Dare I say that this is argumentum ad antiquitatum?
You are free to say that but I prefer English.
I've read quite a bit of "natural law" from the 1700s, and the common thinking of the natural law philosophers is that the laws of nature and of nature's God can be discovered by clear thinking and some foundational principles.
I do not get law from philosophers who speak of their opinion on the way things ought to be. The law is whatever the government says it is. Whether it is stupid or not does not matter. A philosopher's opinion about how the law ought to be does not change how the law actually is.
Ah. You made a funny. For awhile there I wasn't sure if you had a sense of humor. :)
I do not get law from philosophers who speak of their opinion on the way things ought to be.
Well believe it or not, *THAT* is how they acquired the idea that they could throw off their allegiance to the king. Without that philosophizing, we don't become independent.
The law is whatever the government says it is.
The founders rejected the claim that the King could just make up a law and they would have to obey it. We are back to that philosophizing.
Whether it is stupid or not does not matter.
Disagree. People have an instinct for what justice is, and when we had laws that made some people the lifetime servants of other people, people knew this was wrong and worked to change it.
In our system, the government obeys the people, not the other way around.