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Civil Disobedience Viewpoints

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“That government is best which governs least” (Thoreau). Civil disobedience continues to be a controversial issue in America. Understanding the two viewpoints on the issue can give better insight into whether the act of breaking the law, when nonviolent, is correct or not. There are many examples of acts of civil disobedience throughout history that we can analyze to conclude whether or not their effects positively or negatively impact a free society.
A very well known leader of civil disobedience is Rosa Parks. Parks refused to give up her bus seat for a white man when there were no seats left available. Due to her disobedience, she was convicted of violating the Jim Crow Laws which enforced racial segregation in the South until 1965. …show more content…

His opponents claim that he “threw the secrets he knew up in the air” in an act that was more for his ego than conscience, and hoped that it would have positive effects.
There are also people who are in support of Edward Snowden and believe that in revealing just how much the government had been spying on Americans and others, he has performed a “public service” that by far outweighs any breaching if trust he may have committed (Cassidy). His supporters counter the argument of his actions being dangerous, by claiming that the information he put out didn’t reveal anything about the algorithms that the N.S.A. uses, the groups and individuals targeted, or the identity of U.S. agents. Furthermore, no content of U,S. military plans and conversations between U.S. or foreign officials was revealed.
While it will always be debated whether or not civil disobedience benefits a free society, I believe that there is substantial evidence found throughout U.S. history that it does. There must be a way for citizens of the country to speak out on issues in order to change laws that may be unjust. After all, actions do speak louder than

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Civil disobedience will continue as long as there is a great cause to fight for. It is without a doubt that civil disobedience is our greatest virtue, and we wouldn't be who we are without civil disobedience. As Henry David Thoreau once said, “ We should be men first, and subjects

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Dennis Radar spend his whole life committing heinous acts. As most serial killers, they begin with minor, abnormal acts until they gain more confident and secure with themselves to commit more daring acts. With the influences of killing small animals, violent pornographic and homicidal materials, Dennis developed a sadistic nature towards women and a superiority complex towards others. People were views as interior beings as women were viewed as objects that are to be used for his own sexual pleasure which was to bound them, torture them and kill them. However, the BTK killer wasn’t limited to attacking just women.

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It's easy to get angry and/or violent protests confused with civil disobedience. Many overlook the effectiveness of civil disobedience and see it as just another way to protest the government but civil disobedience has a long history. A few examples of civil disobedience include Rosa Parks’ famous refusal to move from the back of the bus in 1955; the interracial marriage between Richard and Mildred Loving in 1958; and most recently, the protest against the Dakota Access pipeline construction. In each instance, people stood up for what they thought was just and right.

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For example, Edward Snowden exposed the National Security Agency for eavesdropping on Americans and people around the world, despite the possibility of being arrested and charged with heavy crimes. " So, what did the leaks tell us? First, they confirmed that the U.S. government, without obtaining any court warrants, routinely collects the phone logs of tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of Americans, who have no links to terrorism whatsoever,"(Source 3). The question is who is truly at fault? The government for doing that or Snowden for ratting them out to the public about

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678 Words | 3 Pages

Civil Disobedience In the dictionary civil disobedience is the refusal to comply with certain laws or to pay taxes and fines, as a peaceful form of political protest, but Thoreau and Martin Luther King have their own beliefs to civil disobedience. In Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” he writes about the need to prioritize one’s conscience over the dictates of laws. Martin Luther King uses civil disobedience as something that effectuates change in the government. Both Thoreau and Martin Luther King has similar yet different perspectives on civil disobedience.

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Martin Luther King Jr. is a great example of Civil Disobedience because of his movement and how he made social progress with their civil rights. His Civil Right movement used nonviolent civil disobedience techniques to get their civil rights just as other whites already had. In this example the disobedience lead to social progress and allowed them to be seen as equal to the government with no laws against colored, religions, or races. Probably the most well known acts of civil disobedience would be the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773.

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My Standpoint Civil Disobedience is an effective method of change that has been used throughout history against unjust laws. “Antigone” The story of “Antigone” uses this idea of civil disobedience through Antigone who defies the law given by her new king. As Creon starts off his first day of work he is emotional due to the loss of his eldest son. Because Creon is so emotional, he states that the person who brought war to the land causing his eldest son’s death, shall not be buried.

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With Edward Snowden's NSA leaks, this issue was brought into relief. Was he full of moral superiority over a gray issue, or was he "that most awkward and infuriating of creatures-- a man of conscience," as John Cassidy wrote in his article "Why Edward Snowden is a Hero." Because, while Jeffrey Toobin wrote in "Edward Snowden is No Hero" that Snowden's leak was cemented in grandiose narcissism over an issue American citizens should have already digested, wasn't it after his leak that there arose an uproar over the NSA activities, which inevitably placed a modicum of agency back in the hands of the American people? I still wonder whether my perspective would be the same had Snowden released files which did more lasting harm to national security. But in that case, would that activism now be violent, instead of

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In a free society, civil disobedience is used to nonviolently protest laws against injustices to create positive change. Change is accomplished with the best intention and through nonviolent

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Civil disobedience has been a topic of discussion throughout the last two articles we have read in class. Martin Luther King Jr’s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, and Plato’s, Crito, start with MLK and Socrates in jail. King tells of how he is an extremist to end oppression and gain freedom for African Americans. He did what he believed was right and protested in response. Socrates, on the other hand, is arguing as to why he will accept his punishment of death because he disobeyed the government.

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I consider civil disobedience to be an easily-ignored pillar upon which our democracy was founded. In fact we are only established as a nation now because our founding fathers engaged in civil disobedience themselves. We were in a “social contract” of sorts with Great Britain and when we felt that they had not upheld their part of the contract (they did not allow us to create courts to maintain order, or to create a navy to defend ourselves, or to sustain our economy due to an inability to trade with any other countries), Thomas Jefferson concluded that it was our not only our right, but also our duty to break away. And it was Thomas Jefferson that combined all of the works of the great thinkers before him such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke

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Over time many things change; laws, beliefs, and even people. But what causes change? Does disobedience create these things to changes? Henry David Thoreau believed that it was one's obligation to disobey laws that were unjust. His actions inspired Mahatma Gandhi to take civil action against Britain how was ruling over them at the time, leading to their independence.

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1290 Words | 6 Pages

People's justification to engage in civil disobedience rests on the unresponsiveness that their engagement to oppose an unjust law receives. People who yearn for a change in a policy might sometimes find themselves in a dead end because their “attempts to have the laws repealed have been ignored and legal protests and demonstrations have had no success” (Rawls 373). What Rawls says is that civil disobedience is a last option to oppose an unjust law; therefore, providing civil disobedients with a justification for their cause. Civil disobedience is the spark of light that people encountered at the dead end and they hope that this spark of light will illuminate to show that an unjust law should not exist at all. Martin Luther King, Jr, in his “Letter from

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1159 Words | 5 Pages

A current issue, we have today in Los Angeles, is the deportation of undocumented, hardworking people. One way civil disobedience is effective is because protesters do not use violence which means no one dies, no one gets hurt

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For example, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his use of civil disobedience is extremely honorable and still memorable today. He used the power of speech and marches to fight for African American rights. Also, Mahatma Gandhi is another influential leader that practiced civil disobedience while leading India to independence. Similarly, both heroes were harmonious in the way they stood up for their beliefs. They used nonviolent resistance to spark waves of revolution throughout the world.

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