Civil Disobedience, or peaceful resistance to unfair laws, positively impacts and is necessary in a free society. For an example, we need look only at the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s led by Martin Luther King Jr. The Jim Crow Laws that ravaged the South at the time were incredibly unfair towards blacks, and as such, protests were necessary. Non-violent protests were the only option in Dr. King’s opinion, and rightly so. Violence, as promoted by Malcolm X, would only be detrimental to the cause. In his letter from a Birmingham jail, Dr. King states that one who has the highest respect for the law is one who breaks a law he knows is unjust and willingly accepts the punishment for it. This itself is true; if you protest in breaking an unjust law but do not accept the punishment, you will be taken less seriously, as you are seen as having no respect for the law. And to change the laws, to make them more just, you must have a certain respect for the laws.
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Respecting unjust laws means that you are willing to accept the punishment. Following unjust laws, simply makes you part of the problem. Most people, wishing to maintain the status quo, will most likely say to just follow the law, or to wait for a “better time” to change them. One need only remember that all the atrocities committed by Hitler were legal, and the people pacifly went along with it, believing that such things were necessary to save the country in its greatest time of need. Nearly 12 million people died as a result of a lack of civil disobedience. Had more people protested the anti-jewish laws imposed by the Nazi party, it is highly likely that many of the atrocities including the “Final Solution” might have never occurred, or been delayed by enough years that by the time it would have been implemented the war would have been reaching its end.To quote the Pastor Martin
Respecting unjust laws means that you are willing to accept the punishment. Following unjust laws, simply makes you part of the problem. Most people, wishing to maintain the status quo, will most likely say to just follow the law, or to wait for a “better time” to change them. One need only remember that all the atrocities committed by Hitler were legal, and the people pacifly went along with it, believing that such things were necessary to save the country in its greatest time of need. Nearly 12 million people died as a result of a lack of civil disobedience. Had more people protested the anti-jewish laws imposed by the Nazi party, it is highly likely that many of the atrocities including the “Final Solution” might have never occurred, or been delayed by enough years that by the time it would have been implemented the war would have been reaching its end.To quote the Pastor Martin