..."You must never be fearful of what you are doing when it is right." Spoken elegantly in the words of a leading historical figure in Civil Disobedience, Rosa Parks perfectly captures the meaning, integrity, and even necessity of nonviolent rebellion in situations of legal and social injustice. It is not only the right, but the moral duty of the people in a free society to stand up to the law if it violates the God-given rights of its people. If the citizens of a free society are never to protest legislation that oppresses them, how can such a society even be considered free? People of a free society have the ability and the obligation to stand up for their beliefs through nonviolent means. It is an obligation because we are conscious beings...
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...Pro Civil Disobedience Civil disobedience is a righteous way for a person or a group to make their point to the world. Great leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Dr. MLK) and Mohandas K. Gandhi (Gandhi) harnessed the idea and brought it to its prominence. Civil disobedience in its purest form is a particularly strong concept because it requires a self-purification process. This process enlightens civil resisters to the reality of longsuffering for a cause without any type of retaliation. Also, there are arguments against civil disobedience. One such argument is “wait” because change will come. Another is that civil disobedience precipitates violence. These arguments are extremely weak. Because of these weak arguments along with the strong concept of self-purification, I am a proponent of civil disobedience. Dr. MLK was a firm believer in the self-purification process. In Letter from Birmingham Jail, he speaks of undertaking a process of self-purification. “We began a series of workshops on nonviolence and we repeatedly asked ourselves: ‘Are you able to accept blows without retaliation?’ ‘Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail (King 158)?’” Dr. MLK knew that in order to appeal to the public, they must endure the punishment without retaliation. This is explained when he says, “Laying out our case before the conscience of the local and national community (King 158).” Dr. MLK had a grasp on the notion that if his people were to become violent, they...
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...- 2 – The LD File Civil Disobedience Index Topic Overview 3-7 Definitions 8-10 Affirmative Cases 11-19 Negative Cases 20-25 Affirmative Extensions 26-34 Civil disobedience worked to free India. 26 Civil disobedience overthrew the communists in Poland. 26 The tradition of civil disobedience in America goes all the way back to the founders. 26 Civil disobedience can serve to prevent situations from escalating into violence. 27 Civil Disobedience has been used to promote peace. 27 Civil disobedience was used to promote racial equality. 27 Civil disobedience is used to try to prevent the destruction of the environment. 27 Civil disobedience is effective at changing the law. 28 Legal channels can take too long. 28 Consent to obey just laws does not imply consent to obey unjust ones. 28 Distinguishing between just and unjust laws to disobey can be universalized. 28 Civil disobedience can be stabilizing to a community by spreading a shared sense of justice. 29 Sometimes it is only the unjustified response to civil disobedience that has harmful consequence. 29 Civil disobedience is traditionally non-violent. 29 Civil disobedience is a form of exercising free speech- which is essential in a democracy. 30 Civil disobedience has been used to fight slave laws 30 Civil disobedience played a role in ending the Vietnam war. 30 Civil disobedience shouldn’t be punished-...
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...have to. Civil disobedience and rebellion is justified, particularly in the United States. Locke and King support their view with a variety of arguments. Thomas Hobbes, on the other hand, views any kind of rebellion as unacceptable. This essay will review the effectiveness of both positions, but in the end civil disobedience is justified in the United States. John Locke argues that resistance against one's government is acceptable under certain circumstances. Locke believes that we have God-given rights,which are: life, liberty, limb, health, and property. If at any point our government fails to protect those rights then we are allowed to step in in a non-violent way. It is up to the individual to enforce own executive power. Martin Luther King Jr.’s argument is very similar. He discusses multiple biblical figures. They fought for what they believed in an a non-violent, yet extreme way. King says: “... Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative...
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...his trial that, if acquitted on the condition that he never philosophize again, he would continue to practice philosophy in spite of the jury’s order to the contrary: . . . if you said to me in this regard: “Socrates, we do not believe Anytus now; we acquit you, but only on condition that you spend no more time on this investigation and do not practice philosophy, and if you are caught doing so you will die”; if, as I say, you were to acquit me on those terms, I would say to you: “Men of Athens, I am grateful and I am your friend, but I will obey the god rather than you, and as long as I draw breath and am able, I shall not cease to practice philosophy . . . (29c-d).1 The passage from the Apology seems to present a defiant argument for civil disobedience in the face of injustice. In the Crito, however, when given a chance to escape prison and his upcoming execution, Socrates reasons that such an action would be unjust because it would defy the laws 1Plato, Apology. Trans. G. M. A. Grabe (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000), 32. Blanks 1  of the city. Near the end of the dialogue Plato presents Socrates as speaking for a hypothetical anthropomorphized “voice of the laws”: Is your wisdom such as not to realize that your country is to be honored more than your mother, your father,...
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...I think Muhammad Ali's anti-war stance was not only civil disobedience, he was a conscientious objector. he was forbidden by his religion to fight in war. He believed that not only as a black man he should not join in this war, but as a Jehovah's Witness. He felt so strongly in this belief that he was willing to be incarcerated. The supreme court heard his argument and by unanimous decision reversed his conviction. If he had not disobeyed the courts he would have been forced to do something he did not believe in. If we didn't have civil disobedience, how would laws change with which we don't agree.? If a law was made to discriminate against a group of people, we need to show how we feel about it. We need to show if this law is enacted just to benefit another group of people. Civil disobedience helps to shine a light on injustices suffered. It also shines a light on some laws that keeps these injustices suffered by some, current and effective....
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...the Consititution. By doing so, we are practicing the rights to protect, assemble peaceably, and oppose laws, as stated in the First Amendment. While to some, civil disobedience may seem as an idea that destroys a society, to others (including myself) is just another way to bring about awareness and change to a society. In Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail", civil disobedience is shown throughout King's actions. King's peaceful protest movements showed resistance to several negative impacts of injustice. In the essay, King states that although Alabama clergymen were criticizing his actions, his argument was...
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...destiny is shaped.” A people’s response to the edicts of their government determines the destiny of their nation. Civil disobedience is a veraciously debated topic, with most individuals choosing the position of for or against. However, they fail to recognize the arguments true nucleus, and therefore cannot properly interpret the effect of civil disobedience on a free society. The impact of civil disobedience on a free society does not lie in the act of peaceful protest itself, but rather in the law an individual chooses to defy. The right to civil disobedience is mandatory for a freestanding democratic republic to survive, but...
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...In every generation, people wanted societal transformations based on their beliefs and morals. One of the ways, civil disobedience, has been practiced as a form of demonstrating one’s discontent with the society, therefore seeking a positive change. Both in Antigone, which was written two thousand years ago, and Letter from a Birmingham Jail of 1960 revolve around the idea of civil disobedience and attempt to justify such with logic, morals, and emotions. Civil disobedience is not a mere act of rebelling against the system in which all humans are subdued to, but rather a call for necessary changes. In Sophocles’ Antigone, Antigone, the main character, breaks King Creon’s order to not bury Polyneices, her brother, and give him a proper funeral. Antigone is deeply upset and decides to demonstrate her civil disobedience by doing what Creon said not to do. When Creon finds out, he condemns her for disobeying the law. Antigone claims that she has followed the gods’ law, and chastise Creon, “apparently the laws of the gods mean nothing to you” (61). She is not only troubled by the fact that her brother is being humiliated, but firmly believes in the “laws of gods,” in other words, moral standards. As Sophocles...
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...Trudeau. Both leaders responded to crisis through action and by political writing. Martin Luther King’s political writing, “Letter from Birmingham and Pierre Trudeau’s, “Notes for a national broadcast, October 16 1970” both have similarities and differences. Both works address the public to deal with civil disobedience, the means to make political change, roles of government in handling civil unrest in democratic regimes and the responsibility for citizens to protest or disobey ‘unjust laws’. How ever both works are written from different perspectives. Despite their differences both works do well at complimenting each other since they share the same values. Martin Luther King’s arguments were addressing segregation and inequality experienced by African-Americans. The “Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, jr.]’ written by the American civil rights activist is concerning the issues of terrorism and summons action to respond racial laws through non-violence in attempt to establish peace and end oppression. Acts of terrorism were, “unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches” (King, paragraph 6). King refers to Birmingham experiencing such high levels of terrorism acts against African-Americans compared to other cities in the United States. King also summons prompt action for non-violent protest since the city fathers “consistently refuse to engage in good faith negotiation” (King, paragraph 6). His aim for this “non violent resistor”(King, paragraph 9) is to create means to...
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...It is fair that John and Jane conform to the laws. This is because they would be owning their obedience to their fellow citizens. All of whom obey the laws, even if some are specific to certain groups. The doctrine establishes the idea that each citizen owes it to their fellow citizen because doing so would further the advantages the entire populace receives. The fact that the two are citizens and enjoy the benefits of society, they too must obey the law so that these benefits can continue to be enjoyed; regardless of the loss or constraints liberties they are experiencing. Mill’s Argument Mill is in favor of limited government, as such, I would assert the opinion that he would be against aspects of this law. However, the law in question is not what he would against. Rather, how the law is enforced and by what ways the law had come into being would be the issue. The concept of limited government established that liberty of an individual is allowed to flush and restrained as little as possible. It is even more restrained when one’s happiness is infringed upon. “For Mill, sort-term or even intermediate-term calculations of happiness were a wholly inadequate means of making moral judgments about human...
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...When it comes to the pretention of Civil Disobedience and what can be seen as acts of indirect and direct civil disobedience. H.A. Bedau and Henry David Thoreau come to mind because of how they both saw things in different light but at a meaningful level they both thought the same about the government even through they expressed there ideals in completely different ways. Their ideas cross on many different paths as to which even Bedau talks about Thoreau in his essay in regards to being “responsible” for your actions. The main premise of Bedau’s argument in his essay of “civil disobedience and personal responsibility for justice” is to compare the idea of what is civil disobedience and who is responsible for the actions. Bedau spends a great...
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...In 1891, Irish author Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) observed, “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” Civil disobedience can be valuable and promote social progress when used for valid reasons. However, when using disobedience for invalid reasons, it promotes wrongdoings instead of social progress. Humans must differentiate between progress and ignorance to positively impact a free society. In Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, he argued that peaceful debates and arguments would put an end to segregation. King was a devout Christian member of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, and a...
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...and to secure the rights we want,we have different people who are not part of the Government that can help us to have the rights that is best for our country. The argument in this essay will be about Civil Disobedience,now Civil Disobedience is the refusal to comply with certain laws or to pay taxes and fines,as a peaceful form of political protest.This essay will include great examples about Civil Disobedience such as,”The Letter From Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King,”The Declaration...
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...Civil disobedience allows one to convey their thoughts and ideas in a passive, nonviolent way. It can be used when one believes that they are morally correct and know that there are others that will agree with them. Antigone, from Sophocles Antigone, and Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter, Letter from Birmingham Jail, both chose to fight for justice rather than preserve their own safety. They both violated laws that they believed were unjust in order to help people and were willing to suffer the consequences that their actions brought upon them. In other words, they believed that there was a higher good that required them to disobey specific laws. However, even though they both had the same intentions, the methods that they used to achieve their goals differed...
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