Following the Rules

I was talking to a friend of mine about rule breaking. She grew up as a Navy brat and following the rules is part of her DNA now. It actually bothers her at times.

My lovely wife and I told her to think of them as suggestions rather than rules.

It’s funny, we follow most rules most of the time. We appear to be fairly normal law abiding people. Here’s the thing, rule following is not automatic for us. Almost daily we consciously decide to follow the rules.

Of course, we break stupid and senseless rules every chance we get.

There are rules and there are rules. Some rules were written in blood. Take fire codes for example. Those rules exist because people died in fires. Other rules are there just to make life more comfortable for the ruling class. It’s more important to be moral rather than legal.

Slavery was once legal, but it wasn’t moral. In Nazi Germany eliminating the Jews was legal -and a monstrous moral crime against humanity.

Now I see that people are going to jail for feeding the hungry. I don’t think the authorities have the moral high ground here. I could not call myself a Christian if I didn’t follow Jesus’s teachings about that. Heck, I’d be a bad atheist humanist if I didn’t feed the hungry.

That’s just one example of doing what’s right rather than what’s legal, and a pretty clear cut example. Sometimes things are a murkier. However, I can’t just outsource my morality to a legal authority. Besides, sometimes breaking the rules is too much fun.

-Sixbears