Those people stood and face the charges placed against them (Mandela) until such a time as they were corrected or made statement that man must do the same under his Government (Washington, whose argument was that the British government offered no representation and so was not his government and so their laws did not apply to him). Regardless this still leaves you in the same class as anarchists, terrorists, authoritarian dictators (who do not believe they should have to follow the laws of society) and rapists. This is the problem with using guilt by association, it does not have any bearing on the value or quality of your argument.
Aside from my point of this is Britain and so any law passed is still subject to common law and thus must be passed by the people unless dealing with a previously unenforced field of law (e.g. when music piracy online first appeared and there was not substantial applicable common law).
However my point is your defence for this post-facto determination of guilt or innocence based not upon whether law was broken but on whether what was done was wrong is open to mass abuse. It also leaves all manner of opening for people to commit crimes because their morals do not line up with societies, which is in fact the reason law exists. If you agree that laws do not need to be assessed every time but can be based upon prior determination of right and wrong then that is British common law and if it is law then a jury of your peers has already determined that performing that act is morally unacceptable. If you do not then no law exists until after it has been tested and there is no restriction on a persons actions save whether a jury determines if what he does is acceptable. No country on earth practices a system that allows a man to perform any act he chooses and then tells him if it was wrong. That is an awful idea, how wrong would that be? Seriously?
Actually the law is a tool to an end. If you maintain the law as a whole it has meaning.If the law need only be followed if you believe in it then it has no meaning save to restrict those good enough that they would not require it in the first instance. The law acts to curtail all of society into a semblance of order, it does this through ephemeral promise. break it and suffer. And only in keeping this promise does it hold any worth.
I do not argue that my system is best, but in a fair society with freedom of speech and the power for the majority to control the law and elect their government it is a fair system and the best system.
To use the words of Barlow “Governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed.” if they “have neither solicited nor received” said consent then they are not your government they are your captor and as such you have no social contract with them.
I will not get into an argument based on reductio ad absurdium. This does not apply in any reasonable discussion nor within the parameters of this discussion.
Lastly while a person may believe the punishment is unfair when they break a law they are part of a social contract saying that they are now liable to face the punishment, If they break it knowing the breaking of that law incurs that penalty they must accept that they have responsibility in cause and effect. Now in the event that they are put in a position where not breaking the law leads to suffering then they were driven to break it. In the UK we have a process of mitigating circumstances. These do not make the crime acceptable but do allow for leniency in punishment. (to the point a token gesture, such as taking a boy out of class but still teaching him the full day and then returning him to class the following school day). However the crime is not just the act, it is the act of breaking a law also (see resisting arrest when the crime you were being arrested for was one for which you were not guilty).
