Rebelling Against Unjust Government

On January 21, 2017, millions of women, and even some men, joined together in various cities to march for civil rights. According to the March on Washington’s official website, these people exerted their energy in union to inflict liberation, “joining in diversity to show our presence in numbers.” These citizens were unhappy with the acts and rhetoric of our current federal power holders, and they acted. People of all colors, genders, beliefs, and backgrounds joined together to uphold the rights for marginalized people. In fact, in the Women’s March’s mission they state, “defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us.” As Americans, these people had the right to protest and spread their beliefs, and generated a historic event. Therefore, peaceful resistance to laws is, in fact, an imperative aspect to a free

Throughout history, the citizens of America have led protests and movements against unjust actions by those in power, laws that seemed to violate one’s rights or laws that seemed to hurt or discriminate against others. These protests have been crucial to shaping the nation into what it is today.

Civil disobedience is the refusal to conform to certain laws as a form of harmless political protest, while being aware of the consequences that could result because of it. Peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts a free society because actions are taken due to people letting their voice be heard. While some may argue that the main reasons of this are the five basic rights mentioned in the first amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition), this issue goes far beyond that. Without civil disobedience, many historical events might have not played such an important role as they did to the point that they changed America in numerous ways; not to mention the courageous people who still take part in protests today to claim the rights they should have.

Civil disobedience is one of the most peaceful ways to protest an unjust law in a free society and allows individuals to bring a law under public scrutiny. Free societies allow every citizen to make their opinion known and published, but if an important opinion is published in a smaller newspaper, it may not receive much attention or consideration. Civil disobedience is necessary because it brings attention to injustice by actively demonstrating oppression and mistreatment. The phrase "actions speak louder than words" is common, but not only do actions speak louder than words, but throughout history they have proven to be the only main way to push others in a society to action.

Peaceful resistance also known as civil disobedience; by definition, is the act of opposing a law one considers unjust and peacefully disobeying it while accepting the consequences. To me, civil disobedience is the thought and or action in one’s mind after they break a law or rule, and they automatically accept the consequences, without question.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stated, “In any nonviolent campaign, there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action” (Letter from Birmingham Jail). It is absolute that society benefits from actions as such. The collection of facts to determine the reality of an injustice, brings knowledge to the individual researching the occurrence in depth and said person could then share their knowledge with those around them. Bringing true knowledge to fellow americans should always be considered a positive act, even if the facts being uncovered are hideous in nature. The second step of negotiation is a lost art of today. This is an essential foundational concept of performing a nonviolent resistance. Negotiating is what creates the healthy dialogue that

The world has been driven by a force of civil disobedience by many different well known leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. , Rosa Parks, Alice Paul, and Mahatma Ghandi. Civil disobedience, the act of disobeying the law in a peaceful manner for one’s own rights and thoughts, has been used for the greater good for centuries past and will most likely continue to do this through the many centuries to come. The Constitution itself states that congress can make no law prohibiting religion, media, speech, the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances and the right to peacefully assemble. Civil disobedience is also shown vividly through the Civil

The morality of disobeying unjust laws has been a highly debated topic. Some believe that it is never right to break a law, while others cite morals, and universal code such as the laws of God as justification for disobeying national laws. However, while it is possible to debate the morals of disobeying laws, you cannot debate the of effects civil disobedience. Only looking at the results, it is obvious that peaceful disobedience to unjust laws has been beneficial to free societies. To look at the benefits of peaceful disobedience, we must first look at the founding vision for government, and what civil disobedience means.

The next step encompasses the understood notion that many unfair and unjust relationships exist in everyday life and obliges us not only to acknowledge them, but to address them as well. The organizers use of “your personal Rodney King” (Chavez, 2012) is an excellent example of this whereby she challenged members of her community to address their own personal injustices. The difference between then and now though is that there is a broader understanding of social injustice although still there is a lack of action. This broader understanding is seen in examples such as our knowledge and tracking of infant mortality rates, poverty rates, and even crime rates. Thus by these goals, we must not only question the inaction of government and corporate entities, but further demand action of ourselves even in the event of extreme misanthropy. Furthermore by both the above and at this stage, we must challenge stereotypes and the status-quo on a regular basis and with committed effort which leads into our next topic.

Earlier in my speech, I promised that I would quell my fellow protesters’ doubts that my commitment to nonviolent resistance would not create positive change. As a result, I hope they will listen to my defence of nonviolent resistance. It is at times like this when I look to my inspiration, the late Mahatma Gandhi. Ultimately, I believe that every protester here represents the moral conscience of the American people. As a result, we must always act in a manner that ennobles our cause and beliefs. Consequently, nonviolent

ginally titled "Resistance to Civil Government", has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience. The driving idea behind the essay is that citizens are morally responsible for their support of aggressors, even when such support is required by law. In the essay, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican–American War. He writes,

In our society, there is things that can improve to better everyone as a whole. As Thoreau wrote “government is best which governs not at all” he is showing the people would prosper and improve to its maximum potential if the government let the people make decisions instead of some select few (Civil Disobedience 117). As a teenager of society, I have seen some decisions that the government has made. From my perspective I see the effect it has on my parents and me instead of actually having a say so in the matter. The government has made countless errors in the area of taking my generation's rights away, and restricting the freedom that this country was built on. The way I see it is that if the government was not a regulator, more of a protector,

Their are many theories on how government came to be, yet the most popular theory among people is the one in which humans voluntarily decided to create a government in order to receive security and protection. If we look at government through this angle we can see that it was based primarily for the mass majority to benefit them, not benefit one man or a few people. In my opinion I believe peaceful resistance positively impacts society. People say that " Rules are meant to be broken" This statement has some truth to it because some rules are unfair to the citizens that live in that country. No human is born perfect when people put their trust to one man or a group of people thinking that they won't make mistakes, citizens are only deluding themselves from accepting the

Without a job, without a source of income, without a way to provide oneself with the necessities, how would one survive in life? It is stated in Henry David Thoreau’s book, “Resistance to Civil Government,” that the appropriate reaction to an unjust government is to remove oneself from office if the government violates the moral human law and rebel/revolutionize against that government. This is clear in the following quote, “All machines have their friction; …But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other words, when …a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, …, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize” (Thoreau 12). However, rebelling could result in losing a position occupation and leads to serious consequences for the person involved.

Tyranny is manifested in many different ways. After a long debate between the men they proceeded to abolish The Articles of Confederation and create a new Constitution. This new set of rules consist of; Balancing Powers from the Large and Small States, Separation of Powers, Checks and Balances, and finally Federalism. How does another piece of paper with different rules guard the United States of America against tyranny? The Constitution created an amazing new setup for the country.