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“What Is Moral But Illegal?”: 25 People Are Sharing Some Of The Dumbest Laws Around The World
Article created by: Justinas Keturka
We’ve all been faced with a moral dilemma before. Should you be honest with your partner when you know something that will hurt them? Maybe in college your best friend asked you to help them cheat while they were in danger of failing a class and having their scholarship revoked. Perhaps you caught a colleague stealing, but if you reported it, he would get fired and would be unable to pay his rent. Unfortunately, life is full of difficult decisions, and ethics are not black and white. What tends to be a little clearer is what is against the law, regardless of our personal feelings. 3 days ago, Reddit user Dr_vinci reached out to Ask Reddit and posed the question, “What is moral but illegal?” Readers have since flooded the responses with questionable laws that seem to contradict many people’s moral compasses. Below, you can read some of the answers, as well as an interview with Dr_vinci, and decide if you think these laws are justified or not. Then if you’d like to continue pondering the morality of certain laws, check out this Bored Panda piece next.
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#2
Imagine going to war at 18 for 2 and a half years and you come back home, but still can’t go get a beer.
#3
In Russia now: talking about PEACE and STOPPING WAR. Lots of examples when people are getting arrested because it counts as "justification of Nazism" or "humiliation of russian army and special operation". Savage.
#4
Pirating content that has been abandoned and can't even be purchased any more. E.g. an out of print book, or a game that isn't sold anymore.
#5
Collecting rain water in my state.
Mike Goslin 6 months ago
What state is that? I know many states have rules and limitations, but I was not aware of any state that outright forbid it.
#6
In many countries speaking out against the malicious and corrupt actions of the government would certainly fall under the category of moral but illegal.
#7
In Japan? Recycling someone's garbage without permission. Touching their garbage at all. You could use a discarded couch and save it from the garbage dump, but be arrested for it.
#9
In Germany: putting your empty beer bottle next to the trash can in cities instead of into the trash can. It's in principle littering, but it makes it so bottle collectors don't have to crawl through the trash (there is a deposit on the bottles).
#10
Where I live, euthanasia. Having had to watch a relative waste away as they could no longer eat properly, had no clue who they were or who anyone else was, and was just so scared…how is making them live or wait until they starve/dehydrate the moral choice?
#11
In many countries, being LGBT it's illegal. Loving someone or being yourself is against the law.
#12
Grabbing thrown out food from a groceries shop's dumpster.
Mike Goslin 6 months ago
That's a tricky one. More people died from tainted dumpster food than from starvation. So is it really immoral or are you protecting desperate people from making a foolish mistake?
#15
Grabbing thrown out clothes from clothing stores/furniture/appliances, brand new stuff that just didn’t sell or was out of season. Truly wasteful and probably a terrible. My mom used to drive behind strip malls with me as a kid and we’d find all sorts of good stuff, Pier 1 Imports used to have some good stuff, so did Burlington Coat Factory.
#16
You can be fined 135 € for giving food to (non-ukrainian) refugees in Calais, France.
The irony is that the fine for giving food to pigeons in the same city is ~100 €.
#19
As an American doctor who takes Medicare, I am not allowed to waive fees for procedures or charge a patient less than what our officially set rates are, even if they don’t have insurance. I’m also not allowed to ask a doctor from a different practice what a certain insurance company pays them for a service, as this has been deemed “anti-trust.”
#20
Donating unsold/uneaten food to shelters at the end of the day at a fast food joint i.e. the donuts at dunkin, we’d have to throw them out every night.
#22
Lemonade stands. Your child's lemonade stand can teach them valuable lessons and are pretty harmless but can be shutdown without permit and department of health inspections.
#23
Sharing medication. I understand that it can be dangerous in some circumstances. But, for example, I work in childcare, and if a child was dying of an asthma attack, I wouldn't be allowed to share my inhaler to potentially save their life. Most people with asthma use the exact same medication, and I don't think a couple of pumps of inhaler would endanger anyone unless they're severely allergic. If I was ever actually in that situation, I think I'd struggle not to share mine. Having the life-saving medication right there and not being allowed to use it seems crazy to me.
#24
In my state, KY, it is illegal to marry the same person 3 times. So I would say that would qualify as moral but illegal.
#25
Donating blood as a gay man.
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