Visualizzazione post con etichetta disubbidienza civile. Mostra tutti i post
Visualizzazione post con etichetta disubbidienza civile. Mostra tutti i post

giovedì 7 novembre 2019

QUANDO E' LECITA L'OBIEZIONE DI COSCIENZA?

QUANDO E' LECITA L'OBIEZIONE DI COSCIENZA?
1) Quando esiste una legge voluta a maggioranza (altrimenti, in democrazia, la strada è quella di cambiarla).
2) Quando questa legge lede l'integrità di una coscienza religiosa (ma non solo). Le persone hanno una dignità che va salvaguardata.
3) Quando l'esenzione è fattibile: i costi non sono elevati e l'offesa accertabile. In caso contrario si darebbe vita a comportamenti opportunistici.
4) Quando i danni imposti non sono elevati. E' il punto più delicato perché c'è un problema di "soglia" e, oltretutto, si tende a confondere il danno (fisico e psicologico) con l'offesa, ovvero la dignità offesa. Inoltre, un danno elevato non implica automaticamente la rinuncia all'obiezione, si possono sempre trovare le forme più adeguate.
Facciamo qualche esempio tratto da situazioni reali. Scusate i giudizi poco sfumati.
1) La leva militare. Tutte e 4 le condizioni sono verificate.
2) L'uso di droghe a scopo sciamanico. Tutte e quattro le condizioni sono verificate.
3) Aborto. Tutte e quattro le condizioni sono verificate.
4) Obbligo vaccinazione. C'è un problema sulla quarta condizione poiché bambini innocenti non vaccinabili, per esempio a scuola, potrebbero essere contagiati. Si puo' però impedire all'obbiettore di frequentare una scuola pubblica risarcendolo con un voucher che copra l'intera retta di una scuola privata disposto ad accettarlo.
5) Torta per matrimonio gay. Ricordate il caso del pasticciere che si rifiutò di confezionarla? Potrebbero esserci problemi sulla quarta condizione, anche se a ben vedere non sembrano prodursi danni (materiali e psicologici) per la coppia respinta, solo, eventualmente, un'offesa alla loro dignità. Quindi direi di sì.
KEVINVALLIER.COM
I’m writing this post as a reference for future discussions about religious exemptions. Conditions Sufficient to Morally Require a Religious Exemption I think religious exemptions from a law morally ought granted whenever the following four conditions are met: (1) The law is endorsed by the subset...

mercoledì 3 luglio 2019

DISUBBIDIENZA CIVILE E OBIEZIONE DI COSCIENZA

DISUBBIDIENZA CIVILE E OBIEZIONE DI COSCIENZA

Il primo è un atto politico, il secondo morale. Il primo richiede autodenuncia, il secondo no.

Ma con l’autodenuncia perdiamo la collaborazione dei cittadini più timorosi (la stragrande maggioranza)! Come puoi imporre loro di agire rettamente ad un prezzo così alto?

Io direi di fondere le due categorie e abbandonare il paradigma di Gandhi e Martin Luther King: l’auto-denuncia non è mai necessaria.

mercoledì 19 dicembre 2018

ABUSO DI UBBIDIENZA

ABUSO DI UBBIDIENZA

A chi sostiene che esiste un diritto/dovere del cittadino dii disubbidire alle leggi sbagliate, viene fatto notare il rischio di abusi: la gente non riesce a distinguerle correttamente.

Vero, questo rischio esiste. Ma sembra più plausibile che i cittadini siano maggiormente inclini ad abusare dell’obbedienza piuttosto che della disobbedienza. La persona media è conformista.

martedì 11 dicembre 2018

IO STO CON TOMMASO

IO STO CON TOMMASO

Per Albert O. Hirschman il cittadino di fronte ad una legge ingiusta ha solo tre alternative: cambiare stato, lamentarsi, ubbidire controvoglia,

Per Tommaso puo’ anche disubbidire e resistere.

Nei moderni c'è sempre un eccesso di misericordia. Ecco dove i cattolici possono ancora insegnare qualcosa.

mercoledì 3 ottobre 2018

2 The attack on freedom of conscience

The attack on freedom of conscience
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The Obamacare mandate
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‘Obamacare’,
Note:MINACCIA ALLA LIBERTÀ DI COSCIENZA

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the Act required employers to include in their coverage various forms of contraception (including abortifacient) unless the employer was a church.
Note:L ABUSO

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attack on religious freedom and freedom of conscience.
Note:L ACCUSA

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The Court found in favour of the corporation, holding that the religious freedom of its owners was substantially burdened
Note:VITTORIA!!!!

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various religious or semi-religious bodies have objected to the very idea of opting out
Note:GLI OPPOSITORI

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They think that opting out is itself a form of immoral cooperation
Note:L ARGOMENTO

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example of attempted government compulsion of people to act against their consciences in important moral matters.
Note:OBAMACARE COME EPITOME

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The UK midwives
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two Scottish midwives objected to what they believed to be participation in abortions,
Note:2014 IL CASO DAVANTI ALLA CORTE SUPREMA BRITANNICA

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They already had a statutory exemption
Note:GRAZIE A UNA LEGGE DEL 1967

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they objected to ‘delegating, supervising and/or supporting staff to participate in and provide care to patients throughout the termination process’
Note:SI CHIEDE DI NN ESSERE COINVOLTE IN NESSUN MODO

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The Supreme Court held against the midwives,
Note:GIUDIZIO

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actual procedure of terminating pregnancy.
Note:SOLO DA QS SI È ESENTATI...LE ATTIVITÀ ACCESSORIE NN RIENTRANO

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Canadian euthanasia
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if the practitioner is required to facilitate euthanasia by means of a referral, it does not seem that their freedom of conscience is respected.
Note:SE NN ESEGUI DEVI PERÒ INDIRIZZARE DA CHI ESEGUIRÀ

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The EU versus conscience
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‘freedom of thought, conscience and religion’,
Note:ART 9 CONVENZIONE DIRITTI UMANI UE...BELLE PAROLE

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freedom ‘to manifest [one’s] religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance’.
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Nevertheless, EU jurisprudence is rather mixed on freedom of conscience
Note:PRIMA PECCA

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European Social Charter ‘does not impose on states a positive obligation to provide a right to conscientious objection for health care workers’ (FAFCE 2013: 16).
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PRONUNCIAMENTO DEL COMITATO UE SUI DIRITTI SOCIALI

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Sweden’s strong protection for abortion rights, disallowing conscientious refusal of abortion services,
Note:SVEZIA...DIFESA DAL COMITATO

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no pharmacist can refuse to sell legal contraceptives
Note:ALTRA DECISIONE

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where a state does allow conscientious refusal by a person to provide some legally available service, it should ensure that the person asking for the service can obtain it elsewhere (Poland 2011: sec. 206).
Note:PRINCIPIO FISSATO DALLA CORTE

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Weddings, adoptions, holidays, operations
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recent cases in the US and UK have been hostile to people objecting on religious grounds to certain actions they believe support or assist in the promotion of homosexuality.
Note:OBIEZIONE ALL OMOSESSUALITÀ ISTITUZIONALIZZATA

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refusal in conscience to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple.
Note:IL FAMOSO CASO DEL PASTICCIERE IN COLORADO

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the baker refused to sell to a gay man a cake with a message on it saying ‘Support Gay Marriage’,
Note:CASO SIMILE A BELFAST...CONDANNA

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the owners of a Christian guest house were guilty of discrimination for not renting a room to a gay couple in a ‘civil partnership’
Note:L STELO CRISTIANO

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a number of Catholic charities have shut down their adoption services rather than face penalties for refusing to allow adoption by homosexual couples;
Note:ADOZIONE OMOSESSUALE

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an American woman seeking transgender surgery has sued a Catholic hospital for refusing to perform a hysterectomy as part of the process.
Note:OPERAZIONE TRANSGENDER

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the trend is clear;
Note:LE CONDANNE PREVALGONO

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how, in a liberal, pluralistic society, with many diverse ethical and religious (as well as non-religious) viewpoints, where there is so much fundamental disagreement about basic ideas of right and wrong,
Note:COME È POSSIBILE TUTTO CIÒ?

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‘liberal’ with a very small ‘l’.
Note:L OCCIDENTE OGGI

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our liberal society contains many laws and regulations governing various types of discrimination
Note:D ALTRO CANTO...OMOSESSUALI DONNE DISABILI POCO PRODUTTIVI NERI RELIGIONE

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skin
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gender.
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ethnic origin?
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legal in the UK to set up a club for members of one gender or people of one ethnic origin and to exclude from membership anybody else.
Note:ESEMPIO PARADOSSALE

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religious clubs,
Note:VIETATO NN SERVIRE AL RISTORANTE UN MUSULMANO

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To be frank, the law is a bit of a mess,
SENZA UN CRITERIO

martedì 26 dicembre 2017

Violenza contro la polizia

Se Vedete un poliziotto che esercita una violenza eccessiva vi ritenete in diritto di intervenire contro di lui in modo violento?

La tesi della parità. Tutti gli uomini sono uguali. In questo caso il poliziotto non ha uno status morale specifico.

Secondo la tesi della parità, resistere alle violenze dello Stato in modo violento è permesso.

Dall'assunto più comune è differente. Si ritiene che nelle democrazie liberali solo la resistenza passiva possa essere concessa.

giovedì 17 novembre 2016

Riformare la legge disubbidendo - saggio

In “By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission, Charles Murray ha come obbiettivo quello di combattere l’oppressione demo-burocratica, un concetto chiarito una volta per tutte in epoca moderna da Tocqueville:  
I think that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything that ever before existed in the world.… The supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
Finora gli Stati Uniti avevano tutto sommato sventato la minaccia ma oggi il “Grande Progetto” su cui si fondavano ha il fiato corto. Anzi, possiamo ben dire che è giunto al termine. Gli USA si stanno lentamente “europeizzando”:   
The twin propositions of this book are that we are at the end of the American project as the founders intended it, but that opportunities are opening for preserving the best qualities of the American project in a new incarnation…
Ma cosa deve intendersi per “Grande Progetto”?         
By the American project I mean the continuing effort, begun with the founding, to demonstrate that human beings can be left free as individuals, families, and communities to live their lives as they see fit as long as they accord the same freedom to everyone else, with government safeguarding a peaceful setting for those endeavors but otherwise standing aside… What made America unique first blurred, then faded, and is now almost
Come reagire? Opzione numero uno: disubbidire alla legge.
Il Leviatano ha un punto debole: sfornando una regolamentazione ipertrofica, neanche lui riesce ad applicarla concretamente. Spesso si riduce a fare il Mago di Oz: voce grossa senza seguito.  
The federal government is genuinely powerful, as it should be, when it comes to tasks such as defending the nation. But when it comes to micromanaging the lives of more than 300 million people, government is the Wizard of Ozfearsome when its booming voice is directed against any single target, but, when the curtain is pulled aside, revealed as impotent to impose its will in the face of widespread refusal to comply with its rules. Part II describes practical strategies for taking advantage of this weakness, using the resources of the private sector to nullify rules that arbitrarily and capriciously interfere with ordinary people trying to live their lives as they see fit…
A metà del secolo – negli USA - la prima crisi colpì duro, molti liberali ormai disperavano dei regimi democratici considerandoli oppressivi: un nemico da colpire in qualche modo:  
THE MIDDLE of the twentieth century, the concept of limited government seemed moribund. Americans still called their nation the “land of the free,” but hardly anything was said about the dream of the founders, in which “the sum of good government,” as Thomas Jefferson expressed it in his first inaugural address, is one that “shall restrain men from injuring one another [and] shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement.”…
Ma poi accadde qualcosa, personaggi riaccesero il “pensiero madisoniano” (dei Padri Fondatori: prima Goldwater, poi Reagan)..
Just four years later, the Republican Party nominated Barry Goldwater… In terms of excitement and optimism, the Reagan years from 1981 through 1988 saw the apogee of the limited-government movement…
Anche l’accademia recepì il messaggio esaltando studiosi di chiara impronta liberale:  
… Milton Friedman and George Stigler… The venerable American Enterprise Institute, Hoover Institution, and Foundation for Economic Education were joined by the Heritage Foundation in 1973 (Joseph Coors provided the seed money), the Cato Institute in 1976 (marking Charles Koch’s entry into the policy world), the Manhattan Institute in 1978 (Antony Fisher and William Casey), and the Pacific Research Institute in 1979 (Antony Fisher and James North)…. Robert Nozick’s dazzling philosophical treatise… Irving Kristol’s The Public Interest and Norman Podhoretz’s Commentary…
Nel frattempo la sinistra screditava se stessa infilandosi nel ginepraio delle astruse filosofie  post-moderne:   
… Meanwhile, the intellectual wing of liberalism was digging itself into the humorless and impossibly abstruse schools of postmodernism and semiotics, explaining every conceivable topic with the new holy trinity of the left: race, class, and gender…
Oggi si registra un paradosso: in termini intellettuali il pensiero libertario sembra aver vinto la sua guerra culturale
Today, rigorous Madisonian policy analysis is prominent in almost any important policy debate. The nation’s leading law faculties include Madisonian constitutional scholars. Free-market economists are represented in the economics departments of the nation’s elite universities. In the popular culture, talk radio and the Fox television network abound in spokespersons for Madisonian ideas. By objective measures, the last fifty years have seen Madisonian thought emerge from obscurity to prominence and influence…
D’altro canto, il governo espande i suoi compiti, la montagna delle regole cresce a dismisura e la burocrazia prospera come non mai.  
Government Metastasized The resurgence of Madisonian thought also coincided with unprecedented—actually, previously unimaginable—growth in the size and reach of government… In 1963, the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations was about the same as it had been at the end of World War II. From 1963 through 1968, the code increased by an average of 5,537 pages per year…
Cio’ non significa che il pensiero libertario non abbia fatto sentire il suo influsso
The government’s continuing expansion doesn’t mean that the resurgence in Madisonian thought had no effects. On the contrary, the resurgence made a big difference in terms of discrete policy issues. Crime is no longer a national issue, as it was during the 1970s and 1980s, in large part because of scholars and activists on the right whose work revolutionized policing and imprisonment policy… Such scholars and activists were instrumental in producing the welfare reform act of 1996 and the large drop in the welfare rolls that followed… Scholars and activists on the right energized the school-choice and deregulatory movements… Free-market economists have over the last half century established the superiority of capitalism in generating wealth, with immeasurable effects on sustaining capitalism (which had been losing ground before the Madisonian resurgence) and reducing poverty throughout the world… Similar observations could be made about the positive effects of efforts from the right that dealt with taxes
Ma mentre si sono vinte delle battaglie si rischia di perdere la guerra. Come evitarlo?
Murray propone un piano di disobbedienza civile sistematica volta a resistere contro la regolamentazione più invasiva e finanziato da un fondo privato destinato a patrocinare le cause legali.
Il piano ha tre obiettivi: 1) difendere i cittadini vessati 2) rendere buona parte delle regole inapplicabili 3) stimolare in sede giudiziaria una revisione interpretativa della regolamentazione.  
This program’s first objective is to defend ordinary individuals against government overreach, even if it accomplishes nothing else. Its secondary objective is to make large portions of the Code of Federal Regulations de facto unenforceable. Its tertiary objective is to provoke specific, plausible Supreme Court interpretations of existing law that could transform the way that regulations are created and enforced…
Il piano ha una premessa: gran parte delle regole-laccio è fuffa senza la supina adesione dei cittadini… 
… cases for concluding that the federal government has lost its authority to command voluntary compliance with its vast edifice of laws…
Ma perché la disubbidienza civile è giustificata?  
American government does not command our blind allegiance to the law. It is part of our national catechism that government is instituted to protect our unalienable rights, and that when it becomes destructive of those rights, the reason for our allegiance is gone… The Chinese used to call it the mandate of heaven… medieval kings were thought to rule through God’s will… It was grounded in John Locke’s argument that, in a state of nature, all political authority resides in individuals… That transfer must be voluntary; otherwise, the political authority is not legitimate. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” is a restatement of that Lockean position…
In Europa la legittimazione politica ha basi diverse:   
… in Europe has rested on ties of ethnicity and culture, faith in the rulers, loyalty to the rule of law, or combinations of the above…
Il patriottismo americano è ben diverso da quello europeo:   
… American patriotism was quite unlike patriotism in other countries. “It is not an instinctive attachment to scenes with which they are acquainted from childhood, or to men to whose familiar converse they are accustomed… It consists in the love of principles, for which they are ready to make every sacrifice, and which in the outset they preferred to their homes.” By principles…  meant the principles of liberty… Tocqueville made a similar point about Americans’ passionate belief that their liberty to pursue their own interests without hindrance was the key to making America work—the principle that he labeled “self-interest rightly understood.”
La differenza si condensa tutta nel discorso in cui il presidente Grover Cleveland si oppose all’istituzione di un (misero) fondo per i terremotati texani: non esiste né un diritto né un dovere del governo a spendere i soldi di tutti a favore di chi soffre.  
… I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering.… The lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood…
Se questo è lo standard, possiamo ben concludere che il governo americano non ha più alcuna legittimità.
Ma ci sono altre ragioni più pragmatiche per giungere alla medesima conclusione: gli americano stessi si esprimono in tal senso, cosa che non sognavano di fare in passato. 
… Since 1958, pollsters have periodically asked exactly the same question of representative samples of Americans: “How much of the time do you think you can trust government in Washington to do what is right: Just about always, most of the time, or only some of the time?”… The secular trend has been down…  disturbed by laws that are so complicated, they are impossible to obey;… American government isn’t supposed to work this way… Washington looks like a sophisticated kleptocracy… government are systemically corrupt…
Prima si era contenti perché non ci si aspettava nulla dai governi.
…Kennedy administration still had no significant role in K–12 education, local law enforcement, or health care
Inoltre il governo – girando al largo dai  moralismi – non divideva la platea. 
… This was exemplified by the dispute over slavery, … the most divisive of all American moral disputes… By imposing federal policies on abortion, affirmative action, drug use, education, employment, expressions of religious faith, marriage, and welfare, the federal government has alienated large numbers of Americans from all points on the political spectrum…
Oggi il governo ha molti compiti e quindi molte colpe.
… When the government creates a Federal Emergency Management Agency—slow and inept, as so many government agencies are—it gets blamed for the catastrophe in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. That New Orleans was built below the level of the Mississippi River…
E’ ovvio che il risentimento esplode se mi chiedi di pagare parte dello stipendio di Santoro! Non ci vuole Thomas Jefferson per capirlo: 
… “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical…
Un governo del genere merita la disobbedienza ma soprattutto contro un governo talmente screditato è possibile disobbedire, i tempi sono maturi.
La disobbedienza che ha in mente Murray è di gruppo, ben coordinata, ben diversa dall’obiezione di coscienza individuale, e anche da quella realizzata in caso di necessità:
I need to define the specific way in which the concept of civil disobedience is used here, to wit: when a group of people agrees to ignore a law or regulation. This is distinct from following one’s individual conscience and acting individually, as Henry David Thoreau advocated in Resistance to Civil Government (1849)… My use of the phrase civil disobedience is also distinct from decisions to break the law because of overriding circumstances…
Tra le regole a cui non ha senso disubbidire ci sono quelle che proibiscono la realizzazione di un male in sè:  
… Laws prohibiting acts that are bad in themselves—malum in se—are exempt from systematic civil disobedience… murder, manslaughter, rape, assault, robbery, burglary, larceny, fraud, arson, destruction of another’s property, and kidnapping…
Anche le tasse sono escluse: qui “la bestia” è particolarmente sensibile e si rivolterebbe con una tale violenza da annientare l’obbiettore. Inoltre, molte tasse verrebbero giustificate con la nozione di bene pubblico che per quanto ambigua è fondata e gode di un certo credito:  
… The tax code is exempt from systematic civil disobedience… taxation is one of the legitimate functions of even a Madisonian state. In particular, the income tax… There is also a practical problem. Principled civil disobedience to the tax code would be indistinguishable in appearance from cheating on your taxes… Regulations that foster public goods classically defined are exempt from systematic civil disobedience… National defense is one classic example; protection of the environment is another…
Una possibile disobbedienza puo’ riguardare il godimento della proprietà: perché non posso verniciare la mia casa di rosso, per esempio? 
… Regulations that prohibit owners of land from doing whatever they wish with it are subject to strict scrutiny…. the proper limits on the right to use one’s own land as one sees fit trace back to an ancient precept of the common law, “Use what is yours so as not to harm what belongs to others.” No property owner has the right to pollute his neighbor’s water, for example.
Molte leggi sull’ambiente meritano la disobbedienza: perché non uccidere un lupo che minaccia le greggi? Perché dovremmo “tutelare” certi territori paludosi paralizzando in questo modo il godimento dei legittimi proprietari? E l’attribuzione a parco di certi terreni?
… regulations putatively justified by the protection of the environment or endangered species have resulted in egregious infringements on property rights… The “wetlands” provisions of the Clean Water Act have been the source of some of the most well-publicized government overreach (you will get an example at the end of chapter 10), as the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have applied absurdly wide definitions of “wetland” and thereby stripped private property of its value.6 Any farmer or rancher can give you other examples of regulations imposed by the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and state agencies that prevent them from engaging in innocuous maintenance or improvement of their property…
Il mondo delle professioni e dell’artigianato è una miniera per il “disubbidiente”: scrivanie pericolose dotate di angoli acuti, armadi da chiudere col catenaccio, combinazioni e lucchetti ai cassetti per la privacy, imbragature da indossare in caso di lavori in ufficio o officina… Perché non disubbidire platealmente a norme tanto assurde?… 
Regulations that prescribe best practice in a craft or profession are subject to strict scrutiny… Most of us are happy that many agencies regulate the health industry, that the Federal Aviation Administration regulates the airline industry, and that the Securities and Exchange Commission regulates the financial industry. But talk to any physician, pilot, or financial executive about those regulations, and you will get a sense of how different things look from their side of the street. They will agree that certain rules need to be in place—but the necessary rules are a small subset of all the ways in which regulators have made it more difficult for them to do their jobs as they should be done…
Ma l’abusivsmo stesso puo’ essere oggetto di disobbedienza. Se in alcune professioni l’albo ha senso, ormai un lavoratore su tre lavora con licenza:
… One may argue that the government has a compelling reason to pass licensing laws when the profession is one that involves life and death. But licensing now affects about 1 out of 3 workers… Should people really be required to get a license to work as an interior designer? Shampooer? Florist? Coffin maker?…
La regolamentazione sui rischi volontari è un ambito in cui la disubbidienza plateale potrebbe trovare terreno fertile.
Regulations that prevent people from taking voluntary risks are subject to strict scrutiny… They should be free to ski down dangerous slopes, scuba-dive in hazardous watersclimb sheer cliffs, and engage in all the other recreations that can easily break bones or even end lives… People should also be free to make informed and voluntary decisions about their health care, even if those decisions put them at risk. Regulations that prohibit access to a nontraditional treatment or to a drug that shows promise but hasn’t completed the FDA’s tortuous approval process are subject to strict scrutiny.
La strategia è quella di innescare processi improbabili e convogliare l’attenzione su tali processi:
… it is essential that people reading or watching news reports about the trial are overwhelmingly on the side of the defendant, even though everyone knows that the defendant is technically guilty….
Anche per questo meglio evitare gli ambiti in cui aleggia una cappa di sacralità, per quanto la regola sottostante tenda ad essere assurda. Ambiente, rischio, discriminazione… sono ambiti in cui la gente si schiera ideologicamente, meglio lasciar perdere se si mira al consenso:  
… Avoid choosing regulations with halo effects… Protection of the environment is the leading example. Even people who are not active environmentalists reflexively think that violating a regulation intended to protect the environment is wrong. Sometimes environmental regulations are so egregiously stupid that the halo effect can be overcome and systematic civil disobedience is appropriate… Many safety regulations also carry a halo effect, so we should avoid arguing that “ignoring this regulation increases the risk of injury only for people who are complete idiots.” Sometimes that argument will get support (the woman who sued McDonald’s because her coffee was too hot was widely derided), but we live in a world in which a substantial part of the population has become amazingly risk-averse… Employment regulations involving discrimination carry a halo effect. Affirmative action is a divisive issue in American life. In that context, disobeying regulations that are supposed to prevent discrimination will seldom get the overwhelming popular support that is needed for successful civil disobedience….
L’idea è quella di ribadire un principio: “niente danni, niente proibizioni”. E’ poco? Ma sapete quanta regolamentazione diverrebbe irrilevante se solo il principio fosse messo in atto? Nello sport si chiama “regola del vantaggio”: se non danneggi il tuo avversario la tua violazione è irrilevante. Avete presente i limiti di velocità?
A good way to think about my strategy is that it will force regulators to confront the same reality that faces state troopers on America’s interstate highways. Typically, the flow of traffic on an interstate is above the stated speed limit. A majority of drivers on America’s interstates are engaged in civil disobedience just about all the time. The state troopers could stop any one of them and fine them. But normal practice is to stop only those people who are driving significantly faster than the flow of traffic or driving erratically. The state troopers are forced by circumstances into limiting enforcement of the law… In sports, this enforcement philosophy is called “no harm, no foul.” If a violation of a rule has occurred but it has no effect on the action of the game, the officials ignore it and the game goes on, to the greater enjoyment of both players and spectators.
Murray fa affidamento sul fatto che lo stato non sia in grado di fronteggiare un nugolo di violazioni, non è nemmeno conveniente farlo:  
… The government can throw huge resources into a case against a Microsoft or Morgan Stanley, where the stakes are also huge …
Facciamo il caso di quella che in Italia è l’ Ispettorato del Lavoro:   
… Consider OSHA. By its own estimate, OSHA is responsible for overseeing 8 million worksites around the nation, and it has issued regulations that all of them are supposed to observe. But OSHA’s staff for enforcing all those regulations amounts to about 200 inspectors who actually work for OSHA and another 2,000 who work for state agencies… What are the odds that an OSHA inspector is going to show up at a given workplace that is not inherently hazardous? Close to zero
Lo stesso dicasi per l’agenzia ambientale:  
… Or consider the EPA. In fiscal year 2013, the EPA’s civil enforcement included 18,000 inspections, 1,440 Final Administrative Penalty Orders, and 873 Administrative Compliance Orders.4 In a sense, the number of actual penalty and compliance orders is just the tip of the iceberg. In uncounted other instances, the EPA threatened action for regulatory violations and got compliance just by making the threat…
Cio’ significa che un fondo per la difesa dei disobbedienti è fattibile, non serve accumulare somme esorbitanti. Il fondo (Madison Fund) avrebbe tre funzioni:     
Specifically, the Madison Fund would have three goals: 1. To defend people who are innocent of the regulatory charges against them. 2. To defend people who are technically guilty of violating regulations that should not exist, drawing out that litigation as long as possible, making enforcement of the regulations more expensive to the regulatory agency than they’re worth, and reimbursing fines that are levied. 3. To generate as much publicity as possible, both to raise the public’s awareness of the government’s harassment of people like them, and to bring the pressure of public opinion to bear on elected politicians and staffs of regulatory agencies…
Per istituirlo sarebbe buona cosa affidarsi ai multimiliardari che simpatizzano con le idee liberali, ce ne sono parecchi in america:
The emergence of many billion-dollar-plus private fortunes over the last three decades has enabled the private sector to take on ambitious national or even international tasks… It could get started the way the Tea Party got started, as a popular movement. Money isn’t going to be a problem if the strategy can be shown to be workable…
Sarebbe il caso di trasferire le risorse dalle attività di lobbying a quelle di disubbidienza:  
I propose that professional associations shift some of their money from lobbying to insuring their members against mischief from the regulatory state, and then reflect upon the possible consequences when government is seen as just another insurable hazard, like fires or floods…
Il clima di disubbidienza diffusa e di lotta legale in processi dove il buon senso si schiera facilmente la speranza è che nasca una nuova consapevolezza tesa a influenzare la giurisprudenza costituzionale orientandola verso un principio come “niente danno, niente colpe” che farebbe perdere di valore a gran parte della regolamentazione.
COMMENTO PERSONALE
Charles Murray è tipo da prendere sul serio, già in passato i suoi libri sono stati alla base di riforme politiche epocali (penso alla riforma sul welfare USA) ma questa volta non vedo una facile applicazione del programma qui formulato: forse che la diffusa violazione del limite di velocità ha condotto i politici a desistere adottando per la strada un generico principio del “comportamento pericoloso”? Tutt’altro. Il burocrate lascia correre dove non conviene intervenire ma colpisce duro quando vuole farlo, quando si sente preso in giro (o per fare cassa) e quando colpisce sono lacrime e sangue: un controllore fiscale o previdenziale che ti prende di mira, in pochi giorni puo’ far saltare in aria l’opera di generazioni, la legge è talmente vaga da consentire ogni ricatto. Si parla tanto di “controllori catturati” dai controllati, quasi che il burocrate sia la parte debole, la verità più diffusa è esattamente quella contraria: sono i politici e i controllori che con minacce velate manovrano l’azione delle imprese. Per stare negli USA, chiedetevi come mai nessuna delle grandi assicurazioni sanitarie si è espressa contro la riforma Obama: solo una casuale coincidenza di opinioni? Come mai nessun banchiere critica la regolamentazione finanziaria? Solo una coincidenza di idee? No: se non collabori con la politica e le riforme da lei proposte sei fuori, se non coltivi le tue relazioni sei fuori. Bene, adesso chiedetevi cosa rischiano realmente quei “multimiliardari” che contribuiscono sostanzialmente al “Madison Fund”. Avranno anche delle loro idee ma difficilmente sono meri idealisti, più probabilmente si tratta di persone che alimentano oligopoli intrecciati profondamente con la politica e che la politica puo’ affondare con un decreto legge concepito in una notte: il loro primo cliente è il governo. Il coltello dalla parte del manico ce l’ha la politica, o si combatte sul serio e frontalmente o si cerca il cambiamento per altre vie.

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martedì 27 settembre 2016

Il dovere di non rispettare le leggi

In molti concordano che esista un diritto a non rispettare le leggi ingiuste ma esiste anche un dovere etico?
Del caso si occupa con la solita acribia il filosofo Michael Huemer il quale nel saggio “The Duty to Disregard The Law”  riflette sull’istituto giuridico della “Jury Nullification”, ovvero il diritto della giuria di assolvere un imputato che ha violato una legge ritenuta ingiusta.
Anticipo la sua tesi:
… I argue that, pursuant to the general ethical duty to avoid causing unjust harms to others, jurors are often morally obligated to disregard the law…
Viene ricordato il caso Zenger, un commentatore politico che finì sotto processo per aver duramente criticato sul suo giornale un governatore. La sua colpevolezza venne riconosciuta dalla giuria che ritenne però di non punirlo:
…. The prosecutor had argued that the factual accuracy of Zenger’s allegations was irrelevant to the charge of libel; indeed, it was worse to publish accurate criticisms of public officials than false ones, because accurate criticisms were more likely to undermine public confidence in the government. The judge instructed the jury that the prosecutor was correct as to the law: British law did not recognize truth as a defense to a charge of libel. Therefore, the judge all but ordered the jury to find the defendant guilty. But the jury defied the judge and the law and returned a verdict of not guilty. Zenger was freed, and the American tradition of freedom of the press was born… jury chooses to disregard the law and vote on the basis of their conscience. Sometimes, the jury considers the law itself unjust
Per un europeo la cosa è sorprendente poiché da noi ai giudici viene chiesto di applicare le leggi vigenti e non di “fare giustizia”.
Oltretutto il caso Zenger vantava precedenti:
… Before the American Civil War, northern juries frequently voted to acquit defendants who were prosecuted for assisting runaway slaves. During the Prohibition era, juries frequently acquitted defendants for alcohol crimes. More recently, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was acquitted three times of charges of assisted suicide
Diamo allora una definizione di “Jury Nullification”:
…  The kind of jury nullification with which I am concerned occurs when a defendant is prosecuted for an act that was illegal but morally blameless. Almost everyone admits that there are such acts…
Situazioni del genere esistono, ciascuno lo ammette, basta pensare ai cittadini tedeschi che nascondevano gli ebrei, o a chi illegalmente aiutava gli schiavi in fuga o a chi stracciava le cartoline di chiamata alle armi per la guerra in Vietman.
Tuttavia, anche nel mondo anglosassone la “Jury Nullification” è oggi un istituto in discredito presso i giuristi, senonché gli argomenti avanzati non sembrano stringenti.
… Philosophers attempting to defend a general duty to obey the law have found the task extremely difficult, and the most influential traditional account of this duty, the social contract theory, is now widely recognized as untenable…

Anche chi considera doveroso obbedire alla legge sostiene che questo dovere esiste fino a prova contraria:
… even those who defend the notion of a general duty to obey the law defend only a prima facie duty, and not one that appears extremely strong. The duty to obey the law has been said, for example, to arise out of an obligation to avoid free riding, to treat other citizens as equals, or to promote just institutions in one’s society…
Huemer propone l’analogia dell’amico gay e del dovere di dire la verità:
… Imagine that you are walking down a public street with a flamboyantly-dressed friend, when you are accosted by a gang of gaybashing hoodlums. The leader of the gang asks you whether your friend is gay. You have three alternatives: you may answer yes, refuse to answer, or answer no. You are convinced that either of the first two choices will result in a beating for your friend. However, you also know that your friend is in fact gay. Therefore, how should you respond? This is hardly an ethical dilemma. Clearly, you should answer no… The case illustrates a simple and uncontroversial ethical principle: it is prima facie wrong to cause another person to suffer serious undeserved harms… The duty to avoid contributing to serious, unjust harms may perhaps be overridden in extreme cases, but it is not easily overridden…
Una sintesi dell’argomento per il dovere di non rispettare la legge ingiusta:
… there is a simple and obvious argument for jury nullification: 1. It is prima facie wrong to cause unjust harm to others. 2. To convict a defendant for a morally blameless violation of law is to cause unjust harm to that defendant, for: a. To convict a defendant is to cause the defendant to be punished. b. One does not deserve punishment for a morally blameless act. c. Undeserved punishment is an unjust harm. 3. Therefore, it is prima facie wrong to convict a defendant for a morally blameless violation of law. This argument establishes not only an entitlement but a duty of jury nullification in cases of blameless law-violations…
E se si disubbidisce dopo aver giurato di ubbidire?
Ci sono alcuni casi in cui è doveroso violare le proprie promesse:
… To begin with, it is normally permissible to break a promise when necessary to prevent serious and undeserved harms to another person… suppose you have promised to pick a friend up from the airport, but on the way, you encounter an injured accident victim in need of medical assistance. It would be permissible, if not obligatory, to assist the accident victim,
In secondo luogo:
… a promise prompted by a threat of unjust coercion is typically not ethically binding. 10 If a gunman threatens to shoot you unless you promise to pay him $ 1,000, that promise will have no moral force….
In terzo luogo:
… even when a promise is initially valid, it is permissible to break the promise if doing so is necessary to forestall a threat of unjust harm from the person to whom the promise was made… suppose I have voluntarily promised to lend you my rifle next weekend. Before the week-end arrives, you credibly inform me that you intend to use the rifle to murder several people…
Si tratta di tre casi tutti presenti nella fattispecie in oggetto.
Alcuni contestano la disubbidienza perché toglierebbe valore alle leggi in generale creando un’incertezza diffusa:
The most common charge against jury nullification is that the practice is “lawless” or violates “the rule of law.”… Jury nullification decreases the predictability of trial outcomes, and it results in some defendants being treated unequally
Non è semplice comprendere la ratio di questa contestazione:
… When a juror is faced with a defendant prosecuted for blameless lawbreaking, it is very difficult to sympathize with the idea that the juror should vote to inflict unjust harm on this individual in order to ensure uniformity… it is absurd to prefer that all members of some group suffer severe and unjust harms rather than that only some do, merely on the grounds that the uniform imposition of injustice is more predictable or egalitarian than nonuniform injustice….
Basta un’analogia ben scelta per mostrare come la contestazione non stia in piedi:
… Suppose you know from recent newspaper reports that several gay people have already been beaten by homophobic hoodlums. When you encounter the gaybashing gang, should you instruct the gang to beat your friend, so as to ensure uniformity of treatment?…
Bisogna anche accordarsi sulla reale funzione del processo:
… The function of a criminal trial is to do justice by that defendant– that is, to punish the defendant in the case at hand if and only if he has done something that deserves punishment…
Anche qui giova ricorrere ad un’analogia icastica:
… suppose you also believe that, for whatever reason, most other juries, in similar circumstances, would vote to convict the defendant. No one would argue that in such a situation, you should vote to convict the apparently innocent defendant so as to ensure greater predictability or uniformity in the criminal justice system as a whole…
Alcuni si preoccupano del fatto che disubbidire alla legge si presti ad abusi. La storia legittima questa preoccupazione:
… During America’s more racist past, southern juries, out of sympathy for the defendants, sometimes voted to acquit those guilty of hate crimes…
Basta un’analogia per risolvere il problema etico sottostante:
… Consider again the example of the gang of hoodlums. Suppose that you are just about to lie to the gang, when it occurs to you that many people have lied for bad reasons. In fact, surely there have been more cases of corrupt lying in human history than there have of morally justified lying…
Il fatto che ci siano stati abusi non ci autorizza a fare il male.
Altri temono che legittimare la “jury nullification” che assolve sdoganerebbe la “jury nullification” che condanna (magari per antipatia):
… A closely related objection to nullification holds that, if juries may nullify the law to the benefit of the defendant, they may also nullify the law to the detriment of the defendant– for instance, a jury may decide to convict a defendant because of personal antipathy
Ma questa obiezione è priva di logica:
… If one may lie to save a friend from unjust violence, then one may also lie to defraud innocent people of their savings…
Alcuni critici sostengono l’esistenza di vie alternative alla disubbidienza:
… Some critics, while acknowledging that unjust laws exist, argue that the proper remedy is to change the law
L’obiezione è debole: innanzitutto le due vie sono compatibili:
… the recommendation of attempting to change the law through political activism is a non sequitur, since political activism and jury nullification are mutually compatible
Dopodiché, l’alternativa proposta è ostica a dir poco:
… an individual jury member’s probability of successfully changing public policy is approximately zero
Per finire, il rimedio proposto è tardivo:
… even if an individual juror had the option of repealing the law, that repeal would come too late for the particular defendant…
Ci sono critici che battono sulla natura non democratica del giudice che disubbidisce alla legge. Purtroppo, non è detto che un organismo democratico rappresenti le idee di chi lo ha eletto:
… the naive assumption that legislation invariably represents shared values simply in virtue of the existence of democratic elections ignores the extensive literature in public choice theory
Inoltre, non è nemmeno detto che una rappresentanza fedele sia un bene:
… Second, even when the law reflects public opinion in general, the great mass of the public is ignorant of the specifics of any given criminal case…
E poi:
… Third, the requirement of unanimity among twelve individuals all familiar with the facts of a given case provides a far more rigorous check against unjust punishments than a simple principle of majority rule…
Infine, c’è l’argomento più importante: l’ingiusto non diventa giusto per effetto di un parere maggioritario.
… majority will does not make an unjust act just. The historical examples of grave injustices carried out with the imprimatur of the majority are too well-known to require enumeration here… The fact that juries in general may be unreliable at determining what is just, if indeed they are, is likewise irrelevant. What is relevant to the ethical duty of the individual juror is whether this defendant has done wrong for which he deserves to be punished…
Dopo aver affrontato la questione etica, due parole su quella politica:
… I have focused herein on the question of individual ethics, setting aside the political question of to what extent the state ought to encourage or discourage jury nullification. In closing, I want to briefly remark on that political question. It seems to me that, once we recognize the moral duty in certain cases to disregard the law, it is very difficult to maintain that public institutions ought to officially oppose jury nullification….
Uscendo dal caso specifico della “Jury Nullification” ci si potrebbe porre la domanda su come la disubbidienza debba essere esercitata dal cittadino qualsiasi. Conosciamo la versione di Martin Luther King: chi disubbidisce deve farlo apertamente sopportandone le conseguenze:
… One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law…
La visione di King sembra deficitaria: perché mai per evitare un’ingiustizia (l’applicazione di una legge ingiusta) dovremmo consentirne un’altra (la punizione del violatore)?
… If the law is unjust, doesn't consenting to punishment simplycompound the injustice?…
Forse King ha paura degli abusi: se sdoganiamo la violazione delle leggi verranno violate anche le leggi in realtà giuste. Chiedendo che il violatore si sottoponga a punizione avremo la garanzia di una riflessione approfondita prima di procedere.
Ma questa osservazione è lacunosa:
… it neglects a simple alternative to promoting the Noble Lie that evading or defying unjust laws is wrong.  Namely: Promoting the Noble Truth that people should painstakingly investigate the justice of a law before breaking it…
Oltretutto:
… this story neglects the very existence of moderately virtuous people who are willing to resist unjust laws if and only if the personal cost is low. If such people feel free to evade or defy unjust laws, they'll break them, making the world more just.  However, if they don't feel free to evade or defy unjust laws, they'll obey them, preserving the injustice of the status quo…
COMMENTO PERSONALE
Quando è lecito disobbedire alla legge? Quando è doveroso? In tema mi sembra di capire ci siano tre posizioni: 1) rispettare la legge è un dovere etico forte 2) rispettare la legge è un dovere etico debole e 3) non esiste alcun collegamento tra la legge e i nostri doveri etici. La prima posizione non si accorda con i fatti: noi tutti violiamo la legge cento volte al giorno (dai semafori ai limiti di velocità) senza sentirci eticamente in colpa. La seconda è più in linea con i fatti. La terza è la più rigorosa da un punto di vista filosofico.
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