ISSUE17

TOPIC: ISSUE17 - "There are two types of laws: just and unjust. Every individual in a society has a responsibility to obey just laws and, even more importantly, to disobey and resist unjust laws."
WORDS: 593 TIME: 00:48:51 DATE: 2008/7/27 23:49:13

The speaker asserts that there are two kinds of laws. One is just and the other is unjust. But in my point of view, it is hard for us to distinguish the just law with the unjust, because it could change under different circumstances and be distinct to certain people. I hold the same view with the speaker that everyone in a society has a responsibility to obey just laws but opposite to the point that we also can disobey and resist unjust laws.

To begin with, a law would be just for some group of people while others thought the law is unjust. For example, with the development of our society, the pollution is a big problem we must confront. So, the government carried out a plan for constraining the factory's production in order to reduce the exotic gas and solid which do harms to people living around. Undoubtedly, this plan is a just law which supported by the people around, because it can improve their living conditions, if the factory emits less exotic things in the future. However, the workers in the factory will hold the opposite view that this plan for protecting environment really has bad efforts on their surviving, because they will work for shorter time and earn less. So, the same law is just and unjust at same time.

Furthermore, the different situation can effect on whether the law is just or unjust. In the Second World War, in order to strength the army and therefore conquer the whole world, the Germany encouraged their citizens to have as many babies as possible. Even there was a law in Germany to prize the women for having many babies and punish the ones for few, As the result, there are many children who did not know who was their father in fact. Compared with China nowadays, the population of China is too huge. So there is a law, which is called Family Planning, to constrain the number of babies one couple can have. Notwithstanding, we cannot proclaim that which law is just and which is unjust, although the two laws are distinct totally.

In addition, the same thing happens in education of different nations. The Chinese parents teach their children by beating more or less, when there are errors in what the children have done. However, In the United States, whatever the child have done for fault, his or her parents have no authorities to educate by beating, because of the limitation the certain laws. So, we cannot regard the laws as just or unjust too.

In a word, in my opinion, most laws in the world are all just. The reason why there are some groups of people who are against with these laws is that the laws do harms to their own benefits more or less. For instance, the workers in the factory, talked in the first example, held the opposite view of the law because of their reducing earnings. Furthermore, due to the different circumstance which a nation must confront, the Germany and China carry out the totally distinct laws which are both just only for itself. And then both the American parents and Chinese parents hope their children have a better future, although they use the different methods.

Generally speaking, most of our laws are just. And every individual in a society must obey all laws, which cannot be divided into just and unjust, because if we obey a law which seems harm for us, we will gain more due to others obeying of other laws.