task0778
Diamond Member
This statement was written in another thread, since closed but I thought the issue of non-violent civil disobedience to be worthy of discussion. Violent civil disobedience is pretty much condemned by most people, but if someone wants to propose the value of such actions in another thread somewhere then I'll be happy to respond. For now though, in this thread we are talking about non-violent civil disobedience, okay?
"Nothing wrong with non-violent civil disobedience"
First, a definition. According to Wikipedia, Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government. Some would note that the term "Civil" means non-violent, otherwise it would be uncivil. Fine, let's assume that for this discussion civil disobedience (CD) is by definition non-violent.
Let's talk about that. You are basically saying there's nothing wrong with breaking the law as long as you are non-violent about it. IOW, a willful disregard for the rule of law is okay, a person or group gets to decide that their cause or reason is ample justification to ignore the dictates of those elected officials whose responsibility it is to maintain law and good order. Does everyone then get to decide which laws to break in the name of whatever their cause is? That's getting kinda close to anarchy, isn't it? Who wants that? Or should the elected officials get to decide which causes and groups are allowed to break the laws and which are not?
For example, to maintain public safety and security, a city or state may issue a temporary curfew order. There's good reasons for doing that, namely to prevent or reduce violence and destruction that is harmful to the community and it's citizens. You say there's nothing wrong with CD, but what about when the activity becomes violent and destructive? What about when the peaceful protest gets hijacked by others with a different agenda? You don't think it's wise to try to preclude the violence before it starts? Should a person or group arbitrarily decide to ignore that curfew to continue to protest, knowing that violence has recently occurred and is likely to re-occur? Is that okay if you favor their cause? Isn't that kinda what's going on across the country? Breaking any valid law to protest an unjust law, action, or process would seem to me to be wrong, as well as antithetical to the law or gov't being protested. Valid laws are there for good reasons, and a curfew is a good reason; namely to preserve law and good order. So, CD is somewhat of a slippery slope, no?
And there are alternative ways to address bad laws or practices, right? It's called voting, if for example bad cops are not being disciplined or fired or prosecuted, then the people can vote out the elected officials who aren't doing their jobs in this regard, to be replaced by someone else who will do better. That's the whole point of a democratic republic, true? So, who's really at fault here? To me, it's the local gov't that is at fault, so is CD appropriate to protest the bad cops, or should BLM and others instead be addressing the real problem of the elected officials who have created the problem in the first place by allowing bad cops to remain on duty? My point is that if you're going to break a valid law then it oughta be the last resort rather than the 1st. IOW, CD is only justified when nothing else worked. It's not like you can't legally and peacefully protest without breaking any laws. It's not like people can't support another person for the position, even if he/she is (God Forbid!) a republican.
"Nothing wrong with non-violent civil disobedience"
First, a definition. According to Wikipedia, Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government. Some would note that the term "Civil" means non-violent, otherwise it would be uncivil. Fine, let's assume that for this discussion civil disobedience (CD) is by definition non-violent.
Let's talk about that. You are basically saying there's nothing wrong with breaking the law as long as you are non-violent about it. IOW, a willful disregard for the rule of law is okay, a person or group gets to decide that their cause or reason is ample justification to ignore the dictates of those elected officials whose responsibility it is to maintain law and good order. Does everyone then get to decide which laws to break in the name of whatever their cause is? That's getting kinda close to anarchy, isn't it? Who wants that? Or should the elected officials get to decide which causes and groups are allowed to break the laws and which are not?
For example, to maintain public safety and security, a city or state may issue a temporary curfew order. There's good reasons for doing that, namely to prevent or reduce violence and destruction that is harmful to the community and it's citizens. You say there's nothing wrong with CD, but what about when the activity becomes violent and destructive? What about when the peaceful protest gets hijacked by others with a different agenda? You don't think it's wise to try to preclude the violence before it starts? Should a person or group arbitrarily decide to ignore that curfew to continue to protest, knowing that violence has recently occurred and is likely to re-occur? Is that okay if you favor their cause? Isn't that kinda what's going on across the country? Breaking any valid law to protest an unjust law, action, or process would seem to me to be wrong, as well as antithetical to the law or gov't being protested. Valid laws are there for good reasons, and a curfew is a good reason; namely to preserve law and good order. So, CD is somewhat of a slippery slope, no?
And there are alternative ways to address bad laws or practices, right? It's called voting, if for example bad cops are not being disciplined or fired or prosecuted, then the people can vote out the elected officials who aren't doing their jobs in this regard, to be replaced by someone else who will do better. That's the whole point of a democratic republic, true? So, who's really at fault here? To me, it's the local gov't that is at fault, so is CD appropriate to protest the bad cops, or should BLM and others instead be addressing the real problem of the elected officials who have created the problem in the first place by allowing bad cops to remain on duty? My point is that if you're going to break a valid law then it oughta be the last resort rather than the 1st. IOW, CD is only justified when nothing else worked. It's not like you can't legally and peacefully protest without breaking any laws. It's not like people can't support another person for the position, even if he/she is (God Forbid!) a republican.