Civil disobedience is the practice of challenging the government through dissent. The disobedients strive to resolve the the moral, ethical or political issue that is cause for disobedience through acts break the status quo and sometimes the law. Civil disobedience is meant to effect change in the government, it is meant to do what the founding fathers did by creating a new country out of the ashes of their greatest act of civil disobedience, the Revolutionary War. However, civil disobedience in the United States was originally carried out by rich white men, the same people who in modern America benefit from unjust acts exacted by the government on marginalized groups. The government that was created through civil disobedience no longer respects
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Eventually, the American colonists and England came to blows over America’s acts of civil disobedience in the Revolutionary War. Of course as most people know America won the War and won independence. Civil Disobedience is written into the Constitution. The First Amendment gives Americans the right to assemble and the right to free speech, meaning Americans have the right to speak out against tyranny within the government and they have the right to protest the tyranny. The Second Amendment gives Americans the right to bear arms and form a militia. This right could allow something similar to the Revolutionary War to occur again if, like their British ancestors, the American government gets out of hand. The United States Constitution seems wonderful to someone outside of the system. However, the true intentions of the founding fathers are revealed when one looks at the the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson writes, under the watchful eye of other great American men like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, “All men a created equal” (Jefferson 187). Again, to an outsider this looks like a wonderful statement, a statement that must have been written to mean …show more content…
They have been able to keep their power by suppressing acts of civil disobedience performed by oppressed groups. In the early 1960’s Martin Luther King Jr. received intense backlash from racist groups, including the Klu Klux Klan. The Klu Klux Klan, like the Alt-Right, pride themselves on their status as white Christian Americans. Both these groups use intense nationalism and fear mongering to strike fear into the hearts of anyone who dares try to effect positive change for their community. Dr. King was attacked multiple times for his nonviolent protest. Recently, Native Americans at Standing Rock Reservation have been attacked during their peaceful protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. David French, although critical of the government supports protests in Oregon by white men while admonishing the diverse group of America's 99% that made up the Occupy movement (French 7). Many years prior, William F. Buckley Jr., who founded the National Review, for which French writes, criticize Americans for not complaining (Buckley 76) . But Buckley's essay “Why Don’t We Complain?” was published in 1960, during the first years of the Civil Rights Movement. By not taking into account the huge number of African Americans participating in civil disobedience at this time period, it is obvious that like Jefferson, Buckley is writing for the white man. The government has attacked the rights
Eventually, the American colonists and England came to blows over America’s acts of civil disobedience in the Revolutionary War. Of course as most people know America won the War and won independence. Civil Disobedience is written into the Constitution. The First Amendment gives Americans the right to assemble and the right to free speech, meaning Americans have the right to speak out against tyranny within the government and they have the right to protest the tyranny. The Second Amendment gives Americans the right to bear arms and form a militia. This right could allow something similar to the Revolutionary War to occur again if, like their British ancestors, the American government gets out of hand. The United States Constitution seems wonderful to someone outside of the system. However, the true intentions of the founding fathers are revealed when one looks at the the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson writes, under the watchful eye of other great American men like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, “All men a created equal” (Jefferson 187). Again, to an outsider this looks like a wonderful statement, a statement that must have been written to mean …show more content…
They have been able to keep their power by suppressing acts of civil disobedience performed by oppressed groups. In the early 1960’s Martin Luther King Jr. received intense backlash from racist groups, including the Klu Klux Klan. The Klu Klux Klan, like the Alt-Right, pride themselves on their status as white Christian Americans. Both these groups use intense nationalism and fear mongering to strike fear into the hearts of anyone who dares try to effect positive change for their community. Dr. King was attacked multiple times for his nonviolent protest. Recently, Native Americans at Standing Rock Reservation have been attacked during their peaceful protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. David French, although critical of the government supports protests in Oregon by white men while admonishing the diverse group of America's 99% that made up the Occupy movement (French 7). Many years prior, William F. Buckley Jr., who founded the National Review, for which French writes, criticize Americans for not complaining (Buckley 76) . But Buckley's essay “Why Don’t We Complain?” was published in 1960, during the first years of the Civil Rights Movement. By not taking into account the huge number of African Americans participating in civil disobedience at this time period, it is obvious that like Jefferson, Buckley is writing for the white man. The government has attacked the rights