...the Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams stormed onto tea ships in the Boston harbor in an act of civil disobedience against the tea monopoly the British had given to the East India Company. This act ultimately resulted in the American Revolution. Roughly 150 years after the Boston Tea Party, the British again created a monopoly on a precious good—salt. With the Salt Acts, Britain forced Indians to buy salt from the Empire and prohibited its production. In another act of civil disobedience, Gandhi marched 240 miles to the sea in order to collect salt. He was arrested but his actions ultimately resulted in India’s independence. These two events, although separated by over 150 years and more than 7,000 miles, show the positive...
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...Fifty-three years ago, the events of what became known as “Bloody Sunday” unfolded. “Bloody Sunday” was one of the hundreds of marches that occurred during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. This movement was also characterized by other acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, such as sit-ins, boycotts, and rallies. The civil rights movement was a human rights movement established in the hopes of ending legalized racial segregation and discrimination laws in the United States. One objective of this movement was to push for legislation to enforce the fifteenth amendment. The fifteenth amendment states that no one could be denied the right to vote because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. However, this amendment was...
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...Civil rights activist Rosa Parks once said, “I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.” Instead of showing fear, Rosa Parks stood up for americans all over the world. Rosa Parks involvement in civil disobedience was due to personal influences. She chose to participate in civil disobedience to protest the equal rights for blacks, and she did achieve success using this controversial method of standing up for what she strongly believes to be right. Civil Disobedience is when a person or group protests a law that they find morally wrong. The person is usually peaceful and will accept whatever consequences arise due to breaking the law (Suber). People use...
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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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...Ethical Scrapbook: Part II James Bush CJS/211 September 14, 2015 Michael Raneses Ethical Scrapbook: Part II The twelve examples used in the Ethical Scrapbook: Part I will be analyzed in order to answer several questions. The examples in the scrapbook are in the following categories: Good Samaritan conduct or random acts of kindness Acts of vigilantism-violating the law to enforce the law Acts of civil disobedience-violating the law to change the law Criminal acts committed by professionals in the course of their employment Questions The following will be answered about the examples: Do you think the individual made the best decision possible given the circumstances? Could you see yourself acting similarly in similar circumstances? Example 1 the victim had her car stolen and she proceeded to give chase and grab bystander’s attention, she made the best decision possible however I don’t think this was very safe looking backwards but I probably would have done the same thing. Example 2 was a random act of kindness I do believe this was the thing to do and would like to think that I would be so kindhearted to react the same way and pay the blind man without any regards for heroism. The third example in this set is also random act of kindness and good Samaritans. The community worked together after a collision involving a mother and daughter. The people pulled her from the vehicle and waited with the child in the cool building...
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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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...Protesters and other advocates often break the law in a very public manner, hoping their arrests will bring media attention to an issue. In doing this, they hope to expose people to an injustice and thus inspire political action. Civil disobedience can also be a part of a non-cooperative bargaining strategy, in which a group of people that has an essential societal role refuses to exercise that role, forcing concessions from a more powerful group. This is the strategy used by labor unions to bargain with the businesses that employ them. It has also been used throughout history by economically important but oppressed groups to induce change, such as during the Montgomery bus boycotts. These actions are not always illegal, but can be. For example, striking was often prohibited in the late 1800’s, until repeated protests brought about both the changes that the strikers sought and an end to the unjust laws...
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...Civil disobedience positively impacts a free society. It is one of the best ways to protest because not only is it usually nonviolent, but it raises awareness in a more effective way. Some of the biggest changes in our society stemmed from and grew because of civil disobedience. When the LA riots broke out, people around the country thought not of the reason behind all the rage and destruction, but of the danger and stupidity of the crimes people were committing. However, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, she went to jail and accepted the consequences in order to show Americans everywhere what unjust treatment people of color suffered on a daily basis. Over 60 years later and Rosa Parks is still regarded as a brave pioneer of the modern civil rights...
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... Name: Celeste Moreno (HIST 1302 –P73) Letter From Birmingham City Jail 1. According to King, what is wrong with segregation? “..segregation is not only politically, economically, and sociologically unsound, but morally wrong and sinful…” Segregation shouldn’t be happening in any part of life. What is wrong with it is what the word means. To be separated and by unjust means at that. 2. What is the difference between “civil disobedience” and criminal activity? If you risk your arrest, that is civil disobedience. If you risk the life, limbs, property, safety of others, you have become a criminal and lost your ethics, and it is no longer civil disobedience. 3. Why does he like being viewed as an “extremist” He likes being viewed as an extremist because others before him have been one as well and it brought change and new ideas to the country. 4. What is “nonviolence” and what did King hope to achieve through this strategy? Nonviolence is not for the cowardly, the weak, the passive, the uninterested or the fearful. "Nonviolent resistance does resist," he wrote. "It is not a method of stagnant passivity. While the nonviolent resister is unreceptive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward his opponent, his mind and emotions are always on the go, constantly seeking to persuade his opponent that he is wrong. The technique is passive physically, but strongly active spiritually. It is not passive non-resistance to evil; it is...
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...To define civil disobedience is first and foremost, to understand the ultimate goal of such an act as well as to define what dictates laws to be just or unjust. Is the ultimate goal the need for power and/or the need for peace? How does one decide what dictates just or unjust laws. Is it conscience alone, moral conviction or just a blatant abuse of power? The concept of morality in its goal either way, must be questioned. The moral divide that can occur in fighting a cause is full of variables. The division between the moral convictions of one’s conscience can collide with man’s law and injustice. One constant variable will always remain, and that, is the pursuit of one’s ultimate goal. “A simplistic definition of civil disobedience provides...
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...painful disease or in an irreversible coma. The topic of whether euthanasia is morally or ethical wrong has been argued for decades. In those arguments, philosopher Immanuel Kant’s theories have always been cited. Based on Kant’s Deontology theory, the outcome of an action is not relevant to morality; the only right thing is to do what reason dictates. His categorical imperative states: Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (McLachlan, 2009, p70.). Thus as a rational being, man cannot to formulate a maxim to give other’s right to take his life because of he is in a terrible condition. This kind of maxim will not form a universal law thus it should be removed and replaced with a more reasonable maxim. If we will such maxim, we will end in hypothetical imperative not categorical. In addition, Kant explained the practical imperative further in his categorical imperative second formulation: “act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only” (McLachlan, 2009, p73.). Thus, if humanity is an end, no man has the right to take his life even in whatever condition he finds himself Overall, Kant’s theory is very influential in the argument of euthanasia ethical issues. Based on his theory, euthanasia is not a moral act. CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE Civil disobedience means the refusal to obey certain laws or governmental demands for the purpose...
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...the law. Socrates does show us that civil law should be treated as a moral obligation, by proving that to ignore the rule of law would be to commit moral wrong. He then qualifies this by illustrating that lawfulness is not always equal to virtuousness, and explaining how to remain virtuous without damaging the authority of the law. Further examination of his arguments in regards to civil disobedience reveal inconsistency and the necessity for further development. SOCRATES' MORAL OBLIGATION TO CIVIL LAW In the Crito, Socrates gives an explanation about why he must remain in his jail cell and accept his sentence by using moral reasoning. The most important facet in his argument is the claim (which the interlocutor Crito quickly agrees to) that it is never justified to do evil. No matter what has been suffered before, no matter what good comes of it, doing wrong is unacceptable to Socrates any way you put it. He clearly states the underlying principle for the rest of his argument will be that "neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right" (Crito 49d/e). After making this statement, the next step is to use it to demonstrate that there is a moral obligation to obey civil law. He creates two sound examples to prove this. First, he equates the state to a father-like figure that guides, nourishes and provides protection for its subjects in order that they should flourish and learn. The state is what allows for our existence in the first...
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...Ivyanne London Dr. Bryan English 2010 7 December 2012 The Bhagavad- Gita: Influence on Civil Disobedience Advocates Civil disobedience can be described as the nonviolent means of bringing about social change. The Bhagavad- Gita is a philosophical poem that attempts to ask difficult questions of universal issues that deal with the topic of civil disobedience. The messages that are told throughout the poem have had major influences on civil disobedience advocates such as Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. This work offers explanations that can be applied to dilemmas that can’t be resolved with a simple form of action. According to the Theosophical Society of America, The Bhagavad- Gita, commonly known as the “Gita” has been passed back and forth between America and India through these civil disobedience activists. They each had influences on each other along with the Gita. Some reoccurring themes that may have influenced Thoreau, Gandhi, and King include questions about the right way to live, seeking higher knowledge, and how no action is still a form of action. The version of The Bhagavad- Gita that is told in The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 3rd edition, begins with the moment of crisis in Arjuna’s mind. Arjuna is the middle son of his five brothers who are apart of the Pandavas. He is apart of the warrior caste and is the most skilled and feared archer of his time. They are about to engage in war with their cousins, the Kauravas, because...
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...they were breaking the law. The Boynton vs Virginia case was a great way to show civil disobedience just because they segregated them like using white only restaurants and white only water fountains. Which were also known as the Jim Crow Laws which pretty much says that a African Americans can't drink at the same water fountains or eat at the same tables. Page-5 The Freedom riders showed civil disobedience to the government because the south was segregated and Black people could not used the same stuff as what's such as the following bathrooms, schools and water fountains. On the busses at least one white person and one African American sat next to each other and one black sat in the front. Page-6 This is a great way to show disobedience because blacks should not be segregated and even whites. By whites and blacks riding the same bus they they experienced a lot of violence like cops blowing them off with water hoses or being beaten to a point where there face is...
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...Religion and the State In The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau concludes with a chapter on how religion lays an essential foundation in civil state that can both benefit and damage society. He claims that the gods were the first kinds of political leader, thereafter setting an example for the way government are run. However, his near-deification of the general-will is simply secularized Christianity. Rousseau is clearly not opposed to religion in essence: “no state has ever ben founded without religion at its base.” But he does list some aspects of religious practice not nearly as defective as others. Curiously, Rousseau states that there are two types of religions, but ends up identifying three types of religion that influences the...
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