Comment by scoofy 5 days ago
The literal point of civil disobedience is accepting that you may end up in jail:
"Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law."
-- Letter from the Birmingham Jail, MLK Jr: https://people.uncw.edu/schmidt/201Stuff/F14/B%20SophistSocr...
It makes it a problem that's inherently present for any act of civil disobedience, unless you truly believe that you can hide from the US government. I'm pretty sure that all of the technical workarounds in the world, all of the tradecraft, won't save you from the weakest link in your social network.
That's life, if you can't take that heat stay out of the kitchen. It's also why elections are a much safer and more reliable way to enact change in your country than "direct action" is except under the most dire of circumstances.
This works when protesting an unjust law with known penalties. King knew he would be arrested and had an approximate idea on the range of time he could be incarcerated for. I don't know if it's the same bargain when you are subjecting yourself to an actor that does not believe it is bound by the law.
Oh, apologies, I'm not saying that King didn't risk considerable injury or death. I'm saying that I don't think he is talking about that in this particular passage. The passage gp quoted is about how accepting lawful penalties from an unjust law venerates and respects the rule of law.
I think it's different with illegal "penalties" like being mauled by a dog or an extrajudicial killing. While those leaders of the civil rights movement faced those risks, I don't think King is asking people to martyr themselves in that passage, but to respect the law.
In contrast to accepting punishments from unjust laws, I think there is no lawless unjust punishment you should accept.
If you let the government stomp on your constitutional rights and willingly go to jail on unconstitutional grounds, then that's not respect for the law. That's respect for injustice.
Accepting jail over 1A protected protests only proves you're weak (not in the morally deficient way, just from a physical possibilities way) enough to be taken. No one thinks more highly of you or your 'respect for the law' for being caught and imprisoned in such case, though we might not think lesser of you, since we all understand it is often a suicide mission to resist it.
>If you let the government stomp on your constitutional rights and willingly go to jail on unconstitutional grounds, then that's not respect for the law. That's respect for injustice.
My point is about civil disobedience, not disobedience generally. The point of civil disobedience is to bring attention to unjust laws by forcing people to deal with the fact they they are imprisoning people for doing something that doesn't actually deserve prison.
Expecting to not end up in prison for engaging in civil disobedience misses the point. It's like when people go on a "hunger strike" by not eating solid foods. The point is self-sacrifice to build something better for others.
https://www.kqed.org/arts/11557246/san-francisco-hunger-stri...
If that's not what you're into -- and it's not something I'm into -- then I would suggest other forms of disobedience. Freedoms are rarely granted by asking for them.
Using your 1st, 2nd, and 4th amendment rights is considered civil disobedience at this point; keep up.
If your point is to ignore the history and political philosophy of civil disobedience because "times are different now," then just grab your gun and start your civil war already... because that's where you've concluded we're at.
I'm not even really sure why I'm getting so much pushback here. I've thought this administration should have been impeached and removed within a week of the inauguration in 2017. I just am not sure where all this "why won't you admit that things are so bad, and shouldn't be this way" is helpful, when Trump was democratically elected. When you have a tyranny from a majority, the parallels to MLK are very clear, and you can't expect that change with come without sacrifice.
Civil disobedience is only nice and easy when you're sect is already in power, which -- when we're talking about people who generally support liberal democracy -- it has been since probably the McCarthy Era.
Materially impeding law enforcement operations, interfering with arrests, harassing or assault officers, and so forth is not 1A protected and is illegal. There’s lots of this going on and some of it is orchestrated in these chats. They may nevertheless be civil disobedience, maybe even for a just cause, but I have no problem with people still being arrested for this. You obviously cannot have a civil society where that is legally tolerated.
It isn’t just people walking around holding signs or filming ICE. Can we please distinguish these cases?
Importantly this definition references an individual’s conscience. Seditious conspiracy is another matter. Here is the statute:
> If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
A group chat coordinating use of force may be tough.
That's not the point of civil disobedience, it's an unfortunate side effect. You praise a martyr for their sacrifice, you deplore that the sacrifice was necessary.