Peaceful resistance to unjust laws is not only beneficial to a free society but is necessary in order to progress that society towards a more equitable future. Legislated injustice has no place in a free society but without resistance, the injustice will continue and those who are ignorant of it will be content to let it continue perpetually. For this reason, it is an essential feature of a free society to act out against that which is not right.
The right act against an unjust government is the driving principle behind the Declaration of Independence. The founders themselves were merely men who found the laws thrust upon them to be unjust and resisted against them. In the Declaration, Jefferson writes the whenever a government no longer honors the rights of its people, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.” The founders recognized that the only way to bring about real and lasting change was to band together and resist the law, no matter what the consequences. Ben Franklin best captured the awareness of their defiance and their reliance on each other when he famously said, ”We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” …show more content…
Many would say that, though they disagree with the law, the must follow the law because law and order are part of the backbone of a free society. Henry David Thoreau put this school of thought to shame in his essay Civil Disobedience. Thoreau says that “It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.” To those who believe that in a democracy the majority rules whether or not one agree with them he says that “any many more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.” To resist an unjust law therefore in not to disrespect the government but rather to help it progress in the right
The right act against an unjust government is the driving principle behind the Declaration of Independence. The founders themselves were merely men who found the laws thrust upon them to be unjust and resisted against them. In the Declaration, Jefferson writes the whenever a government no longer honors the rights of its people, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.” The founders recognized that the only way to bring about real and lasting change was to band together and resist the law, no matter what the consequences. Ben Franklin best captured the awareness of their defiance and their reliance on each other when he famously said, ”We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” …show more content…
Many would say that, though they disagree with the law, the must follow the law because law and order are part of the backbone of a free society. Henry David Thoreau put this school of thought to shame in his essay Civil Disobedience. Thoreau says that “It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.” To those who believe that in a democracy the majority rules whether or not one agree with them he says that “any many more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.” To resist an unjust law therefore in not to disrespect the government but rather to help it progress in the right