re: #2 Charles

If the government is not the ultimate authority, how can you say no one is above the law? Unless you’re talking about some other kind of “justice.”

I submit that the government is not the ultimate authority, and the individual is. The government cannot force you to do something that is against your conscience, but that does not mean that any individual is above the law. The government’s law can be unjust, but it is still the law. You can stand on principal in front of a firing squad.

I am fascinated by the story of the death of Socrates so I offer it as sort of an example. Socrates was charged with the questionable “crime” of corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens. He was convicted by a jury, mainly because he offended the jurors with his irreverence. At the age of about 70, Socrates was sentenced to death. Socrates was actually offered an escape to some rival Greek city state, away from Athens, but he voluntarily accepted his death sentence by drinking poison hemlock. The State had always provided for Socrates, and he felt he owed absolute loyalty to the State even in that final matter.

The government was wrong. Socrates was not wrong, but he was not above the law.