Peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts a free society as it promotes the creation and the retention of a free country. Free societies are often considered more advanced than the oppressive ones because freedom is something that evolved out of oppression. Now, in the modern world, governments are more or less established, and for them to be changed, the people must act. Civil disobedience is woven through the fabric of the United States. The Revolutionary war granted the underdog colonies independence-- not just independence but freedom. An event that strengthened and popularized the revolution was a great symbolic act of civil disobedience. On December 16th, 1773, after a long struggle against the British trying to tax the colonies
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As time goes on, freedom is progressed and changed. The government will not recognize that its laws and standards are outdated and no longer “free” until a large group acts. For example, America’s Woman’s Suffrage movement presumably would have failed without civil disobedience. Groups seeking to reform by using civil disobedience, like the suffragettes, accepted and even welcomed arrest. The suffragettes strove to be seen as political prisoners instead of criminals, and this brought attention and popularity to their cause. The suffragettes used a form of indirect civil disobedience. Their main tactic was not to vote where it was not permitted, but rather to protest and picket and get arrested for it. This was effective, but differed from the civil disobedience practiced during the civil rights movement. Arguably the most famous example of peaceful resistance to a law in American history was when Rosa Parks, an African American woman, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. She was arrested and briefly imprisoned, but she was extremely significant in the strength of a movement that revived the disoriented spirit of American freedom. Parks kept her moral and civic duty by breaking the segregation law. In Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. asserted that there is a difference between just laws, that should be followed, and unjust laws, that should be broken: “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.” He went further to examine that there are some laws that are “just on [their] face and unjust in [their] application.” An example of this was when King applied for a permit to assemble and was turned down because of his color. He assembled anyway. Discrimination became so ingrained in American culture that “just laws” were being warped into devices to
As time goes on, freedom is progressed and changed. The government will not recognize that its laws and standards are outdated and no longer “free” until a large group acts. For example, America’s Woman’s Suffrage movement presumably would have failed without civil disobedience. Groups seeking to reform by using civil disobedience, like the suffragettes, accepted and even welcomed arrest. The suffragettes strove to be seen as political prisoners instead of criminals, and this brought attention and popularity to their cause. The suffragettes used a form of indirect civil disobedience. Their main tactic was not to vote where it was not permitted, but rather to protest and picket and get arrested for it. This was effective, but differed from the civil disobedience practiced during the civil rights movement. Arguably the most famous example of peaceful resistance to a law in American history was when Rosa Parks, an African American woman, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. She was arrested and briefly imprisoned, but she was extremely significant in the strength of a movement that revived the disoriented spirit of American freedom. Parks kept her moral and civic duty by breaking the segregation law. In Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. asserted that there is a difference between just laws, that should be followed, and unjust laws, that should be broken: “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.” He went further to examine that there are some laws that are “just on [their] face and unjust in [their] application.” An example of this was when King applied for a permit to assemble and was turned down because of his color. He assembled anyway. Discrimination became so ingrained in American culture that “just laws” were being warped into devices to