-— As long as “whatever it is” gets stamped with “rule of law,” it’s acceptable? Is that the standard? -—
Tough question. We can’t pick and choose which laws to obey, otherwise we have anarchy. OTOH, if a law mandates an intrinsic evil, we must disobey it.
Did Rosa Parks violation of the law create anarchy? Gandhi, anarchy? And Gandhi was a radical application of civil disobedience, about as radical as it gets.
I think some amount of friction between "law" and "civil disobedience" is inevitable, all the time. But the more that government with its law and regulation expands, and in our case the feds have expanded wildly outside of its constitutional boundary, the more opportunity for friction.
See too, states in open violation of federal pot laws. Anarchy?
I'd like to hear some political leaders offer up a vision of a smaller federal government, with some particulars, spiced up with some red meat rhetoric that SCOTUS is wrong, the fed laws are NOT constitutional, and are VOID, but we'll follow them out of a sense to keep good order until the legal errors can be rectified.
What we have been hearing is something along the lines of the law is so perfect that it has to be followed until it gets straightened out by a legislature or a court. Like it is imperative, because if we don't, well, the whole edifice crumbles. How about the law show a bit less arrogance, and a little more humility; and how about poking a stick in the eye of the law by refusing to follow it, where such action does not result in harm.