Friday, August 19, 2005

Right, Wrong, Legal, Illegal

I would have hoped that everyone would've known the difference between illegal and wrong by the time they exited their teens, but, from a lunchtime conversation today, that's apparently not the case.

So breaking the speed limit is illegal, wrong, or both? The answer is "it depends". It depends on driver skill, the car and its condition, road conditions, and other cars. While a speed limit may be set for an average driver, or perhaps a lowest common denominator, or even for speed traps, do you (the hypothetical you of course) really think that it's a number that's one size fits all?

Of course not... So what makes you think every law on the book fits every person in every situation at every time?

And what happens when (when, probably not if) the government oversteps its bounds? I would've thought everybody has seen enough dystopias to know better. Maybe it's just hard to apply/think about moraltiy at both the high level and the personal level.

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