when is breaking the law justified?

As heard often in movies and other media, “Laws were made to be broken.” This holds true, especially when the law that is being broken is morally unjust and requires a citizen to disregard or act in an unjust manner to their fellow citizens. Any law that requires that kind of action is not beneficial to the common good of society, and creates a contrast between the “good citizen” part of a person and the “decent human being” part of a person. While it may seem that laws like this simply do not exist, they are all around us. They can easily be put into reality through a historical context.

The law put forth by Germany during the Nazi regime were emotionally and physically unjust, with little room for justification beyond the power of Adolf Hitler and his followers. These so called “laws” required citizens to report their fellow citizens as being Jewish so Hitler and his troops could remove them from society. The “decent human side” overwhelmingly prevailed over “good citizen” in this situation, and people defied Hitler. To act in such a way that was morally just and assist the Jewish refugees, citizens acted against the manmade law and kept in line with the rest of the world’s perception of natural law. Naturally, it seems that the only time it is acceptable to defy a manmade law is when such a law intrudes upon important and all-inclusive laws that concern foundational human rights. In the Nazi example, one could argue that disobeying Hitler’s law is justified on a theoretical basis because moral law always takes precedence over what might be constructed by a regime through the dangerous combination of hate and power. In the time of the Nazis, the act of obeying such laws would turn the obeying party into violators of human ri...

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...ot a completely isolated stain in the world’s history that demonstrates a pure and bold intrusion upon basic human nature and its rules. By disregarding basic liberties and enacting laws that don’t allow blacks to eat, sit and drink in the same place as whites, the laws created a constant cycle of injustice within the borders of America. While these laws were not as extreme or destructive as the genocide carried out by the Nazis, the still provide examples of how governments create our perception of morality. In turn, they continued on to create evidence of how disobeying said laws based on the “good human being” aspect of life is justified and most beneficial to society. The term “crime against humanity” is most commonly associated with grotesque war crimes, it is acceptable to apply it legally justified crimes and written code that disregard basic human liberties.