On Jan 3, 2014 5:34 AM, "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:
At 04:38 PM 12/31/2013, James A. Donald wrote:
In practice, it is pretty obvious that most practitioners of civil disobedience believe they are above the law, that they usually *are* above the law, and that in particular Swartz believed he was above the law, and was shocked to find that he was not.
On 2014-01-03 11:53, Ulex Europae wrote:
You seem to be laboring under a pernicious misapprehension: that there is a legitimate mandate to obey laws that are unconstitutional and/or unjust. There is a mandate, but it is just as illegitimate as the unconstitutional or the unjust law.
If someone was to hide a laptop in one of my cupboards, to steal such large amounts of information from my home network as to disrupt its functioning, I would take a sledgehammer to his laptop, and when he showed up to collect his laptop, a sledgehammer to him.
Swartz committed a crime against people more powerful than he was, incorrectly thinking he was more powerful than they.
Just who did he commit the crime against, both MIT and JSTOR wanted prosecution dropped. In your example "your house" represents both MIT and JSTOR. The rest of your argument makes me think your either a deciple of Authority or here to troll, or both.