When a person violates the law, and is caught, we oftentimes say that the person "paid the price" for what they did.

That is the operative word: Price.

If you have ever read a criminal statute, you immediately notice that the act that it criminalizes is never actually forbidden.

You never see a sentence such as "The act of X is hereby forbidden."

Instead, you see a sentence such as "Anyone who does X shall be sentenced to..."

The spirit of such statutes is clearly evident. They aren't intended to keep people from doing these forbidden acts. Instead, they are intended to make the PRICE of doing said acts so high that no one wants to do them.

Anyone who wants to do those acts must now weigh the risks of getting caught and the criminal …show more content…
Do not perform illegal acts.
2. Accept the sentence for any illegal act you do.

Civil disobedience is, in essence, the act of choosing the second way.

As such, despite what detractors claim, the rule of law is NOT undermined by civil disobedience. Instead, it is actually AFFIRMED. Those that engage in it could easily choose to try to evade punishment. Instead, however, they follow the law and accept the punishment that is prescribed for them.

In a free society, one is allowed to express their views, as long as they respect the rule of law. Civil disobedience allows someone to express their views by engaging in an illegal activity. At the same time, it allows someone to respect the rule of law by accepting the sentence allotted to them. Thus, civil disobedience is ENTIRELY compatible with a free society.

In fact, civil disobedience can actually be seen as a SIGN of a healthy free society.

Not only that, in a free society, civil disobedience is impossible to prevent, since in order to prevent it, CRIME itself would have to be eliminated. Crimes would have to be stopped BEFORE they happen.

That would entail something along the lines of the Thought Police,