civil disobedience

civil disobedience

  • Submitted By: asland
  • Date Submitted: 11/19/2014 5:00 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 503
  • Page: 3
  • Views: 1

Civil Disobedience
As defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary civil disobedience means the refusal to obey governmental demands or commands especially as a nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government. In other words, it is basically protesting in a nonviolent way to have something changed or modified regarding a law you see unjust. Personally, if the matter at hand for protesting hit close to home with me then I would have no problem protesting or acting in a civilly disobedient way. Depending on the reason for protest I could say I might put my life on the line if it came to that and was that serious of an issue. I believe people as a whole have to stand up for their beliefs, and in my opinion, that is the American way.
Thoreau states "I am too high-born to be propertied, to be secondary at control" (Thoreau 116). The United States Constitution gives the American public the right to assemble in the first amendment. In my opinion, picketing, protesting, marching and the numerous other forms of civil disobedience are nothing but a group of people assembling for similar cause. This being said I believe it would be unconstitutional for the government to punish or harm these people for using their rights granted to them by the exact same government. I would have no problem with joining a protest group if the cause was one I agreed with or was pulling for, but not necessarily start a group or protest. The main reason for this is, the individual that starts the uproar is at the highest risk for being punished unjustly.
One issue that I would protest to the fullest extent is gun control. I completely disagree with banning guns because regardless of the ban people are still going to kill people. This can be proven with history, people were killing people long before guns were even thought of. So in this instant, the amount of risk I would take is pretty high, but at the same time I would be prepared for tear gassing if I...

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