“If a plant cannot live according to its nature‚ it dies; and so a man.” As related by Henry David Thoreau‚ one of the most famous contributors to the concept of civil disobedience‚ there are some conditions regarding unjust laws that must be changed for the welfare of the people. If this is something the government cannot understand or agree with‚ it is the responsibility of the people themselves to work to the best of their abilities to change them. Most commonly‚ this is done through marches‚
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Eng 112-536 04/27/2010 Civil Disobedience in an Unjust America 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
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Is it considered okay to disobey some laws? Does committing civil disobedience actually do any good? Martin Luther King Jr. believed that it was moral to obey just laws and disobey unjust law. “One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just law. Conversely‚ one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” (Jacobus 382). Henry David Thoreau also conveyed this same idea when he said “If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government‚ let it
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morally obliged to obey even unjust laws? Think about what this means. This means that laws‚ regardless of how unfair‚ unjust‚ or immoral they may be‚ must be followed with no better reason that they are the law. To the thesis that we are obliged to obey even unjust laws‚ I will argue that the standard objections to Civil Disobedience‚ given by Singer‚ are incorrect To begin‚ however‚ I believe it is necessary to define an "unjust" law. According to St. Thomas Aquinas‚ "Any law that uplifts human personality
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Unjust Laws The United States is homeland for millions of immigrants who risk their lives for a better existence. In Jefferson’s words‚ it is a nation in which “All men are created equal‚ that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights that among them are Life‚ Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Our nation is a country in which equal opportunity if provided for those in search of a better life and our law is meant to apply evenly to citizens and non-citizens alike. However
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IS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE JUSTIFIED? “The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy‚ indifference‚ and undernourishment". 1 “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful‚ committed individuals can change the world. Indeed‚ it ’s the only thing that ever has."2 History has shown us through the likes of Mahatma Gandhi‚ Martin Luther King Jr. who went against the greater power of their time to fight for injustice. These few respectable
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Composition January 13‚ 2014 A Civil Disobedient Way of Seeing the World The voice of modern society can be heard through civil disobedience. People all around the world has encountered or even experienced protest against an issue in his or her own country. Throughout history and even today‚ it has been one of the only ways people can persuade the government to resolve a problem. Some of the key points that Henry David Thoreau states in On the Duty of Civil Disobedience are applicable to modern-day
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two pieces of writing with such rich literary content‚ one must first examine their subject‚ occasion‚ audience‚ purpose‚ speaker and their tone. "Civil Disobedience"‚ by Henry David Thoreau and "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.‚ both illustrate transcendental ideas and views. Both display how the act of civil disobedience is sometimes necessary while dealing with types of social injustice. King‚ thought wrote his essay about a hundred years after Thoreau‚ connects in
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Cannon 30 April 2013 Civil Disobedience When should civil disobedience be justified? Civil disobedience is defined as the refusal to obey government laws‚ in an effort to bring upon a change in governmental policy or legislation. Civil disobedience is not an effort to dissolve the American government‚ because without government our society would result in chaos. Sometimes‚ when there is an unjust law and the government won’t take the initiative to fix it‚ the public must act as civil disobedient to bring
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sent to jail for refusing to pay his taxes and I support this episode of civil disobedience as justified. Thoreau did not pay his taxes because he objected the use of the revenue to finance the Mexican War and enforcement of slavery laws. He did not request for his money to be used for the enforcement of slavery laws‚ therefore felt he had the right to protest and act out civil disobedience. Paul Harris defines civil disobedience as "an illegal‚ public‚ nonviolent‚ conscientiously motivated act of protest
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