If Janet Reno defied the 11th circuit court to get Elian, why couldn't Jeb do that same.

But sometimes there are exceptions where its not right

This is the question I have too. I'd like to hear others' comments. After all, FR's strength is that "come, let us reason together" approach to thorny issues isn't it?

So I ask....when, or under what circumstances would it be appropriate to disobey the law? Certainly our history has had ample evidence of the 'rightness' of such lawless action; refusing to sit at the back of a bus, transporting &/or harboring fugitive slaves, a tea party...things like that. Could this not have been one of those times?

I can see your point, but just say Jeb did go in. Hundreds of folks in the hospice, many outside. How many of those folks would've been hurt in the process? Jeb had to weigh that possibility also. I'm not a lawyer, I don't even play one on tv. But I feel Jeb tried everything he possibly could have to save Terri, and at the same time protect all the others at the Hospice.

If you use that bunch as the template for how government officials are supposed to act, then you are pushing for rule by men [or in Reno's case, men want to bes] and not rule by law.

In this case the "rule of men" was instituted by those black-robed judges who assumed that "law" meant "their personal pronouncements."

I understand those points too. Perhaps (the possibility of)harm to others could have been avoided if he had gone in there with enough force to clear the way?

I very much appreciate your response, because it lays bare the essential disagreement we've been having here at FR -(everyone's noticed the snippiness - and I'm just another frustrated keyboard cowboy too - it's the sense of sad helplessness that has fueled the anger at the very public, and brazen murder of a helpless innocent life, so I share in it and understand it)- so you know there are those who feel that this just wasn't one of the times that it (civil disobedience) could've been effectively accomplished, and others....

I include myself in this group - who feel that it should've been done, Terri should have been saved. That's all. I understand your side, and don't think you're a coward, or cynic, or anything like that for seeing it the way you do. If anything, I'm a coward for just talking about it, and not going on down there to git 'er dun. (Going to jail wouldn't have helped her). I think most of us are just hurting about the whole rotten thing.

PS - go here and paste your tagline to SaltyJoe!

Lawlessness is not advocated here on FR.

I don't think anyone is advocating law breaking. But there are tens of thousands of laws in the land, and many people here have cited many which Jeb et al, could have used to save Terry.

Clinton and Reno interpreted the law to their liking, shopped for a judge to give them a warrant, and then seized Elian. Later on the 11th Circuit which they earlier defied, supported his deportation.

I'm not aiming this message to you in particular, your comment was at a convenient point in the thread for response.

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