Thoreau's On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

Thoreau says, “If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him and drown myself.” This metaphors sums up most of what he is saying in On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. The person unjustly wresting the plank from the drowning man is the government, and the drowning man himself is the citizens of a government. This is to say that if the government wrongly takes from its citizens to save itself, then the government must first give what has been taken back to its citizens and then the government should fall to its demise. Thoreau’s main point is to say that the most optimal scenario is to not have a government at all because “the only times when government has been useful has been when it has stood aside,” but realistically this isn’t possible, so he suggests to have a better government put in place. One that has minimal power and doesn’t control its citizens. Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience relates to modern times because our government today needs to be put in check and has made many examples of governing people too much.
If one were to replace the word Mexican for Vietnam the meaning would remain the same in this quote. Many Americans felt that the US didn’t need to be in Vietnam and didn’t really understand why people were being sent. For this reason there weren’t enough numbers for the war, so the government started drafting people. They started sending unwilling Americans to fight a war they didn’t want and didn’t understand and that is probably a factor that plays into why we didn’t win the war. This is an example of our government running the same way it was when Thoreau wrote this