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Argumentative Essay: Breaking The Law

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Civil Disobedience Argumentative Essay For thousands of years, society has created laws to help protect the people and keep them safe and in order. There have been many historical figures such as Harriet Tubman, Cesar Chavez and Malala Yousafzai who have all broken the laws for the common people. Other historical figures like Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King J.R, have also broken laws for what they believed was right and worked hard to improve the conditions for others. Therefore, breaking the law is justified when someone feels a particular law is unjust and they will do everything in their power to ensure the law is fair for all citizens. Nevertheless, breaking the law can be justified when a person is trying to challenge the injustice of that law and make it essential for a functioning place to continue. …show more content…

In the story “Antigone” written by Sophocles, Antigone breaks the law by burying her older brother Polyneices when her uncle King Creon prohibited him from being buried. Consequently after getting caught trying to rebury him by a guard, Antigone gets arrested and Creon questions her on why she disobeyed his orders. Antigone explains why she disobeyed him “You still dared to break this law? Yes, because I did not believe that Zeus was the one who had proclaimed it; neither did justice or the gods of the dead justice lives among” (Sophocles, Page 39). The most logical conclusion from this evidence is that Antigone was aware of the consequences; she believed that her actions were justifiable accordingly to what she did, which could have prompted Creon to change the law. Therefore, this evidence shows that people will stand behind what they fight for and are willing to accept the consequences Breaking the law is justified when one person believes that law is very unjust and non-

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