, lying to you, spying on you and doing numerous other distasteful things, would you simply sit by and wait 2-3 (or more) years until their contract ran out, then not renew it ?

Not likely. You'd fire the person on the spot, contract or not, and maybe even call the cops. Why do people think that elected officials should be any different ? They aren't "high and mighty", lofty members of royalty just because they won a popularity contest. They are servants of the people.

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people. (I forget who said that, maybe it was in the movie "V")

Like the Americans say. A government of the people, by the people, for the people. (or something like that).

The point is, elected governments are employees of the people and nothing more. When the employees lose the trust and respect of their employers, they should be replaced. It may not always be possible, or prudent, to wait until the end of their term, but if they aren't willing to leave beforehand of their own accord, what do you do ?

The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials stated categorically that obeying orders was not a defence, and could never be, of crimes committed in time of war.

It still gets trotted out with varying degrees of success though.

Yeah, but what do you do when you are in combat and ordered to rape or kill someone? You are just one person, and how do you stand up to a whole platoon of stone killers who want to do something that you don't?

This is what happened to one fellow in Vietnam that the book and movie "Casualties of War" was about. He refused to go along with them and turned them in, but they tried to kill him afterwards.

Interesting question for which there is no black or white answer.

In the term "setting aside" do you mean ignoring a transgression you may have knowledge of?

For me if it were a minor issue committed by a strange I'd be likely to either ignore it (not my problem) or give the victim a lead to the perpetrator.

If it were a friend I'd voice my disappointment in the actions of the individual and reduce that friendship to an aquaintance depending on his or her ensuing actions and behaviour.

If it were family I'd be a bit stronger and insist on some form of reparations being made whilst keeping the law out of it. Maybe contact the victim anonymously and arrange a deal.

If it were a more serious offence like assault, murder or rape I'd like to think I'd report all the known facts to the police regardless of whether the perpetrator was a stranger, friend or family. However we all like to think we'd do the right thing according to the law but none of us know for sure until we've been through the situation.

However, what if you knew that a stranger, friend or family member had beaten the cr@p out of a drug dealer known for pushing drugs at the school gate? Or a rapist who got off on a technicality?

Or by "setting aside" do you mean ignoring a transgression where you disagree with the law being broken?

A few years back the UK government banned fox hunting. Just prior to the ban coming into force there were a lot of protests with hunting folk threatening to ignore the law because they disagreed with it. Well I wish I could have confronted these folk. I'd have said something like "Okay you don't agree with the ban on fox hunting, go ahead and break the law. However I am a professional house breaker and disagree with the law covering theft. So while you are out breaking the law you don't mind if I visit your homes and help myself?"

Once we start down this route we are on our way to anarchy.

As for enforcing a law you disagree with that is down to the individual. Obviously law enforcement officers are duty bound to uphold the law of the land irrespective of their personal feelings for the law and/or the transgressors. As for individuals well it is down to our personal feelings and I'd bet every one of has turned a blind eye on occassion and would do so again.

Using the case of the Nurenberg is a gross oversimplification. The guards and even the upper echelons in the concentration camps were following orders because to not do so would invite a bullet to the head or worse a redeployment to the eastern front. Don't forget that in addition to that the men knew that the punishment for disobeying orders would follow through to their family.

Put yourself in their place. Your job is to herd these faceless strangers into the chambers or lose your life and condem your family to unspeakable horrors.

That is not to say that there wasn't sadistic b@st@ds running those camps but not all were from the same mold.

...do you consider that there can be any reason that can be justifiably argued for the Setting aside of a law in the land, for whatever reason?

I am no expert in this field but I do understand that there is a legal situation or phrase; "Under exigent circumstances." That allows one measure of law to be broken in order to prevent a more serious incident or to save life that is under threat.

The balance of what is an exigent circumstance in a given situation is open to debate and is often argued in court after the event. You mention a case in the UK that you have in mind, is it the enviromental damage card played by the people that caused USD55,000 of damage to a power station in the UK. Not sure how a bit of graffiti caused that much damage but there you go.

In Thailand there was a law forbidding any common people touching a member of the royal family under any circumstances under pentalty of death. After the "....senseless tragedy during the 1868 1910 reign of King Chulalongkorn, when his Queen Consort and daughter tragically drowned in a quiet waterway..." while people looked on in fear of helping because of the law, it was changed. (Google should throw up that link if you care to seek it.)

I read that in the earlier days of automatic speed cameras, if you thought you had been captured on film, you should drive at speed to the nearest hospital ER and complain of chest pains. Recording the fact that you had driven in excess of the speed limit in an effort to save your own life. I would assume that this argument has now been worn out.

The other situation where you can break the law without suffering direct consequences is if under duress. I believe there are cases of aiding bank robberies where a staff member has acted under duress to enable the crime or risk harm to family members, then later cleared of crimes committed during the event.

---------------------edit--------------------

...after thought, in these cases where you 'need' to use force against another person, including self-defence, your force must be measured and not excessive for the situation. You can't shoot someone for stealing flowers from your garden, so you normally have to stick a VCR in their hand after the event.

Yeah, but what do you do when you are in combat and ordered to rape or kill someone? You are just one person, and how do you stand up to a whole platoon of stone killers who want to do something that you don't?

This is what happened to one fellow in Vietnam that the book and movie "Casualties of War" was about. He refused to go along with them and turned them in, but they tried to kill him afterwards.

Then it comes down to having to live with yourself afterwards.

Would a court take it into account that crimes were committed under duress? Possibly, but not to the point of a "not guilty" verdict.

Personally I'd hope I'd have the moral fiber to refuse and take a chance on being killed, but you never know until you've been there do you?

Personally I'd hope I'd have the moral fiber to refuse and take a chance on being killed, but you never know until you've been there do you?

I would hope the same, but it depends on the situation. If I had enough friends in the platoon, I would do my best to talk everyone out of it, but if I was a FNG (f***king new guy) and not very well liked, I'm not sure what I would do.

All I'm saying is I find the ever increasing (and often futile) attempts at micro-managing the country are irritating, somewhat worrisome, and sometimes laughable, and so I guess my point is: How can I, as a reasonably sensible person, be expected to take the LAW seriously.

Have you any points of law specifically that you would explicitly feel OK to disregard or set aside? I think you have made more of a comment against a host of individual laws that are more of an irritant than a broadside that effects your everyday life, but interesting views though.

Good Luck

Moss

So I suppose in extreme cases where the law was clearly against any decent yard-stick of hummanity, I would oppose it. However, the law would have to be so blatantly wrong and impossible to change by democratic means, before I would go down that path. Total disregard for laws because " you do not like them " is anarchy and with anarchy, comes the strong taking from the weak and inevitable dictatorship.

I don't think in today's society in the West you don't have too many dilemma's in regard to life and death situations, where the setting aside of any law through an action you were ordered to commit, would cause the death or destruction of person or property.

That's the Nuremberg defence suiging.

If the law of the land is change by a majority vote of elected representatives, or by an individual with the executive power to do so than that is the new law.

Moral objections count for nothing if the law is changed legitimately.

The only recourse that people have in a democracy when they consider their government has acted illegally or immorally is to vote them out at the next election.

Was the Final Solution ever passed into Law? Or just the result of orders from a round table of Nazi's and passed down through the ranks, I would suggest that was orders and not statute.

Now, a legislative body, acting on their own devices that affects the very people who democratically voted them in, but who have set aside the law to do so, that is more in line with the example I had in mind, can it be justified? If so where and when to draw the line.

Good Luck

Moss

Or take to the streets. They are your streets after all. And the elected officials are your employees.

If you hired someone to work for you, gave them a 3-4 year contract, and then found out months later that person was stealing from you, lying to you, spying on you and doing numerous other distasteful things, would you simply sit by and wait 2-3 (or more) years until their contract ran out, then not renew it ?

Not likely. You'd fire the person on the spot, contract or not, and maybe even call the cops. Why do people think that elected officials should be any different ? They aren't "high and mighty", lofty members of royalty just because they won a popularity contest. They are servants of the people.

The point is, elected governments are employees of the people and nothing more. When the employees lose the trust and respect of their employers, they should be replaced. It may not always be possible, or prudent, to wait until the end of their term, but if they aren't willing to leave beforehand of their own accord, what do you do ?

Is taking to the streets a lawful manner to conduct your angst? I would suggest it is, as long as it is kept within the law and peacefully coordinated.

As for the Governments and I use the UK as an example here, if you are caught with your hand in the till, you generally are out on your ear, but I think your analogy is for somewhere else altogether.

But I think you are more concerned here with the will and motive to deselect a democratically elected official and it sounds like democratic means, not setting aside any law, they are very good points though.

Good Luck

Moss

Yeah, but what do you do when you are in combat and ordered to rape or kill someone? You are just one person, and how do you stand up to a whole platoon of stone killers who want to do something that you don't?

This is what happened to one fellow in Vietnam that the book and movie "Casualties of War" was about. He refused to go along with them and turned them in, but they tried to kill him afterwards.

Now that is a rock and a hard place, a moral judgement that no man would willingly put himself into, however there is another parallel from the same war, when a pilot placed his helicopter in the way of Calley's troops and threatened to open fire on them, if they didn't stop their rampage.

Three members of Calleys troop, previously tried to stop the indiscrimate killings and were later criticised for their actions.

Good Luck

Moss

a pilot placed his helicopter in the way of Calley's troops and threatened to open fire on them, if they didn't stop their rampage.

Three members of Calleys troop, previously tried to stop the indiscrimate killings .

There are real heroes!

The speed limit on the motorway in the UK is 70mph.

I regularly drive at between 70-100mph as do a high proportion of others.

The braking distances of vehicles has decreased to about half of the distance of vehicles when the speed limit was introduced.

ABS, traction control, car design and tyre technology all mean that higher speeds are safer, but it is highly unlikely that the speed limit will change.

So, yes I will set aside the law of the land when driving on motorways and dual carrigeways.

Don't we all?

Well Rob, I do try to stick to speed limits and if I do break them it's by very little. It's better for the environment and saves money. I do agree that the speed limits should be increased, maybe to 80 on Motorways.

A few years back the UK government banned fox hunting. Just prior to the ban coming into force there were a lot of protests with hunting folk threatening to ignore the law because they disagreed with it. Well I wish I could have confronted these folk. I'd have said something like "Okay you don't agree with the ban on fox hunting, go ahead and break the law. However I am a professional house breaker and disagree with the law covering theft. So while you are out breaking the law you don't mind if I visit your homes and help myself?"

Once we start down this route we are on our way to anarchy.

As for enforcing a law you disagree with that is down to the individual. Obviously law enforcement officers are duty bound to uphold the law of the land irrespective of their personal feelings for the law and/or the transgressors. As for individuals well it is down to our personal feelings and I'd bet every one of has turned a blind eye on occassion and would do so again.

Using the case of the Nurenberg is a gross oversimplification. The guards and even the upper echelons in the concentration camps were following orders because to not do so would invite a bullet to the head or worse a redeployment to the eastern front. Don't forget that in addition to that the men knew that the punishment for disobeying orders would follow through to their family.

Put yourself in their place. Your job is to herd these faceless strangers into the chambers or lose your life and condem your family to unspeakable horrors.

That is not to say that there wasn't sadistic b@st@ds running those camps but not all were from the same mold.

Interesting question for which there is no black or white answer.

There rarely is in this context, however in your examples I would like to think that I would 'do things right', 'rather than do the right thing'.

Or by "setting aside" do you mean ignoring a transgression where you disagree with the law being broken?

This is more in line to what I was alluding to, although there is nothing I or anybody could have done anyway.

The actual instance that kicked off my OP is the Government setting aside the Acquisitions and Mergers laws that have to be relayed to the Monopolies Commission, in this regard the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds/TSB , the Gov't has stated they would set aside their ruling for the benefit of the economy, an extraordinary decision, but was it the right one?

Hence my question, is their a time that the rule of law can be set aside and for what reason, is trying to prop up an ailing economy reasonable and correct and if so, at what point should the answer be no, considering today, the Worlds Banks put $100 Billion into the economy to prop it up further.

Good Luck

Moss

Hi Cuban,

This is a US law, but I have no doubt the UK has similar, I just don't know which one, however I do agree with it.

You can't shoot someone for stealing flowers from your garden, so you normally have to stick a VCR in their hand after the event.

You also meantioned regarding your reaction must be measured and in keeping to the situation, where this could get woolly, is when someone is breaking into your home and your family are indoors, will you think 'measured response', I think not! But what you say is correct though.

Good Luck

Moss

a pilot placed his helicopter in the way of Calley's troops and threatened to open fire on them, if they didn't stop their rampage.

Three members of Calleys troop, previously tried to stop the indiscrimate killings .

There are real heroes!

Yes, very brave in my opinion, in the heat of blood lust and cathartic revenge, quite extraordinary.

Good Luck

Moss

Don't we all?

It would appear not, however although at first glance this would also appear to set aside the law, it was not quite the level of criminal activity I had in mind, although 'Blink', I have just thin-sliced your post and with my gut feeling I have come to the opinion of............................

Good Luck, great book by the way.

Moss

A few years back the UK government banned fox hunting. Just prior to the ban coming into force there were a lot of protests with hunting folk threatening to ignore the law because they disagreed with it. Well I wish I could have confronted these folk. I'd have said something like "Okay you don't agree with the ban on fox hunting, go ahead and break the law. However I am a professional house breaker and disagree with the law covering theft. So while you are out breaking the law you don't mind if I visit your homes and help myself?"

Once we start down this route we are on our way to anarchy.

As for enforcing a law you disagree with that is down to the individual. Obviously law enforcement officers are duty bound to uphold the law of the land irrespective of their personal feelings for the law and/or the transgressors. As for individuals well it is down to our personal feelings and I'd bet every one of has turned a blind eye on occassion and would do so again.

Using the case of the Nurenberg is a gross oversimplification. The guards and even the upper echelons in the concentration camps were following orders because to not do so would invite a bullet to the head or worse a redeployment to the eastern front. Don't forget that in addition to that the men knew that the punishment for disobeying orders would follow through to their family.

Put yourself in their place. Your job is to herd these faceless strangers into the chambers or lose your life and condem your family to unspeakable horrors.

That is not to say that there wasn't sadistic b@st@ds running those camps but not all were from the same mold.

Interesting question for which there is no black or white answer.

There rarely is in this context, however in your examples I would like to think that I would 'do things right', 'rather than do the right thing'.

Or by "setting aside" do you mean ignoring a transgression where you disagree with the law being broken?

This is more in line to what I was alluding to, although there is nothing I or anybody could have done anyway.

The actual instance that kicked off my OP is the Government setting aside the Acquisitions and Mergers laws that have to be relayed to the Monopolies Commission, in this regard the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds/TSB , the Gov't has stated they would set aside their ruling for the benefit of the economy, an extraordinary decision, but was it the right one?

Hence my question, is their a time that the rule of law can be set aside and for what reason, is trying to prop up an ailing economy reasonable and correct and if so, at what point should the answer be no, considering today, the Worlds Banks put $100 Billion into the economy to prop it up further.

Good Luck

Moss

The law of the land eh...? One law for us and one flexible law for them is it?

Noam Chomsky - Understanding Power

During the early stages of the industrial revolution, as England was coming out of a feudal-type of society and into what's basically a state-capitalist system, the rising bourgeoisie there had a problem.

In a traditional society like the feudal system, people had a certain place, and they had certain rights - in fact, they had what was called at the time a "right to live." I mean, under feudalism it may have been a lousy right, but nevertheless people were assumed to have some natural entitlement for survival.

But with the rise of what we call capitalism, that right had to be destroyed: people had to have it knocked out of their heads that they had any automatic "right to live" beyond what they could win for themselves on the labor market.

And that was the main point of classical economics.

Remember the context in which all of this was taking place: classical economics developed after a period in which a large part of the English population had been forcibly driven off the land they had been farming for centuries - that was by force, it wasn't a pretty picture.

In fact, very likely one of the main reasons why England led the industrial revolution was just that they had been more violent in driving people off the land than in other places.

For instance, in France a lot of people were able to remain on the land, and therefore they resisted industrialization more.

But even after the rising bourgeoisie in England had driven millions of peasants off the land, there was a period when the population's "right to live" still was preserved by what we would today call "welfare."

There was a set of laws in England which gave people rights, called the "Poor Laws" - which essentially kept you alive if you couldn't survive otherwise; they provided sort of a minimum level of subsistence, like subsidies on food and so on.

And there was something called the "Corn Laws", which gave landlords certain rights beyond those they could get on the market - they raised the price of corn, that sort of thing.

And together, these laws were considered among the main impediments to the new rising British industrial class - so therefore they just had to go.

Well, those people needed an ideology to support their effort to knock out of people's heads the idea that they had this basic right to live, and that's what classical economics was about - classical economics said: no one has any right to live, you only have a right to what you gain for yourself on the labor market. And the founders of classical economics in fact said they'd developed a "scientific theory" of it, with - as they put it - "the certainty of the principle of gravitation."

Alright, by the 1830s, political conditions in England had changed enough so that the rising bourgeoisie were able to kill the Poor Laws, and then later they managed to do away with the Corn Laws.

And by around 1840 or 1845, they won the elections and took over the government.

Then at that point, a very interesting thing happened. They gave up the theory, and Political Economy changed. It changed for a number of reasons.

For one thing, these guys had won, so they didn't need it so much as an ideological weapon anymore.

For another, they recognized that they themselves needed a powerful interventionist state to defend industry from the hardships of competition in the open market - as they always had in fact.

And beyond that, eliminating people's "right to live" was starting to have some negative side-effects.

First of all, it was causing riots all over the place: for a long period, the British army was mostly preoccupied with putting down riots across England.

Then something even worse happened - the population started to organize: you got the beginnings of an organized labor movement, and later the Chartist movement, and then a socialist movement developed.

And at that point, the elites in England recognized that the game just had to be called off, or else they really would be in trouble - so by the time you get to the second half of the nineteenth century, things like John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy, which gives kind of a social-democratic line, were becoming the reigning ideology.

See, the "science" happens to be a very flexible one: you can change it to do whatever you feel like, it's that kind of "science."

So by the middle of the nineteenth century, the "science" had changed, and now it turned out that laissez-faire was a bad thing after all - and what you got instead were the intellectual foundations for what's called the "welfare state."

And in fact, for a century afterwards, "laissez faire" was basically a dirty word - nobody talked about it anymore.

And what the "science" now said was that you had better give the population some way of surviving, or else they're going to challenge your right to rule.

You can take away their right to live, but then they're going to take away your right to rule - and that's no good, so ways have to be found to accommodate them.

Well, it wasn't until recent years that laissez-faire ideology was revived again - and again, it was a weapon of class warfare.

As far as I can see, the principles of classical economics in effect are still taught: I don't think what's taught in the University of Chicago Economics Department today is all that different, what's called "neo-liberalism".

And it doesn't have any more validity than it had in the early nineteenth century - in fact, it has even less.

At least in the early nineteenth century, Ricardo's and Malthus' assumptions had some relation to reality.

Today those assumptions have no relation to reality.

Look: the basic assumption of the classical economists was that labor is highly mobile and capital is relatively immobile - that's required, that's crucial to proving all their nice theorems.

That was the reason they could say, "If you can't get enough to survive on the labor market, go someplace else" - because you could go someplace else: after the native populations of places like the United States and Australia and Tasmania were exterminated or driven away, then yeah, poor Europeans could go someplace else.

So in the early nineteenth century, labor was indeed mobile. And back then, capital was indeed immobile - first because "capital" primarily meant land, and you can't move land, and also because the extent that there was investment, it was very local: like, you didn't have communications systems that allowed for easy transfers of money all around the world, like we do today.

So in the early nineteenth century, the assumption that labor is mobile and capital is immobile was more or less realistic - and on the basis of that assumption, you could try to prove things about comparative advantage and all this stuff you learn in school about Portugal and wine and so on.

Incidentally, if you want to know how well those theorems actually work, just compare Portugal and England after a hundred years of trying them out - growing wine versus industrializing as possible modes of development.

But let's put that aside... Well, by now the assumptions underpinning these theories are not only false - they're the opposite of the truth. By now labor is immobile, through immigration restrictions and so on, and capital is highly mobile, primarily because of technological changes. So none of the results work anymore. But you're still taught them, you're still taught the theories exactly as before - even though the reality today is the exact opposite of what we assumed in the early nineteenth century.

I mean, if you look at some of the fancier economists, Paul Krugman and so on, they've got all kinds of little tricks here and there to make the results not quite so grotesquely ridiculous as they'd otherwise be.

But fundamentally, it all just is pretty ridiculous. If capital is mobile and labor is immobile, there's no reason why mobile capital shouldn't seek absolute advantage and play one national workforce against another, go wherever the labor is cheapest and thereby drive everybody's standard of living down. In fact, that's exactly what we're doing in NAFTA and all these other international trade agreements which are being instituted right now.

Nothing in these abstract economic models actually works in the real world. It doesn't matter how many footnotes they put in, or how many ways they tinker around the edges. The whole enterprise is totally rotten at the core: it has no relation to reality anymore - and furthermore, it never did.

They don't just want their cake and eat it, they want your cake too when theirs runs out.

From lassaiz-faire to protectionism and back again, the hyperbole of governments and markets swing 180 degrees with no regard to hypocricy or deceit.

The £90 Billion pumped into the economy makes the Brinks Matt robbery look like pocket money.

One law for them.

Ahhh, my friend, the sun has set and a glass of malt has been imbibed and so, as I have responded to all who have been courteous to answer my OP, I shall respond to yours tomorrow.

Good Luck

Moss

.... is when someone is breaking into your home and your family are indoors, will you think 'measured response', I think not! But what you say is correct though.

I agree, under the conditions described I would expect I would use full force availible - however I am not stupid. After the incident at once I would begin chest compressions and ensure that evidence was in place showing efforts were made to aid the injured person including first out going phone call for medical aid, whether it would do any good or not. I might break a law - but I would take steps to mitigate any later case against me.

The comment above about car braking systems and stopping distances in connection with maximium legal speeds, surely the weakest link is the driver's reaction time. Traffic closer together makes looking ahead and 'reading the traffic' more difficult. People do not leave safe gaps between cars, if you do in any country some @#$%@# will move into it from a slower lane.

The "Concentration Camp " guard defence, can never be right. I was just following orders, thus "I just murdered three truck loads of women and children, because he told me too, ".................does not really wash.

In the Army I did a course which was for promotion from Captain to Major. Part of the course is the study of Military Law and covered the above in great detail. We were asked if we would follow orders such as above. The standard answer was "No I wouldn't" Then we studied detailed investigations into what soldiers such as in Germany, Uganda, Rwanda, Chile, Argentina etc did and more importantly Why. Bottom line was from a guard in Uganda "you do it (execute prisoners) because if you don't they (the bosses) will do it to you"

How many of us can honestly say "I would resist and refuse to do it" if the alternative was to be killed yourself?

CB

Personally I'd hope I'd have the moral fiber to refuse and take a chance on being killed, but you never know until you've been there do you?

I would hope the same, but it depends on the situation. If I had enough friends in the platoon, I would do my best to talk everyone out of it, but if I was a FNG (f***king new guy) and not very well liked, I'm not sure what I would do.

In two tours of duty in Vietnam, never had a situation like that occur UG. But we did have members of our platoon that cut off the ears of dead NVA and Viet Cong fighters...under the premise that if you disfigured their bodies then they would go to the afterlife incomplete. Officially it was an illegal act but it was condoned by the other members of the platoon who did not participate in this disfigurement. After more than 40 years, it is still the one act that I regret the most and the one that haunts me the most. War dehumanizes people...but it should never make us animals. Later when I was a SFC in Gulf War One, I saw one of my men approach a dead Iraqi and started to look for a souvenir, I told him I would send him back to the rear in chains if he touched the body.

I suspect that Regular troops would have committed fewer atrocities than paramilitary fighters, guerrillas and other "civilians in uniform".

A few years back I was arrested in Vientiane by a Lao Army patrol that was accompanied by two civilians carrying automatic weapons. I found out later they were bodyguards for one of the officers who was the local Nai Barn (Local government chief, an enormously powerful position).

I wasn't slightly concerned about the soldiers but the armed civilians caused me considerable anxiety.

I have never been in combat, but I don't think that cutting up dead bodies would bother me that much one way or the other, although I do respect farang prince's point of view. I would be a lot more concerned about how to treat living prisoners fairly, knowing what they might do to me or my buddies should the situation be reversed.