From: "Luke Weiger"
Well, one of his claims (which you don't seem to agree with) is that sometimes judges ought to enforce immoral laws. I happen to agree.
^^^^^^ CB: This is the way I would paraphrase what you say here: "Sometimes it is moral for judges to enforce immoral laws . " To me "ought" is a synonym for designating what is "moral".
I'm not really commenting on what the judges "ought" do. Say a judge refused to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. The next higher court would have just overturned the decision. What a particular judge thought doesn't matter does it ?
I mean if the judge could prevail ( which sometimes they can because the other party can't appeal for some reason),then I would say the judge ought to go against the bad law. So, if a trial court judge in the ante-bellum era had a fugitive slave brought before him (sic) and, the judge refused to enforce the fugitive slave law, and the agent of the slave's master or the master himself was unable to appeal the judge's decision, and the slave was not returned to the master, I would say that would be meet and right, great,honky dory.
Do you and Justin disagree ?
Bad laws should not be enforced if the judge can get away with it. You can quote me on that.