Civil Disobedience: The act of peacefully refusing to follow law or rule set by the government and accepting the disciplinary actions that will follow. Normally, these acts are done in protest to make a point on why a certain law should change. This goes in hand with a free society, which is a society that acknowledges all opinions, even if they are predominantly unpopular. Peaceful defiance to laws (known as civil disobedience) shapes a free society in a positive manner, helping to open discussion and opinion, fact and research, to new and possibly unpopular ideas that shape, nurture and make a free society what it is. Imagine for a moment that there was no change to society from the moment the Constitution was signed. How would society be different? The race and gender issues would still prevail. There would be no laws in place to protect races equally, no expectation or safeguards given to women in the workforce. In the recently released film, Hidden Figures (20th Century …show more content…
After Donald Trump was elected President, there was immediate outcry from those opposed to Trump. Responses ranged from social media rants to actual violent protests across many American cities. This brings up the point of what truly differentiates “peaceful” from “non peaceful.” Civil disobedience can be defined as breaking the law, but not in a harmful way. This disobedience is a resistance to laws, but not a resistance to the discipline that follows. Violent protests, on the other hand, are not an example of civil disobedience because they caused harm. Many protesters tend to be resistant to arrest instead of accepting arrest in the same way that an act of civil disobedience would be. There could have been a different reaction and movement from those against Trump if protests had been peaceful. The point made by civil disobedience, creating a free society, is lost when violence