Actually, Charles, the empirical evidence is that people do obey the law because it's the law,
^^^^^^ CB: That would be "some", not "the" evidence, ONE study. I 've got lots of evidence of people obeying the law because they fear adverse consequences.
A big indirect piece of evidence of disrepect for the procedures is the fact that "Half" of the people don't vote. That tells you something about their respect for the law passing procedure. They don't vote for the lawmakers.
Yes, they obey the law because it's the law, and everybody knows what can happen to you if you don't obey the law.
What about all the people who break the law ? Do they suddenly lose their great respect for the procedures ? What percentage of the population break laws ? 100% ? And no you won't be able to find out how many people break the law from phone interviews. They aren't going to tell you. To be complete, studies would have to interview people and ask them why they broke the law when they broke it.
The critical type of interview question would have to be to pose a conflict between the law and something a person wants to do and believes they should be able to do. Would that person obey the law if they didn't fear getting in trouble if they didn't obey the law ? And they are not going to be honest in answering this to a stranger on the telephone.
Expressions of respect for the law in the abstract are not cogent.
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and especially if it is passed by procedures they find acceptable:
^^^^^ CB: Well, that's a really weak statement of support for the exact claim you are making regarding people obeying because of good passing procedures.
I'm suspicious of the bias that people have to say _publically_ they obey out of respect rather than fear for the law. I doubt the study was able to take account for the fact that a person is likely to tell a phone interviewer the goodie two shoes answer. Few people are going to tell a strange interviewer "I have no or little respect for the government lawpassing machine ".
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