In your point of view, if they pass a law allowing them to do so (something powerful governments have little trouble doing), their action is also acceptable. So, what’s your point? What’s to stop governments from doing that under a non-authoritarian system? Well, primarily, whether the law allows it or not, we generally consider arresting people for a crime and holding them indefinitely to be unjust in and of itself, and even if we’re in a temporary aberration to that trend, we generally will in the future.
The law is a tool, not an end. If the tool leads to bad results for society, not using it is a good. If a law is revealed to be stupid when broken, changing the law and not punishing the offender is the right move. It might take a while, but it’s still the right move.
Not to Godwin the thread (if we haven’t already with 'shaven heads are for neo-Nazis), but there’s the classic ethics/morality example of a Nazi Germany type situation: Harboring Jews is against the law. If you know the location of a Jewish family, who will surely be executed if they get found, and you report them just because it’s the law, you’re a horrible human being. If you don’t report them, and somebody decides to punish you for it, they are horrible human beings. If they found out years later that you didn’t report some Jews, after the Nazis are reviled for what they did, and instead of lauding you as a hero, they say, “Yeah, well, that’s nice and all, but, you broke the law, so, we have to punish you for the whole harboring Jews thing,” then they’re not just horrible, they’re deeply, deeply stupid.
I’m sorry, I must have missed the history lesson where Washington went back to England and said, 'Yeah, I thought the war for independence was a good thing and all, but, technically I committed treason against you guys, so… death penalty please!" And the part of history where, after being sentenced to life imprisonment by the laws of the time, Nelson Mandela was released and the laws he was charged under removed, he said, “No, no, please, I can’t go, my life’s not over yet, and rules are rules, even if they’ve since changed.”
Have cites for that? Otherwise, I’m going to have to leave you alone in the cheering section of authoritarian dictators without being able to claim the support of people like Washington and Mandela.
