“If the law requires you to be the agent of injustice, then, I say, break the law” (Henry Thoreau) This famous quote is taken from the famous essay Civil Disobedience written in 1848, Civil Disobedience still stands as an expression of moral and individual conscience against a un just government. To begin, the quote written by Henry Thoreau, “If the law requires you to be the agent of injustice, then, I say, break the law” is essentially saying If following the law results in a wrong done to another person, then do not follow the law, and that morals from human to human come before government rules or laws resulting in disobedience.…
In The Case Against Civil Disobedience the unknown author claims in his very first sentence that “the most striking characteristic of civil disobedience is its irrelevance to the problems of today” and that it is “the resort… exercised because the subject cannot or will not take up the rights and duties of the citizen.” What he fails to realize is that the rights and duties of a citizen is to keep an eye on the laws that rule the land and to revolt when those laws become unjust. It’s all part and parcel to the social contract thought up by Locke and heavily leaned upon by Thomas Jefferson. As Henry David Thoreau says in Civil Disobedience, “a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscious.” Civil disobedience can never become irrelevant because corruption will forever attempt to corrode even the best intentions of a government and so there will always be a need to revolt when unjust laws get pasted.…
Many people refuse to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government or mostly an international power. They usually protest in a nonviolent way to form a political protest. However, three important people showed some civil disobedience during the late 1800s to 1900s. All three men wanted to promote a better place and opportunity to the people to stand up for their rights and not be let down on any law that was prejudiced or mistreated. These men stood for their people and own the civil disobedience.…
King believes that certain preparations should occur before one participates in direct civil disobedience, including attempting to first negotiate; “In ANY non-violent campaign there ARE four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine if whether injustice exist, negotiation, self-purification and direct action”. These steps serve as a framework for correctly practicing civil disobedience, failing to abide by this framework neglects the alternatives to creating civil unrest. Mindful of the importance of negotiation in constructively breaking the law, Socrates forms his MAIN argument off of the inability to control the ensuing chaos if he WE re to break the law after failing to negotiate. While personifying the law, Socrates speaks for…
Disobedience is a valuable human trait and it promotes social progress. The beginning of time starts with disobedience. Humans tend to attract to trouble like a moth to a flame. When someone is born they start off disobedient. Humans have to be taught how to behave. It is to be imbedded into our brains to make the right decisions.…
“Civil disobedience is a form of protest in which protesters deliberately violate a law” (suber). It is a way for society to reform itself to reflect its current values while maintaining its fundamental ideals. Some may argue civil disobedience is a “slippery slope” leading to anarchy or it cannot be justified in a democracy. Civil disobedience, while not optimum, is a way to accomplish change with the intent of reform and stabilizing communities.…
According to the infamous essay by Henry David Thoreau, civil disobedience is the conscious and intentional disobeying of a law to advance a moral principle or change government policy. Throughout the essay, Thoreau urges the need for individuals to put their personal and social consciousness before their allegiance to their government and its range of policies. Thoreau believed that if a government is unjust, citizens should simply refuse to follow the law and eventually begin to distance themselves from their government in a variety of ways. Although published 105 years one of the most turbulent and crucial times in American history, the leaders…
Civil disobedience is a vital and necessary part of life in a democratic system of government. It serves to keep the government from overstepping its bounds. There are times in the history of countries where the governing body has become complacent and has begun to violate the rights of their citizens. Civil disobedience is an effective way of discouraging and preventing such transgressions. Without the threat of dissidence from the public, there is nothing to keep governments honest except for the honor of those governments, which is highly questionable even in the noblest of nations. The role of elected officials in the United States is to represent their constituents, be they from their district, state, or party. If there is nothing to hold these politicians to this purpose, can we truly be sure they are ruling in a representative way and not in self interest?…
The resolution I have been researching for the past month is “Resolved: Civil Disobedience in a Democracy is morally justified.” Although there is no single, agreed upon definition, many definitions are similar. Civil disobedience is usually defined along the lines of refusing to obey certain rules and laws as a form of non-violent protest of an unjust law, or any law that one opposes, and is often done to bring attention to said law. Through my research, I have found a number of arguments for civil disobedience within a democracy, as well as arguments against it.…
Civil disobedience in our country have continuously been a topic of controversial value. With two opposing sides, there are stories told by people who believe, or don’t believe, in breaking the law to get their point across. Activists and fellow civilians concerned with their life, and the lives of those who will have a voice in future, feel that clashing with what the law proclaims in order for change is mandatory. They feel as though their voices may never be listened to unless they show the world that their opinion matters. This idea of leadership isn’t freshly introduced or recent within generation, but have endlessly been acted upon by some of the most famous and well-respected names in American history.…
Civil disobedience plays a huge role in today's society. For example immigrants coming over to America causes a lot of controversy. Many people feel as though all immigrants are bad and that is not the case. While there are many people who value a dollar not many people in other countries can say the same because they don't have much of anything.When immigrants come over they are breaking the law but in some cases we've had immigrants here who have been her for years and they have not caused any problems. Stereotypes are often formed when people hear things from friends,family,radio,tv and news. When people say that all immigrants are bad it's like says all white people are bad or all black people are bad and ect. I think not letting immigrants…
The United States was built on civil disobedience stemming from the sacred rights of conscience and citizenry. Acts of civil disobedience by the United States predate its very foundation as colonies. The pilgrims of the Plymouth colony were known as separatists, leaving their homes in England to pursue religious freedoms and other rights in a new land. They didn’t leave with pools of blood behind them, and violent cries of revolution, but rather peacefully practiced their own ways of life in this new English colony, which was essentially “breaking the law”. When the colonies were finally founded and the Crown enforced harsher taxes and limited free market availability of good, the colonists once again took to acts of civil disobedience.…
A government’s purpose is to regulate a nation. Regardless of the disagreements some may have about the United States government, the fact that humans need a governing body in order to avoid chaos is irrefutable. Still, there are times when members of a society do not agree with the views of their governing body. At times like those, society has been known to occasionally resort to civil disobedience. The act of peacefully opposing what one deems as an unjust law seems to be controversial among society members. Some argue that it is wrong to oppose a law because that would negatively impact society, perhaps by creating distrust between a nation’s government and its society. Others argue that it is the right of Americans to voice their opinions,…
A free society has never been synonymous with a perfect society. For as long as organized governments have existed, there has been dissension between the governed and those who govern. As tiresome as this discord may be, it is a representation of everything that democracy stands for. In any free nation that values the rights of its citizens, it is the willingness of the people to peacefully resist injustice that facilitates progress.…
What is civil disobedience? It can be defined as the active nonviolent refusal to obey a law that is deemed to be unjust (Boss, 2012). DeChristopher, a climate-change activist, was convicted of bidding on oil and gas leases in a 2008 federal auction. A jury found that he defrauded the federal government, running up a $1.8 million tab he could not pay (The Salt Lake Tribune, 2011). As a result of DeChristopher’s civil disobedience, the oil and gas leases he bid on were later deemed inappropriate for drilling and withdrawn from future auctions.…