Disobedience is common in societies. When this disobedience is against a society’s laws and in a peaceful manner, it is called civil disobedience. This disobedience, while useful in the past, now is unnecessary and negatively impacts a free society.
But at first civil disobedience seems effective, proper, and just in just about all situations. There is Martin Luther King, marching on Washington with more than 200,000 people, proclaiming that “I have a dream...;” there is Susan B. Anthony voting against the law to protest women’s disenfranchisement; there is Henry David Thoreau refusing to pay taxes for the Mexican-American War. The eye and the mind are in agreement: these actions are just. The brain reminds the eye of the Declaration, which …show more content…
For if modern America is free, or free enough, for what reason is there to be disobedient besides a self-indulgent one? There is not Martin Luther fighting for civil rights; there is a woman removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol. While it is not necessarily pleasing to look at that flag, no rights are being violated by its presence; rather, the civil disobedient is violating the state’s freedom of expression. There is not Susan B. Anthony fighting for women’s suffrage; there are people protesting outside the Congress building to overturn Citizens United. While it is not comforting or pleasing to see big business in the political process, no rights are violated by the spending; rather the companies are expressing a freedom of speech. The civil disobedience in free America shows itself to be only against what a group perceives, rather what undeniably is. In free society, this is at least troubling. It forms a bit of an autocracy in itself, bypassing laws for personal opinion. Furthermore, as in these modern cases, the disobedients are imposing on the expressions of others. If one wishes for opinion to become law, then there is the democratic political process. There are no impediments to this in free society, but civil disobedience would appear to ignore this process for
But at first civil disobedience seems effective, proper, and just in just about all situations. There is Martin Luther King, marching on Washington with more than 200,000 people, proclaiming that “I have a dream...;” there is Susan B. Anthony voting against the law to protest women’s disenfranchisement; there is Henry David Thoreau refusing to pay taxes for the Mexican-American War. The eye and the mind are in agreement: these actions are just. The brain reminds the eye of the Declaration, which …show more content…
For if modern America is free, or free enough, for what reason is there to be disobedient besides a self-indulgent one? There is not Martin Luther fighting for civil rights; there is a woman removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol. While it is not necessarily pleasing to look at that flag, no rights are being violated by its presence; rather, the civil disobedient is violating the state’s freedom of expression. There is not Susan B. Anthony fighting for women’s suffrage; there are people protesting outside the Congress building to overturn Citizens United. While it is not comforting or pleasing to see big business in the political process, no rights are violated by the spending; rather the companies are expressing a freedom of speech. The civil disobedience in free America shows itself to be only against what a group perceives, rather what undeniably is. In free society, this is at least troubling. It forms a bit of an autocracy in itself, bypassing laws for personal opinion. Furthermore, as in these modern cases, the disobedients are imposing on the expressions of others. If one wishes for opinion to become law, then there is the democratic political process. There are no impediments to this in free society, but civil disobedience would appear to ignore this process for