What is
civil disobedience? the question is not terribly simple. for example most people would agree that
Martin Luther King’s
sit ins at “
white only” restaurants constituted civil disobedience.
Burning a draft card is an
act of civil disobedience. What
criteria do these acts need to meet?
Civil Disobedience Is:
-deliberate
-premeditated
-public
-illegal
-enacted for what the protester considers to be the common good
That is, if I’m protesting peacefully and I have obtained a city permit for my protest and I break no laws that is not civil disobedience. That’s civic action, that is it’s not illegal. If, while protesting I’m harassed and get in a fist fight with someone that is not civil disobedience, that is civic action gone haywire, that is, it was not premeditated. If I’m protesting peacefully and I start marching in the street and this is illegal, but I didn’t know that-- that is not civil disobedience, it’s not deliberate. That’s being ignorant of the law.
Likewise, if I grow tobacco in my back yard and sell it to the neighbourhood kids that is not civil disobedience. That’s being a soft drug dealer. If I wanted to protest the laws that prevent me from selling tobacco to kids, I’d need to notify the press to make the act public.
If I refuse to pay my taxes, not because I think the tax is unjust, or because I object to the way my tax dollars are used, but, simply because I want to buy a CD player That’s not civil disobedience. That’s selfishness, it’s not (even in my own eyes) for the “public good.”
Civil disobedience should be the last resort for a political activist. Actually, it’s the second to last. The real last resort is a revolution.