Don't Say "Illegal" When You Mean Wrong
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I find a lot of articles and news sources today that word themselves very strangely. They point out something that is wrong with some political system or other, but they use the word "illegal" to mean wrong. For example just recently I stumbled upon this article criticizing Microsoft and Israel where they used the words:
illegal apartheid regime
What they are referring to is in fact completely and utterly legal inside of Israel. If this violates the laws of your country, it does not mean it violates the law of another country. Quite the opposite, most of the problems we have these days are in fact legal things. Things written into a law.
In Russia it is illegal to criticize the state. Does that make it acceptable? No. It doesn't. But would that make sense to write this about Russia:
Russia participates in illegal censorship of the citizens that want to criticize the state.
No. That would make no sense. In Russia this kind of censorship it completely legal.
There is this Steven Spielberg movie called Schindler's List about a Nazi man Oscar Schindler who goes on a journey of discovery. And ultimately becomes a person that saves a lot of Jewish people from the Nazi regime. Not an "illegal Nazi regime". Just a Nazi regime.
He ends up doing something very interesting. He breaks the law of the Nazi regime, by saving the Jews. But he also breaks the law of post-Nazi Germany, by technically buying slave labor for his factory. Which was in fact done to save Jews. He breaks 2 laws, to be a better person for it.
There is even a scene toward the middle of the film to specifically draw your attention to this very problem of the law, where he gives a kiss to Jewish girl and then being arrested for it. You could argue that the kiss was not particularly consensual. But the movie reveals the real reason he was sent to jail. He showed affection toward somebody who was Jewish. This was illegal. This was for that period of history written into the law of that county. If you say that he was sent into prison "illegal" you would make no sense.
If the law that is bad exists it is not an illegal law. What are you talking about? It just means that this law is bad law. A law that should not exist.
Saying that something is illegal and therefor bad, is reinforcing this idea that whatever is written into the law, no matter how terrible it is, is acceptable, or even good. So please consider wording yourself some other way, if you care even a little bit about what you are talking about.
Happy Hacking!!!
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