The Best Argument I’ve Seen Yet For Full Enforcement Of Immigration Laws…
…or for that matter, any other law, no matter how strong or weak its merits, comes from Socrates via Victor Davis Hanson:
After Socrates was convicted by a court of questionable charges, his friends planned to break him out of his jail in Athens. But the philosopher refused to flee. Instead, he insisted that a citizen who lived in a consensual society should not pick and choose which laws he finds convenient to obey.
Selective compliance, Socrates warned, would undermine the moral integrity of the entire legal system, ensuring anarchy. And so, as Plato tells us, the philosopher accepted the court’s death sentence and drank the deadly hemlock.
Well, I don’t have the moral integrity of Socrates (I’ll pass on that hemlock!), but the lesson is instructive – if you find a law stupid or unenforcable, fight to change the law; but if the law is on the book, non-enforcement is unacceptable. It’s a slap in the face of democratic government…
Very well, said. Thank you, Socrates