But regardless of all this Dak, the fact remains that making the unequivocal claim that legal ramifications or consequences aren't at all what keep people from breaking the law is false; it's quite clear that there are people who abide by the law specifically because it is the law. Now, perhaps we can say people don't abide by the law because of some inherent truth, but rather because they fear punishment.
"Laws do not stop criminals" is a somewhat paradoxical statement to make. People are not always-already criminals; they only become criminals once they've broken a law ("criminal" only possesses meaning as it's structurally opposed to "law"). I also agree that laws do not always stop people from breaking them; but the argument could be made that they have some dissuasive effect. I believe that Michel Foucault successfully proved that in a society of surveillance and strict consequences, individuals do in fact abide by the law if they feel transgressions might warrant some punishment.
I don't think the existence of a law itself stops anyone. Of course, desiring to avoid negative consequences as a result of breaking said law could.
There is, of course, a disparity in the legitimacy of laws and thusly their consequences. We do not consider a jay walker a "criminal", yet the serial jaywalker has broken the law, and repeatedly, as has the serial killer. The jay walking law does not stop the jaywalker as the homicide laws do not stop the serial killer. The "degree" of their criminality is irrelevant.
The "always-ready" criminal status of people is based more on the environment of law (as in , more laws equals more criminals) around them than on any individual criteria.
Lastly, so that we don't lose sight of our own claims, I agree with everything you say about the illusion of freedom under a statist regime. What I think we disagree on is the nature of the illusion. For instance, I believe it's pointless to try and appeal to the lower classes of the Chinese citizenry with the Western value of freedom (i.e. "Don't you see how oppressed you are, throw down your chains, embrace the enlightening truth of democracy" etc.); I believe that both our society and Chinese society suffer from arbitrary and harmful political inhibitions, but I don't think you can claim that an objective, idealistic notion of liberty will function successfully in both societies.
I don't see democracy as any more or less free than a dictatorship, so this is a poor direction to take the discussion as far as I am concerned.
The reason freedom and liberty mean so much to us is not because human beings have some innate notion of freedom, or inkling or kernel of it as an objective truth. We have a notion of freedom that has been nurtured by centuries of philosophical pondering and questioning, and has in turn been malformed and misshapen by media institutions and popular culture. These are the reasons freedom exists as a value for us, in the way it does.
While we may be able to wax eloquent about the idea and ideals surrounding freedom, thanks to a history of philosophers, it was not necessary for the most uneducated slave throughout history to understand the finer points of why he would prefer to be free instead of working for the master.
Trying to use these same arguments to convince cultures that differ greatly is pointless because they will be steeped in their own traditions. The history of great thinkers does not comprise a unified lineage that leads us back to a pristine notion of truth; they merely comprise a tradition of thought.
I agree, to some degree. I hold a firm belief that it is not possible to convince the overwhelming majority of people of anything. You must ask questions that sow the seeds of doubt, that push them to ask more questions themselves.
Or, we could use the US tactic and bomb and blunder our way into setting up hardline religious states, while trumpeting the spread of "democracy".
