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You can have an opinion on whether a law is unjust. You can also have an opinion on whether a law should be changed. But the law is the law and until it is changed there should be consequences for breaking the law.
That's what I meant when I said it really isn't a matter of opinion and I should have written it more clearly. Sorry.
I don't think the law that makes it a crime to lie to public officials is old, unjust or unconstitutional though. You would have a really hard time convincing me of that.
EDITED TO ADD: A statute certainly is a law. It's a law enacted by the legislature.
We are going to have disagree but even your own source differentiates between statutes and laws and they are particularly different if you are referring to the "rule of law" which tends to refer to law as the body of laws or even the constitution.
Anyway, all of the subsequent issues stem from the fundamentally unjust statute . Civil rights activists routinely broke laws that stemmed from the unjust jim crow type laws, should they have been prosecuted for those actions?
We are going to have disagree but even your own source differentiates between statutes and laws and they are particularly different if you are referring to the "rule of law" which tends to refer to law as the body of laws or even the constitution.
Anyway, all of the subsequent issues stem from the fundamentally unjust statute . Civil rights activists routinely broke laws that stemmed from the unjust jim crow type laws, should they have been prosecuted for those actions?
A statute is a law. Saying it isn't a law because you don't want it to be a law does not make it so.
What is unjust about a law that makes it illegal to lie to public officials?
You can quibble about semantics until you are blue in the face if it makes you happy but this woman was jailed due to the initial action; enrolling her children in a district in which only her father lives. All of the subsequent actions are predicated on that one. That was the "crime" not "lying to a public official".
When the Montgomery bus boycotts went on lots of people violated laws regarding public assembly, should they have been prosecuted to the extent this woman was?
she was originally sentenced to 5 years, even if the majority of the sentence was suspended, it's still quite harsh. even the fine and 3 years of probation is overly harsh, IMO
so now what's the end game for these girls? what school system did they end up in? this woman likely spent a lot of time and money to pursue a teaching degree she now can't even use in that state. yes, you can argue it's her own undoing, but the whole outcome seems wrong. the intent wasn't criminal, IMO
and let's be real here. until issues w/in most of these urban public schools can be fixed and the discrepancy between poor inner city schools and rich suburban school is lessened, cases like these will never go away. more poor parents, in an effort to try to get their kids a better education, will do the same thing this woman has done. the education system, as is, is obviously not working. heck, I'm scared to ever have kids in Chicago b/c of the apparent nonsense of trying to get kids into a decent school in the city w/o having to live in a super expensive area or paying for private schooling. hence why a lot of people move to the burbs, I guess, which just creates a massive brain drain in the city schools
You can quibble about semantics until you are blue in the face if it makes you happy but this woman was jailed due to the initial action; enrolling her children in a district in which only her father lives. All of the subsequent actions are predicated on that one. That was the "crime" not "lying to a public official".
When the Montgomery bus boycotts went on lots of people violated laws regarding public assembly, should they have been prosecuted to the extent this woman was?
When a person enrolls a child in a school district they usually have to provide documentation that the child is legally entitled to attend school in that district. The person that reviews the documentation is a public official. If the documentation is false that person can be charged with lying to a public official.
It's not just semantics.
I think the penalty was overly harsh in this case. Punishments should always fit the crime and in this case it did not. That does not make her actions legal.
Exactly what is unjust about a law that makes it a crime to lie to public officials?
I'm not so sure. I think most of the posters here are coming from lofty positions; if you live somewhere with good schools or can afford to move somewhere else if not, or if you have other options, then it's easy to take the higher road. I don't approve of falsifying residency and I don't think it should be condoned, but at the same time I think many of the people who resort to this are really desperate. They don't have the time to wait around for school funding battles to change things or for their schools to improve.
I still don't think it's right, just think that parents should step back and think about what might cause a desperate parent to resort to such measures.
I also think it's morally wrong that many of our schools are so unequal. The tax dollar argument doesn't cut it on that count, either; are the kids of wealthy parents morally entitled to a better education than the kids of poorer parents? Apparently many out there believe that to be the case.
I do think it's wrong, but I can see why a parent would do it. A lot of people try to lie to get into Beverly Hills schools for instance. LAUSD schools are horrible, so they try to get their kids a halfway decent education. However, the Beverly Hills district is really good at catching those lying about residence. They have to be really good at it. It isn't much of a problem in many areas out here, though, because most public schools are horrible.
Morally entitled? No, but people should be free to care about their own children more than someone else's. If the people with crappy schools want better schools then raise their property taxes. It's not fair to force one school district to let another mooch off of it.
You can't do this everywhere. California has very strict property tax laws, and I don't think the majority of public education is funded by property taxes here. I believe it was decided to be unconstitutional per the California State Constitution.
When a person enrolls a child in a school district they usually have to provide documentation that the child is legally entitled to attend school in that district. The person that reviews the documentation is a public official. If the documentation is false that person can be charged with lying to a public official.
It's not just semantics.
I think the penalty was overly harsh in this case. Punishments should always fit the crime and in this case it did not. That does not make her actions legal.
Exactly what is unjust about a law that makes it a crime to lie to public officials?
I am terribly sorry that you cannot seem to understand that the unjustness is not the lying to public officials issue. I know no other way to explain it to you. It is fundamentally unjust to segregate schools.
I suspect if you were there when Ms. Parks was arrested you would say "what is unjust about being arrested for not obeying the police". Oy vey.
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