The quote from Thomas Jefferson
says that a good citizen will follow the written laws of the governing body to
the letter. No matter what, the written
laws should be followed if one wants to be a good citizen. Although, Plato’s quote says that if you are
a good person, and therefore a good citizen, you do not need written law to tell
you how to act responsibly, and if you are a bad person, will find a way around
the laws. The contradictories of these
two quotes applied to the recent episode of “Law and Order: Special Victims
Unit” are evident and makes the viewer ask many questions.
If Thomas
Jefferson watched the same episode that the class did, he would think that the
mother of the rapist is not a good person, because she did not follow the law
when she shot the radio host. And by
that reasoning, the radio show host would be considered a good person by
Jefferson because he followed the law. He
was just doing his job- hosting his show and making a living by voicing his opinions. However, that logic is questionable since the
DJ was extremely derogatory towards women, and anyone who disagrees with him
for that matter. He never told anyone to commit a crime for him, and just
because his show is on the air does not mean that a person has to listen. That being said, does Jefferson mean to say
that the character of a person has nothing to do with if a person is good or
bad? Is he classifying people as “good”
of “bad” by whether or not they follow the written law? The radio show host has
questionable morals, but he never broke the law. That would make him a “good” person, according
to Jefferson. But, if you shoot someone
who is invading your house, does that make you a bad person because you acted
in self-defense and broke the law? Granted,
most good citizens do value the law, and most bad citizens do not. But, does breaking the law once make you a
bad person? Does Jefferson believe in
giving someone a second chance? By the
information in this quote, the answer would seem to be no.
To the
contrary, Plato believed that a good person does not need written laws to tell
them how to act and bad people will find a way around the laws, regardless of
their consequences. Plato’s logic labels
good and bad people on the morals they possess as opposed to whether or not
they follow written laws. This logic
would make the radio show host in this episode a bad person since he never
explicitly broke the law, but found a way to demoralize women and appreciate
the rape of a woman without getting in any trouble. Although, acting responsibly could
potentially break the laws, going back to the intruder example, Plato would not
consider a person “bad” if he or she broke the law and just because someone
followed the laws doesn’t mean they are a good person. Plato’s logic would point more in the
direction of looking at the situation as opposed to just if a law was broken.
All in
all, these quotes point in two opposite directions. One is extreme, if you do not follow written
laws, you are bad. The other is based more on whether or not you act responsibly
regardless of the written law. However,
both logics point to the mother in the “Law and Order” episode as being a bad
person. She knowingly broke the law and
tried to turn it into a publicity stunt.
But because of how she broke the law, some would argue she was looking
out for the children, her peers did not all agree that her actions made her a
bad person. Her shooting of the radio
host brought the question to light, if you attempt to kill a person who is a
bad influence on the children of the nation, what is more important: Protecting
our laws or protecting our children?
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