Peaceful Resistance To Civil Disobedience

I believe that civil disobedience is good for the advancement of the American society. This a simple fact which has been proven many times by history all around the world. A few examples of important historical participants and leaders in civil disobedience include Mohandas Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and much more. Mohandas Gandhi was an Indian man who spent his life protesting the unjust anti-Indian law in Britan using, you guessed it, civil disobedience. Most importantly on March 30, 1930, when he lead a defiance march to the sea. His efforts caused India to gain its independence in 1947. This happened in the very year he went on a hunger strike. Susan B. Anthony was one of the world most famous suffragettes in American history.

Like Martin Luther King Jr once said “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” With these words in mind, I affirm the resolution resolved: Civil disobedience in a democracy is morally justified. I offer the following definitions to help clarify the round: Civil disobedience is nonviolent refusal to follow the laws or demands of government to prove a point and the person participating in civil disobedience has to accept the consequences. A democracy is a government by the people, where the people elect representatives or the leader. Not everyone has to vote in a democracy but, the leaders or representatives have to be decided by the majority of eligible voters. Morally is doing the right thing based on the morals of the people

From the beginning of mankind’s recorded history, opposition to established governing bodies have always been recorded. Whether through coup d'etat or a peaceful protest, resistance to authority always causes change in some way. The United States Government changes; laws are meant to change as well. America prides itself on the history of its peaceful protests and revolutions, demonstrating positive effects on a free society. Because peaceful resistance wasn’t creating progressive change, radical disobedience was the key to change in the 1700’s during the American Revolution. In 1765, British Parliament passed the Stamp Act which required a stamp on all paper used by British colonists. Subsequently, the Stamp Act Congress met in New York City, in order to peacefully document all their grievances with the act. They stated “it is the right of the British subjects in these colonies, to petition the King, Or

"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so."-Socrates. Peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts a free society because the society is not free unless it's able to check the government. As long as the protest of the law remains peaceful it is a good thing. It is the public telling the government that they will not let them gain to much power and crush their human rights.

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

Gandhi, leader of the indian independence movement. Gandhi put in a lot of hard work to gain their independence, was imprisoned many times, but has inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. In his essay he mentioned twice about how they will not obey their laws. He mentioned this when he said “We made it clear to the said Government that we would never bow to its outrageous laws” and also when he said “but so long there is yet life in these our bones, we will never comply with your arbitrary laws.” This demonstrates civil disobedience because he just told them simply and peacefully that they will not abide by those laws they've set. They didn't try to fight or overrule the government, they just informed them what they were doing, and they protested without using violence.

Resistance to Civil Government (Civil Disobedience) is a dissertation written by American abolitionist, author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau published by Elizabeth Peabody in the Aesthetic Papers in 1849. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was born and lived almost his life in Concord, Massachusetts. After finishing public and private school in Concord he attended the prestige Harvard University. He excelled at Harvard despite leaving school for several months due to health and financial setbacks. Mr. Thoreau graduated in the top half of his class in 1837. Mr. Thoreau argues that people should not allow any government to control or atrophy their thoughts or beliefs. Mr. Thoreau was an also remained a devoted abolitionist and has written

Mohandas Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in what is now the Indian state of Gujarat. Also known as Mahatma, a title of respect which means “Great Soul” in Sanskrit – the language of Hinduism and Buddhism, he was the child of a minister; his mother was a devoted practitioner of Vaishnavism – an ascetic religion governed by the tenets of self-discipline and nonviolence. According to Gandhi, to act out against a law that was unjust or immoral was an act of civil disobedience. In order for resistance to be civil, Gandhi set forth certain criteria that had to be met including (1) An individual would harbor no anger. (2) On would have to endure an opponent’s anger and attempts to harm him – never taking action against the other person.

In order to bring about change, peaceful resistance is necessary. In a free society, the nonviolent violation of a law regarded as unjust is referred to as civil disobedience. Peaceful resistance to laws creates a positive impact in a free community because it inspires change. To understand how civil disobedience inspires change in a free society, one must first understand what civil disobedience is. In a democratic community, laws are created for the benefit of people. Once the citizens start to feel oppressed, a change in the law becomes essential to preserve their freedom. To do so, citizens must rally together and protest until the issue has been remedied. The process of peacefully and nonviolently resisting laws considered unjust in order

started with the Montgomery Bus Boycott on December 1, 1955, with Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat for a white man. This is a southern custom that blacks give their seats to white passengers towards the front of the bus and blacks either stand or move to the

The United States Declaration of Independence states that "when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government" Our nation was a phoenix that rose from the ashes of a monarchy through a resistance that had grown into a revolution. The result of our founding fathers resistance was a nation, a nation that held promises of freedom and equality for all of it’s citizens yet bitterly was not at all close to equality and justice for all.

Peaceful resistance to laws has a positive impact on a free society. This allows the people of the community to have a say so in which the society is ran. Some people say peaceful resistance is to keep the government in check. Civil disobedience can change the society and raise awareness to disparities. Peaceful resistance is very productive to uphold a free society. From Rosa Parks to Martin Luther King Jr. there was a lot of civil disobedience acts that turned out to be for the better. There has been thousands of people that has changed or impacted the society using peaceful resistance.

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

Resisting authority and the act of civil disobedience has been on display in a number of both low- and high-profile occasions in this country’s history. With his essay, “Resistance to Civil Government,” Henry David Thoreau would go on to inspire an entire generation to take a stand and to fight injustice and corruption whenever spotted. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela were all some of the high-profile examples of civil disobedience, but the act of resisting authority and combating social injustice did end in the last century. If anything, it is stronger now than ever before. Since the dawn of this sweeping epidemic of police brutality, people have taken it upon themselves to seek action, to protest and to seek peace from

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world” These astonishing words that Mahatma Gandhi said made me suppose that Civil Disobedience is a Moral Responsibility of a citizen because when breaking certain laws, a citizen perhaps incorporate a good intention or a bad intention for breaking it. Citizens break the law occasionally to have their beliefs be heard so change can be assemble. Some ways that Civil Disobedience can be a Moral Responsibility would be breaking the law for the right intentions. An example of breaking the law for the right intentions could be The Salt March that Gandhi Created or, Rosa Parks standing up for her beliefs about her actions, MLK wanting equal rights with caucasian. Illegal Immigrants coming into the