Is What Has Been Made Law Legitimate?

Think of all the ridiculous laws we suffer under today. Many have no purpose but to advance the electoral interests of the legislators. They are not prudently evaluated before binding us; they are made to sanction what is unjust and make it appear sacred to those of a certain conscience. We put up with these bogus laws and regulations (so voluminous as to overwhelm) because they are the law, not because they are appropriate, needed, right, or just. We fear the consequences of violating or objecting to the law, rather than the consequences of an unjust law. Yet the consequences of an ill-conceived or unjust law are much graver than those of violating a law.

Consider the words of a wise French economist, statesman, and author: "No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality condradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult to choose between them. ...

There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything
lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many
persons have erroneously held that things are 'just' because the
law makes them so." —Frederic Bastiat - June 1850

A perilous human tendancy that serves only to encourage the thoughtless opportunists among our legislators.