Is There Ever a Time for Civil Disobedience?

[DRZinn]

Hiding Jews in the attic was good also because, by doing so, she held onto her OWN humanity in the face of dehumanizing authoritarian oppression.

True. My point is that it's not the same as mass disobedience, which even in secret can have an effect on the law.

 

[ArmedBear]

There was a lot of secret disobedience in Nazi-occupied Europe. My family has stories, and I'm sure every family does.

One of my aunts worked in an ammo factory that turned out duds. One of my grandfathers, along with the rest of his unit, wasted a lot of time and ammunition on mock battles with the Resistance -- then drank with them every night at the local pub. My uncle held his CO at gunpoint to get his unit on a train out of Stalingrad (my grandfathers and my uncle were all drafted by the Nazi military, and open refusal would have resulted in their families' deaths).

Every little bit helped.

I often wonder if, without the many acts of resistance, small and large, individual and organized, Hitler might have even prevailed. The fact that one person or group didn't know about all the others did not change the impact of all of them put together.

Furthermore, after the end of WW II, there were enough people remaining, with their humanity intact, to rebuild civil society. Obedience to "the law" would have destroyed that.

I'm sure there are parallels in every authoritarian society throughout history. The stories of William Tell and Robin Hood suggest that this is not a recent phenomenon, either.

Food for thought.

 

[DRZinn]

One of my grandfathers, along with the rest of his unit, wasted a lot of time and ammunition on mock battles with the Resistance -- then drank with them every night at the local pub.

Now there's a story that should be told...

 

[Gungnir]

I'm always amazed at how Godwin's Law is proven every time there's a long internet discussion...

 

[ArmedBear]

Well, Gungnir, would it be somehow better if my parents had grown up under the Soviet government?

 

[Gungnir]

I'm not saying that the discussion and point raised wasn't valid, (Godwin doesn't define that the reference is either valid or invalid just that it is). No considering the discussion topic it was going to happen eventually.

I'm still a believer that civil disobedience is never appropriate until it's too late. Certainly historically this is proven time and again, if the German population had displayed disobedience before the persecution of Jews, Gypsies, Academics and homosexuals, then the world would be a different place, again that doesn't mean that anything wrong happened, just that in general people want to hope for the best until it's absolutely positively 100% confirmed that the best is a long way away from where they're headed. The same could be said for the French Revolution, American War of independence, American Civil War, etc. etc.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Civil disobedience can be secret and still a positive good..... Last I checked, Ann Frank wasn't dancing around in the streets with a placard reading, "I help the Jews!"....

There was a lot of secret disobedience in Nazi-occupied Europe. My family has stories, and I'm sure every family does.

One of my aunts worked in an ammo factory that turned out duds. One of my grandfathers, along with the rest of his unit, wasted a lot of time and ammunition on mock battles with the Resistance -- then drank with them every night at the local pub. My uncle held his CO at gunpoint to get his unit on a train out of Stalingrad (my grandfathers and my uncle were all drafted by the Nazi military, and open refusal would have resulted in their families' deaths).

Every little bit helped....

But every non-legal act in furtherance of a cause isn't civil disobedience. Civil disobedience has a particular meaning: "...civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws or government policies...." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-disobedience/).

That doesn't mean that other methods don't have their place. It just means that hiding fugitives from persecution, clandestine sabotage, armed resistance, etc. are other methods that can be useful and appropriate, but they're not civil disobedience.

How about when a law is constitutionally wrong?...

Who decides? I don't. Do you? On what authority? And if someone disagrees, how do you then decide who's right?

The constitutionality of a law is a legal matter. What courts decide affects the lives and property of real people in real life. What may be decided elsewhere does not.

Who appointed the courts to do this? Actually, the Founding Fathers did. It's in the Constitution:

"Article III

Section 1. The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.....

Section 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution,...."

Many of the Founding Fathers (the 41 delegates to the Constitutional Convention who signed the Constitution) were lawyers. They were familiar with English Common Law (the basis of out legal system) and that for a long time it had been customary for the courts, under the Common Law, to consider the validity of such matters as the Acts of Parliament and the actions of the Crown under the rather amorphous collection of statutes, court judgments, treaties, etc., that became understood in the Common Law to be the English Constitution.

And the doctrine of the judicial review of laws under the Constitution was firmly established in the jurisprudence of the United States by the Supreme Court, under John Marshall as Chief Justice, in the case of Marbury v. Madison in 1803. John Marshall may not have been a Founding Father; he wasn't at the Constitutional Convention. But he should at least be entitled to be considered a founding uncle. He was a delegate to the Virginia Convention that would ratify or reject the Constitution and, together with James Madison and Edmund Randolf, led the fight for ratification.

So whether or not a law is constitutional is really a legal matter for the courts. You may disagree, but that won't change anything in real life.

It can be interesting and useful to discuss why and how a court has made a decision. It can also be interesting to try to predict how a court will rule in a particular set of circumstances. But can be highly technical discussions.

 

[Officers'Wife]

And they would have been simple traitors, and punished as such, if they hadn't won.

Thank you for reinforcing my point. The diff between civil disobedience and common criminal is which side wins the argument.

 

[AKElroy]

The diff between civil disobedience and common criminal is which side wins the argument.

No, sometimes one side is right & the other wrong, regardless who wins. Our founders would have been right, even if they had lost. The Rowandan Christians were right, even though they were slaughtered.

 

[Frank Ettin]

...The diff between civil disobedience and common criminal is which side wins the argument.

Except that the Revolution wasn't civil disobedience.

 

[Officers'Wife]

Except that the Revolution wasn't civil disobedience.

Only in America, to King George it represented mass disobedience to civil authority.

Our founders would have been right, even if they had lost.

Had they lost they would have been hanged as traitors and the American tories would have applauded the action. I suspect the hanging would have been celebrated in much the same manner as Guy Fawkes' hanging is in England.

The Rowandan Christians were right, even though they were slaughtered.

Right and wrong is often a matter of perspective. During the Siouxian war the 7th Cav slaughtered old men, women and children on at least two occasions and Custer was awarded for the actions making such atrocities 'right' in the eyes of the US government.

When Custer and his 'men' met up with warriors instead of old men, women and children, they were 'massacred' which was clearly considered a wrong.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Only in America, to King George it represented mass disobedience to civil authority.

It wasn't civil disobedience because it wasn't civil. It was violent. It was war. Civil disobedience is non-violent. See the definition in post 107.

 

[AKElroy]

Right and wrong is often a matter of perspective.

Wrong. Right and wrong are always absolutes. I could get into a religious discussion, but this thread is too interesting to suffer an early closure. The subjectivity of those intepreting an event may judge it to be right or wrong; those judgements have no effect on whether it is in actuality one or the other.

Do you not believe our separation from British rule was justified by the atrocities of King George? Or are you going to find yet another obscure referrence to show how we were no better?? I can assure you, for every negative you can find, I can post hundreds extoling the virtue of the hungry we have fed and the oppressed we have died to free all over this world for 200+ years. We are a BETTER people than most. We should be proud of it; our president may have an issue with patriatism & national pride; I don't. I also have no issue identifying greatness; our founders were heros.

It is sad that we have now gone so far in struggling to find moral reletivism that this fact is becoming lost to many.

 

[browningguy]

No, we're from the government and we're here to help you.

The government knows what is best for you and always acts in your best interest, even when you don't realize it.

 

[divemedic]

Who decides? I don't. Do you? On what authority? And if someone disagrees, how do you then decide who's right?

Those questions were answered 233 years ago:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

See: Who decides? The governed. On what authority? On the contrary, one should ask upon what authority the law was passed in the first place. How do we decide who is right? Well, the way I see it, you can vote by the ballot box, you can vote by refusing to participate, you can vote in the jury box, you can speak and convince others to vote, and if all else fails, you can vote from the rooftops.

I have done (and will continue to do) all but the latter. The last I hold out as the final answer, and the FFs said it best:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

 

[Officers'Wife]

Do you not believe our separation from British rule was justified by the atrocities of King George?

What I believe is irrelevant, by 18th century standards King George was acting within his powers. There are always two sides to every story and trying to ignore one side or the other is to ignore the lessons of history.

Again, the various aspects of the 'Intolerable' acts which were the catalyst of the American Revolution were the lawful use of Royal power by 18th century standards and morality. Despite the assertions of some that the Revolution was done openly and famously before 1776; the 'protests' were done covertly. For example, the persons involved in the Boston Tea Party disguised themselves by dressing as indians with liberal application of 'war paint' to further hide their identity. In modern times this would be no different than burning a tobacco barn or a whiskey aging warehouse to rob the federal government of excise taxes on the products. The Stamp Act was quickly reinstated with federalism by the stamp needed to transfer real estate. It still lives today via the notary seal. It would appear it wasn't the stamp the colonies objected to but who issued it.

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

The answer is YES.

 

[AKElroy]

Again, the various aspects of the 'Intolerable' acts which were the catalyst of the American Revolution were the lawful use of Royal power by 18th century standards and morality.

This is simply not true. He did not use the same standard on the colonist as his mainland subjects. Under the Magna Carta, his internal countrymen had a measure of representation and due process that he denied the colonies.

Again, Morality was NOT different in the 18th century. The things that were wrong then are still wrong today, and vice-versa.

 

[AKElroy]

What I believe is irrelevant

Isn't the basis for your position the subjectivity of morality?? Under that standard, what you believe is the only relevant standard.

 

[Frank Ettin]

...See: Who decides? The governed....

Yet the Founding Fathers provided in the Constitution for an appointed judiciary, serving for life. The Founding Fathers consciously assured that legal matters would be decided from a place removed from the "the governed" and direct political pressure.

The Declaration of Independence was written to explain why we were tossing the British out. The Constitution was written as the "users' manual" for our Nation.

 

[divemedic]

Yet the Founding Fathers provided in the Constitution for an appointed judiciary, serving for life

Where did it say that the SCOTUS decided what the COTUS meant?

This is simply not true. He did not use the same standard on the colonist as his mainland subjects. Under the Magna Carta, his internal countrymen had a measure of representation and due process that he denied the colonies.

You mean like when Congress (without amending the COTUS) limited our representation in Congress by fixing membership at 435? A limitation that dilutes our representation to a mere fraction of what it was at the founding?

Or how Guam, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and other territories have no representation?

 

[Frank Ettin]

...Where did it say that the SCOTUS decided what the COTUS meant?...

See post 107. The Founding Fathers gave judicial power to the federal courts and gave federal courts jurisdiction to decide cases arising under the Constitution. Many were lawyers and therefore understood what "judicial power" was. They also understood that the normal exercise of judicial power and deciding cases arising under the Constitution necessarily required interpreting the Constitution.

The constitutionality of a law is a legal matter. ...

Who appointed the courts to do this? Actually, the Founding Fathers did. It's in the Constitution:

"Article III

Section 1. The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.....

Section 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution,...."

Many of the Founding Fathers (the 41 delegates to the Constitutional Convention who signed the Constitution) were lawyers. They were familiar with English Common Law (the basis of out legal system) and that for a long time it had been customary for the courts, under the Common Law, to consider the validity of such matters as the Acts of Parliament and the actions of the Crown under the rather amorphous collection of statutes, court judgments, treaties, etc., that became understood in the Common Law to be the English Constitution.

And the doctrine of the judicial review of laws under the Constitution was firmly established in the jurisprudence of the United States by the Supreme Court, under John Marshall as Chief Justice, in the case of Marbury v. Madison in 1803. John Marshall may not have been a Founding Father; he wasn't at the Constitutional Convention. But he should at least be entitled to be considered a founding uncle. He was a delegate to the Virginia Convention that would ratify or reject the Constitution and, together with James Madison and Edmund Randolf, led the fight for ratification....

 

[AKElroy]

You mean like when Congress (without amending the COTUS) limited our representation in Congress by fixing membership at 435? A limitation that dilutes our representation to a mere fraction of what it was at the founding?

Or how Guam, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and other territories have no representation?

Are you equating our treatment of Guam, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico with the atrocities of King George? As for ANY indescretions committed by our country either internally or externally with regard to limiting our rights, I would not disagree that there is a point at which our republic becomes unrecognizable, and that radical change is required. I do not believe we are at that point.

Witness the strength of position we now enjoy as gun-owners; we are arguably in a better position with regard to the RKBA than we have been in 50 years. This is due to the ballet box, and active citizen participation. These efforts still work. When they fail to, that is a different story.

 

[Officers'Wife]

Under the Magna Carta, his internal countrymen had a measure of representation and due process that he denied the colonies.

The colonies had a representative in Parliament and a Viceroy to present grievances.

Isn't the basis for your position the subjectivity of morality?? Under that standard, what you believe is the only relevant standard.

No, that is not the basis of my position. My opinion, for that matter the opinion of any 20th century person is irrelevant. Only the values and opinion of the principle players of the era have any relevance.

Fact #1 England spent money much protecting the colonies during the French and Indian wars which were an offshoot of the war in Europe at the time. The royalty believed the colonies should help pay for the expenses of the protection they had enjoyed during that period. The majority of the colonists agreed but disagreed on who exactly should do the actual paying. The modern day equivalent would be the happy folks out west that preach since income taxes are not part of the original Constitution the Internal Revenue Service and any debt incurred under the statute is null and void.

Quartering of soldiers in private homes was also a cost cutting effort. Having the subjects protected by the soldiers pay for the quartering seemed reasonable to the Crown. Modern day equivalent would be the National Guard armories that exist free from property tax and in a much broader sense the factories and businesses that are given sweetheart deals to locate in a certain area. The various football stadiums are a prime example. Again- in a very broad sense as in forcing the public to foot the bill of a work that benefits a certain segment of the people rather than the public as a whole.


Most of the Intolerable Acts were designed to prevent the Crown from bankruptcy. The ensuing war was a method of avoiding payment. Again- from the American perspective of the era the reasoning was quite different. Since the colonists won the war, only their justifications are taught. This by no means is reason not to attempt to understand the reasoning of the Crown.

Tomorrow we will move up to the Constitutional Convention - Read chapter 6 of your study guide. Be prepared to discuss the motives and concerns of the federalists and anti-federalist factions. For extra credit explain why Madison referred to those advocating 'Jeffersonian democracy' as 'mongrel curs.'

 

[The Gunman]

The issue isn't legal/illegal. The issue is interpretation of "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

What one thinks is currently illegal because some bureaucrat or cop claims it is illegal and you are arrested, may not actually be illegal. If I were to open carry here in Illinois, I would most definitely be arrested for unlawful use of a weapon, a felony. However, if I appealed and the supreme court decided the Illinois law regarding openly carrying a firearm was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, I was never truly doing anything illegal. It had just not been tested in court.

That is much like the recent case in Illinois in witch a person was charged with unlawful use of a weapon because the officer claimed a center console of a vehicle was not a case. The Illinois Criminal Code does not define case so when the Supreme Court heard the case they looked in a dictionary to get a definition and decided the console was a case. Therefore the person was not held guilty because the firearm was in the console.

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Appellant, v.
MICHAEL DIGGINS, Appellee.
Opinion filed October 8, 2009.