I think you may have misread me, otherwise I'm not sure where you're coming from. Isn't it reasonable to conclude that the Russian cash restrictions they mention are laws? The laws they are advocating ignoring in good spirit?
The operative term in their sentence is not "feel bad," it's "violate," and prisons are indeed full of people who do not feel bad about violating laws.
You abstractly argue that bad things follow from bad things. Whether that concretely applies in this specific instance or not is only implied. Of course that leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
Whether the laws in question are just or whether the culprits in Cyprus will be brought to their punishment in prison is open. That's what I mean, you didn't understand.
I gave my only argument, trying to mediate between the two opinions, trying to consolidate them. I hoped that was obvious. I am also torn between these two extremes, and avoided to build a line of arguments.
My point was simply whether a population ignoring laws they don't like qualifies as a functioning society. Prison is simply a logical result of ignoring laws. Whether that actually happens, and whether it happens for the reasons GP outlined, indeed remains to be seen.
> My point was simply whether a population ignoring laws they don't like qualifies as a functioning society
Even if it doesn't the, the implied opposite doesn't logically follow.
Prison is not a good proof of the legality of anything. Prison is terrorism when it is punishment, not mere exclusion from society. And when it is, then the need to exclude is a much more basic principle to argue about. Which the OP hardly did, so why did you try? Taking the bait pretty much. Arguing the law itself would have been on topic.
The definition of a functioning society is far out of scope here, anyhow.
The operative term in their sentence is not "feel bad," it's "violate," and prisons are indeed full of people who do not feel bad about violating laws.
Do I misunderstand you?