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The Importance Of Peaceful Resistance In The United States

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The ability to conduct peaceful resistance to something one does not believe in has been an important part of the United State’s society for a long time. Average citizens are given the opportunity to make a political statement and try to impact the laws of our society, while in other places people may be killed for trying to speak their mind. If someone is not harming others or encouraging chaos, peaceful resistance to laws can benefit a free society. Peaceful resistance allow people to speak out against something they don’t believe in and show those in power that their constituents do not agree with with something they did. Though there are other ways to try to impact the decision of those in power, such as writing letters or voting, getting a large group of people to protest, those in power might not listen. During the civil rights movement, African Americans were protesting for their rights with little results. However, when one woman refused to give …show more content…

In some societies, speaking out against those in power may get someone’s whole family killed, but in a free society like ours, we have the ability to act out against the government without having to worry about how anyone but ourselves may be punished. In 2013, Edward Snowden leaked information on how much the United State’s government monitored their citizens. He has fled the country since, but he doesn’t have to worry about if his family will be punished by the government by his actions. While I do not agree with his actions, they have led to good discussions on the role the government plays in our daily lives and how much they can monitor the people. Snowden has caused change and debate over the level of privacy one should expect from the government, and has caused an issue that wasn’t as big before to be more hotly contested. The people now are aware of another issue with the government and can do more to protect

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The most well-known examples of peaceful resistance come from the civil rights movement. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. defends his protests by stating that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Dr. King’s letter was a response to white men who had called his protests untimely. Dr. King points out that protesting will always be untimely, but that it must be done in order to see change. King was correct.

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Peaceful resistance to laws was prevalent throughout the history of America; back then, it galvanized the government into actions like a catalyst. Once upon a time, the transcendentalists believed that people ought not to blindly follow their government if the laws were unjust. One of their leaders, Henry David Thoreau, encouraged American citizens not to pay taxes. Outcome?

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The question of whether or not peaceful resistance toward the law impacts society in a positive way is really a question of circumstance. If I were to refer back to the historical aspects of the subject, then my immediate answer would be yes, it does; peaceful resistance has often prevailed in situations that required immediate attention, yet were simply overlooked by the general public, despite their importance. One extremely important example of this would be the many boycotts during the civil rights movements of the 60's. Civil disobedience was a way to communicate the true inequality represented by the phrase, ''separate but equal'' by peacefully marching for their beliefs. For example, many white officials used various schemes to prevent

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Edward Snowden, a former Central Intelligence Agency employee, recently exposed the National Security Agency's program "PRISM" and is now hiding in another country. This outbreak of events spurred a concerning debate between having better security or having more privacy. On one half of the government spectrum lies the supporters of government surveillance, who are convinced that having better security is far more important than having more privacy. Notably, according to the supporters of government surveillance these programs allow the government to stop any form of terrorism before it occurs. Unfortunately, Edward Snowden became a villain that betrayed the country to those who believed in what the National Security Agency was doing.

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Peace is the safety and security of a just order. Therefore, peaceful resistance is more than just unarmed resistance. For example, standing on a street and blocking traffic is not a peaceful way to protest, since it jeopardizes the safety of the drivers and protesters. Martin Luther King Jr. describes the best kind of peaceful resistance to unjust laws in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. In it, he

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While Snowden was finding somewhere to run to, conspiracy, scandal, and accusations flew in all directions in the U.S. Some called Snowden a hero for revealing these unconstitutional programs, while others felt he was a traitor and an enemy of the United States for leaking secret documents. The “hero or traitor” and “was he justified?” debates weren’t the only ones heating up. Shouldn’t a government “for the people, by the people” (as Abraham Lincoln so famously stated in the Gettysburg Address) have been clear with its citizens from the start as opposed to only coming clean when circumstance forced them

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Peaceful resistance shows that a society is not free, that there is still at lease one law which must be stricken

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It has now been three years since whistleblower, Edward Snowden, copied and released a large amount of classified information being withheld by the National Security Agency. Its domestic and foreign spying caused uproar in the public, private and government sectors due to the unethical practices that the NSA was found to be conducting. The American populace was particularly upset when they found out that the NSA had the capability and was actively recording a significant amount of their digital information or “metadata” like phone, SMS records, and purchases being made. The people felt like the NSA was undermining the privacy of the citizens and ultimately the freedom of the nation.

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Peaceful resistance with civil disobedience has played a huge role in shaping a free society throughout our history, and not just our history as Americans either. There has been many successful peaceful resistance throughout world history. Many forms of this such as, marches,parades,sit-ins,protests,boycotting and even speeches, have positively impacted or changed a free society. I can't talk about civil disobedience or peaceful resistance without talking about one of the most famous civil disobedience leaders, Martin Luther King Jr., from 1954-1968 the civil rights movement was in effect in the United States. Martin Luther King was a major person during this time.

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Using nonviolent resistance does not include killing off anyone that doesn’t share the same opinion, it is simply protesting to prove and persuade a need for change. Also, peacefully protesting attracts attention from all over the world; thus, educating more people about a serious issue in society. If no one takes action, no one will realize the problem and it’ll only continue to grow. Also, many political leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr. are extremely known for their delightful use of civil disobedience. Even better, all of them were successful in bringing about a change in society.

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Does peaceful resistance to laws positively or negatively impact a free society? peaceful RESISTANCE TO LAWS POSITIVELY IMPACT A FREE SOCIETY. Nonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals such as a social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political non cooperation, satyagraha, or other methods, without using violence. This type of action eagers the individuals being part of the resistance, that something needs to change to improve the current condition of the resisting person group. Martin Luther King Jr. , is well known as a peaceful resistances leader for cicil rights.

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The main issue in the Snowden controversy is the conflicting rights of private individuals and the US government with regard to the use of telecommunications and the internet. There are ethical issues surrounding this controversy and the most applicable ethical approach for this case is “Ethics by Rights Approach”. As a background, the reason why US government had declared Edward Snowden a traitor is his involvement in the leaking of about 1.7 million confidential US documents, 15,000 Australian intelligence files and 58,000 British intelligence files from the National Security Agency (or NSA) to the public. These confidential information were acquired by the NSA through the PRISM program by collaborating with big internet companies such

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On June 5, documents Snowden obtained were release in the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper. On June 14 Snowden was charged with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information, and willful communication of classified intelligence with an unauthorized person. Snowden’s response was "I 'm willing to sacrifice [my former life] because I can 't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they 're secretly building.” (Edward Snowden Biography). Here is a clear cut example of why the government should limit their use of surveillance.

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Peaceful resistance. Nonviolent/peaceful resistance is the refusal to obey a law considered unjust which is civil disobedience. Being peaceful and fighting for what you believe in doesn't and shouldn't negatively impact a free society. We live in a country where freedom of speech is expressed freely without judgement, so why should expressing what you think is right peacefully impact a society negatively? There are many examples in history that teach of civil disobedience, but one person in particular that I admire is Rosa Parks.

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Peaceful Resistance no matter what way you look at it, it 's still going against someone whether it involves words or actions, resistance still causes more conflict. The last 5 years we have had people say they want change through these “peaceful protest” but these peaceful protests have done nothing but turn to violent riots were theirs damage to vehicles, business families rely on destroyed, bystanders hurt, officers killed and our country torn apart. Back when Martian Luther King Jr was around and he had his Peaceful Resistance or rallies for equality, they were peaceful and brought our country together with something that needed to be changed, but the protest we’ve had the last 5 years… he would be ashamed of. Peaceful Resistance to laws does negatively impact our free society in America. First going along with what I said about there being “peaceful rallies” even though some people may be at these rallies to make a difference to support their opinion, not everyone can respect that.

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