Law & Justice

I pulled this quote out of the article on page 109 because I felt this statement summed up and made the whole article: "Are we not more obligated to achieve justice than to obey the law? The law may serve justice, as when it forbids rape and murder or requires a school to admit all students regardless of race or nationality. But when it sends young men to war, when it protects the rich and punishes the poor, then law and justice are opposed to one another. In that case, where is our greater obligation: to law or to justice?" This quote to me, tells me what Zinn is saying. He is saying that we can either achieve justice or obey the law, but not both. There are so many different ways to go around this statement espcially if people start throwing in different scenerios like the example above. I don't believe there is anyway to come to a peace with law and justice together. He describes in his piece that from the democratic theory, law is only a means. He also describes how obedience and disobedience is an attachment-like to the law and thinks that disobedience could possibly lead to anarchy. I think he describes a great example from history. Zenn questions his readers about the black movement in the South and if that lead to anarchy. As a result, after all the chaos, the country became stronger and "a healthy reconstitution of the social order toward greater justice."