History Of Civil Disobedience

The individual is justified in acting out in civil disobedience when the government restricts the liberties of the individual. In the Declaration of Independence, our forefathers were going against British laws. It was considered an act of treason for them to separate from Britain and to create a newly formed government for America. Man is selfish by instinct, and those who run the government will try to take away the public's rights as stated under the Bill of Rights. Laws have been created to restrict our unalienable rights, therefore the individual should not allow the government to expand its role. He may choose to do this in several ways. He can tell his congressmen that he feels a law is unjust. If the congressman is unwilling or unable to change the law, he may make a proposition to change the law during the voting periods.

Civil disobedience comes in every package under the sun. Whether it be Henry David Thoreau refusing to pay his taxes to protest the Mexican-American War or Mohammed Ali refusing the draft because he believed that they were sending him to fight for rights in another country that he didn’t have in his own. The importance of civil disobedience, particularly in those with influence over the people, is often overshadowed by opposition leaders and naysayers on the other side of the argument. But civil disobedience has kept America moving forward for over 240 years and it won’t be stopping any time soon.

From Cherokee Indians refusing to abandon their homes in 1838 to the Sit-ins of the civil rIghts movement in the early 1960s, people have been using acts of civil disobedience to stand against injustice they saw in their communities. Although there are many examples of people abusing this benefit and causing more grief and shame than progress, many have used it to their advantage to bring about positive change for the greater good of society, therefore acts of civil disobedience can positively impact a free society if they remain peaceful, respectful, and justified.

Civil disobedience allows citizens in the free society of the United States to express their opinions in a way that is sure to evoke governmental attention, while enlightening the public

When your human rights are being stripped, it is a great way to change society, as we see in Gandhi’s peaceful revolt. However, in many cases it is not necessary. It would do even more damage, especially if there are other, safer and more human ways for addressing concerns. Laws would be threatened as well as American infrastructure and economy. Through this, civil disobedience requires us to examine the situation. It requires intelligent people to sacrifice something for the greater good, and when it is necessary. The people thinking about disobeying must ask the question “is the law I am being pushed under unjust?” before performing the act. As Gandhi once said “An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and

Brilliantly put by what many deem to be America’s greatest president of all time, Abraham Lincoln, “Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children’s liberty.” Civil disobedience is defined as the refusal to comply with certain laws as a form of political protest. Although many may argue that this is the sole way to keep the government in check and to make minorities heard, rational people will realize that it is not this disrespect of the law that proves the democracy of our nation.

Throughout American history are many examples of civil disobedience, and when we analyze the meaning of civil disobedience we realize that without this America would be a very different place. The Boston Tea Party, The Revolutionary War, The Civil Rights Movement are all a few major examples of civil disobedience that have shaped America into the world it is today. Civil disobedience, in a sense, is taking the law into ones own hands when they feel that the laws in place are unjust or unethical and want to change these laws to better ones own life and those of others. Sadly though, there are many lives on this Earth that cannot take the law into their hands, stand up for their rights, and change things for the better, and those lives are the

Civil disobedience is a crucial part of any free society, especially a society that wishes to give its citizens the most liberty possible. Looking back on American history, one can see that the colonists originally protested the laws that Britain had imposed, and had done so peacefully. By not paying taxes and by assembling outside public offices, the colonists disobeyed British laws and the British crown. Their protests not only helped spark the American Revolution, but also made light of the fact that any free society relies on its citizens to disobey the government, especially when it's done peacefully.

In Thoreau 's essay Civil Disobedience he makes the point that bystanders are just as bad as criminals and that people should stand against unjust crimes even if it means going against the law. And to some extent I do agree because in the past people have broken unjust laws and have created change. A well-known example would be when Rosa Parks sat on the bus in the "White-only" seating area, which lead to important events that helped push the Civil Rights movement forward. But I think that it depends on which laws they choose to break and how far they choose to go with it.

It is imperative to understand that the United States of America was born through acts of civil disobedience. And because American freedoms are constantly in danger of being encroached on, it is also important that citizens are aware of the worth that civil disobedience can possess. Civil disobedience is when a person or people refuse to obey a demand or restriction by the state that conflicts with higher law and conscience. The act requires that the disobedient one accept whatever may be the consequence of refusing, whether it be imprisonment, moral condemnation, fines, even perhaps death. It should be done when one’s spiritual searching and sense of rightness permit no other response. (Day 65: Disobedient Friends – Quakers and Civil Disobedience) There have been many instances of civil disobedience throughout American history which have had a powerful influence on the legal system and society as a whole.

Peaceful resistance to a law is exactly what a free society needs in order to manage the "free" status. If we were forced to obey every law without a say, we would not be a truly free society. Civil disobedience is one of the most positive impacts the people can have on their own government, especially one that claims to be one of the people, for the people, and by the people. When the people disagree with a law they have always and will always have a right to stand against it. It is a vital part of an American's first amendment rights: the freedom of speech (among other things).

Civil disobedience isn’t uncommon in America, but the modern idea of civil disobedience has become flawed and distorted from its original intent. Currently, there are thousands of causes and ideals that are spastically flung around and just as soon forgotten. This is because the guise of civil disobedience is often abused by people simply to attract publicity. These methods of claimed civil disobedience often do little to nothing in working towards the goal that they claim to stand for, or their intensions are vague and unclear. For example, in the news, the most popular recent controversial example of civil disobedience is the kneeling during the national anthem before a football game. At its manifestation, this movement was intended to protest the inequalities in the treatment of races by the police especially in Chicago. This effectively accomplished nothing. It raised awareness but the majority of intelligent civilians were already aware of the inequalities. The flaw of this example is that the form of disobedience

In recent years civil disobedience has too often escalated into violent riots, leading to the incarceration of innocent people nation wide. Civil disobedience has been seen in recent years in the forms of the protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline of 2016 and the Baltimore riots of 2015. These events are examples of, for the most part, peaceful protest and violent rioting. The Sioux tribe and Black Lives Matter movement’s use of civil disobedience implies that peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts a free society by giving citizens a way to show the government that they believe a law to be unconstitutional whether it be before or after the law is passed and utilizes our first amendment rights to free speech,

America, the land of the free and home of the brave, has had a very profound history of civil disobedience. Dating all the way back to the revolutionary period with Henry David Thoreau. He was a very influential individual, first presenting the phenomena of Civil disobedience. IN a time where a small minority who felt the majority controlling group is unjust in that he felt and justified the pure that it is okay to go against the majority when it is against everything you believe in. The writer’s act of civil disobedience consisted of refusing to pay taxes to a

In the dictionary, civil disobedience is defined as “the refusal to comply with certain laws or to pay taxes and fines, as a peaceful form of political protest”. The framers, knowing that someday, someone might attempt to restrict or altogether take away our basic rights as citizens, they provided them with protection through the Bill of Rights. Our honorable founders also created laws intended to safeguard our way of life and protect the people of the United States of America from all those that might try to create upheaval and disrupt the national pride of Americans. But when the citizens of our great country decide to protest and resist the very laws intended to protect us, our society falters, and it is negatively impacted by their decision.