What's worse: breaking the law with good intentions or wrongdoing that operates within the law?

Doing the right thing is better.

As for why, I just strongly believe in always doing the right thing.

This is not a hypothetical question for me. I am part of a community that includes undocumented immigrants. I have broken the law to help to protect them (which in my opinion is the morally right thing to do).

I hope I always live up to this.

If Trump gets a second term I have been told he is going declare all who have helped a immigrant enemies of the state and have all of us shot. Won't that make CJ, Ollie and George happy as hell?

I am opposed to harming progressives. Reeducation in labor camps is the best way to deal with progressives.

That's what China does with their progressives.

What happens if you find out someone you helped was trafficking drugs or otherwise abusing your kindness as a means to more sinister ends?

You could end up being held liable as an accessory to some crime.

On the one hand, you could be thinking about WWII and the holocaust and how wrong it is to mistreat non-citizens due to nationalism, but then you could find out people are exploiting your good will to get away with crimes and/or other abuses of the very people you are trying to protect from nationalism.

I am not saying or implying there is an easy answer; only that situations can turn out to be messier ethically/morally than you at first imagine them to be.

I always liked this saying:

"Wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it Right is right even if no one is doing it"

If you are talking strictly about ethics then yes breaking the law may be the right thing. Maybe the law is wrong. And even more importantly - even if something is within in the law does not make it ethically right. It just means you will not be doing something illegal.

A better way though may be to work to change the law if at all possible - it would depend on the situation - if it does not need immediate attention where it is harmful or harmful to particular individuals - then yes try to change the law and do it lawfully as well as ethically.

Now on the flip side - ethics can vary depending on people's values - however, there are certain things that I would think the majority can agree on - so this is what can cause one person to think they were "right" in breaking the law, whereas someone else could think they are "wrong."

And for the first item - think Rosa Parks. She broke the law and look where she stands now in our history books - and I am sure we can find many examples. The one thing though in this regard - if you need to break the law for the better good - do not break other ethics in order to do so. So In this example Rosa did not go over and physically hurt someone to get her seat.

I try to live a balanced life.

There are a number of things that are legal that I choose not to do. For example smoking cigarettes and owning a handgun.

I figure that there should be an equal number of things that are illegal that I choose to do. I am almost certainly behind on this count.

I think 'laws' need to be broken - Mainly because I am in charge of Me.
And what I choose to do is Paramount to MY life-experience

namaste