Oppression Of Extremes In America

Just about everything in life can be taken to one of two extremes – to either too much, or too little. It is often because of these extremes that people are driven away from good things, things that they need or even ought to have. Sadly, we find these extremes abundant in our societies. We often have people that, when it comes to resisting government law, go to the wrong extremes; they either resist too little (or not at all) what needs to be resisted; or resist too much, turning their resistance into a wild, destructive rage. Because of extremes like this, many people have turned against resistance – many see it as some kind of evil, because they are repelled by the radical actions they see, such as weakness in face of bad laws, or extreme, violent reaction. …show more content…
One great example is racial discrimination. Prior to American laws protecting the equal rights of blacks in the United States, many violent protests sprung out of the discrimination. The discrimination was wrong, but so was the reaction. The real heroes in these eras were the ones who didn't fall to either extreme, but instead had a balance between too much resistance and too little resistance. That was the best reaction.

The Bible commands us, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers,” which means that we are to obey the government. It is our duty to submit to our government, but that doesn't mean that we will agree with everything that it decides; the government has made many bad choices that it never should have even thought about. In the light of such situations, the right reaction is not to weakly surrender to bad choices; but instead to submit to the government's decision, and then offer peaceful resistance. We are granted the legal right to do so, and would be wise to exercise our uncommon