Civil Disobedience is not a legitimate Protest Tactic

I could assume yer argument makes no sense.Is Imprudent.
But have you stated or justified use of unruly civil disobedience.?
Whats yer argument.Without seeming highly selfish { in other words
a Protestor should be able to infringe on other's in society in order
to voice their dissent,a citizen's right}.

 

What happened to rounding up 250 volunteers to storm the Wall Street occupiers?

 

I disagree. Or, perhaps they do have their elements of intimidation and extortion, in that they remind businesses that they operate at the pleasure of the people and that if the people choose, they can make business entirely too difficult to profit from. But I think that's the truth of the matter, and it's a good thing for everyone to remember.

Boycotting is perfectly legitimate, isn't it?

I do get a little iffy on blocking traffic. I don't feel that I have the right, as a person, to get in the way of someone else who is just going about their business. It is, technically, in my own opinion, a small act of violence to bar someone else's path. On the other hand, those roads also belong to the people. So I won't stop someone else from blocking traffic, though I won't engage in it myself. I can make my point just fine from the sidewalk.

Civil disobedience -- meaning peaceful disobedience -- is very, very American.

 

A moment of anger at the inanities of posters and a 'troll of retribution'.

 

Civil disobedience is fine, it worked for most great reformers of the twentieth century, such as Gandhi, MLK Jr, etc.

Your solutions seem to be despotic crackdowns on all resistance to right wing ideology. Nothing new there either. But people aren't going to go easy, and the more injustices the wealthy commit, the more the government turns a blind eye, and the higher the unemployment rates and foreclosures climb, is the more people who will take to the streets in the coming years.

This is the twenty-first century, and it is obvious that talk will change nothing. The wealthy 1% runs the government and the media. People have to create large scale demonstrations with specific goals to halt the market, over and over, until demands are met.

 

Well of course. I mean the Bus boycotts of the 60's, etc of course are acceptable. But would you try and prevent other people who didn't agree with you from using the Bus? That is stepping across the line.

Of course peaceful civil disobedience in choosing not to use a particular service or something like that is acceptable behavior.

But lets take a modern example, disrupting patrons from entering a bank is completely unacceptable, or in the case of unions for instance, trying to block trucks from getting in and out of a business, or intimidating and attacking scabs, etc. is simply not allowed either. This isn't the 1920's. With social media and the internet press such actions really are unnecessary in today's modern era.

 

By Silicon Magicians standards, the Boston Tea Party was outright theft and vandalism.

I love it how he always stands with the rich against the poor and the strong against the weak. What a perfect lapdog.

 

Have you considered meditation? It's awesome.

 

Haha yes, it seems he would rather have all civil liberties in the US denied, see people thrown in prison for life for holding up traffic and their lawyers disbarred, than watch the wealthy 1% in this country submit to regulation and minor tax increases.

 

*sigh*

The US Government is not a tyranny, or a monarchy, or a despotism or anything of the sort. It is a legitimate democracy that can be changed through the use of balloting and votes.

All it takes is enough organization and people who agree to do the changing. That is the problem.

People keep acting as if America is some stealth dictatorship and is an illegitimate government that can only be changed through disruptive violence and direct retributive action. It is not.

One can make an argument that a king in a faraway land on the other side of an ocean who takes retributive action against you is no longer legitimate. That cannot be said for your own capital city within your own national borders.

Also that fact remains that it was a minority of people who wanted to break away from the UK, and it could've very easily gone the other way with America being a UK commonwealth State rather like Canada, but history disagreed with that verdict. You are comparing apples and oranges.

If that makes me a "lapdog" then so (*)(*)(*)(*)ing be it. You make you sound like loyalty to ones own Government is a crime or conformity to social standards makes you somehow less of a human being. There is no crime being committed against the American People, there is only a few American people who want a social/economic system different from the one we live in now and willing to tear (*)(*)(*)(*) up and break things to get it.

Yes, when it comes to the OWS "revolution" I'm as "tory" as it gets. That doesn't make me somehow illegitimate. Not all of us are rebels and not all of us are "suffering" under the current system.

 

That is your opinion. And there is a difference between free speech and civil disobediance.

Free Speech is a protected right- along with the right to gather to express opinions.

However, with Civil Disobedience- so long as the participants are willing to accept the legal consequences for their actions- I think it is legitimate.

During the Civil Rights movement, when Demonstraters were willing to go to jail for their beliefs- indeed invited the police to jail them- that was legitimate. Ghandi, when he advocated that people non-violently disobey authority, understood that if a large enough segment of the population refused to obey unjust laws, the society would have to respond.

However, violence is not legitimate- in my opinion.

 

Those things, I think, are arguable. I think it depends a lot on how you do it. If you stand in the doorway of the bank with a baseball bat, that's not okay. If you stand on the sidewalk with a sign and shout your message at everyone who goes through the doorway, I think that's okay. And if there are so many of you on the sidewalk that people are having trouble getting in and out of the bank, the bank should either consider the consequences of that degree of unpopularity or else stand its own ground and take those consequences.

Sure, I'd agree. Nobody should be attacked.

Big business still controls the media, including the internet press. Even on an internet forum, they can just hire people to post slogans all day. Civil disobedience remains necessary.

 

Silicon:

America is a democracy in name only. It is exactly like Russia or China, you get to pick which party member you want to represent you.

In America, with rare exceptions, you get to choose which one of the representatives of the ruling class you want to represent you.

That is the whole problem. Your representatives aren't beholden to YOU, they are beholden to the donors that put them in office - they guys who paid for the campaigns.

That is the entire premise of the 99% movement - govern for all Americans - not the 1% who bought you!

It doesn't matter if they say they are Democrat or Republican, they just represent their donors and their class. For example Pelosis family is worth some $90 million, Sen. Diane Feinstein is worth even more, you think they are going to vote themselves a tax increase?

This cartoon should sum it up for you:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20075586-503544.html

 

What is it that you think makes them feel that way?

 

No it's not.I did Transendental Meditation for about a year.
It turns one into a zombie,long term.Like in the movie
- Night of the Living Dead -.

 

False propaganda from foreigners posted over the internet like Post #38 of this thread.

 

That's meth, not meditation. Transcendental meditation just makes you odd.

And transcendental meditation is not the only kind of meditation. Meditation just clearing your mind by watching your breath.

 

You know... after the last couple of years, when I saw active Tea Party members, threaten violence, bringing loaded weapons to public meetings... (2nd Amendment solutions, and such BS etc.), I don't want to hear some guy on a forum trying to take away people's right to make some noise and public stink. After all, when the political machine is as BROKEN as ours is in America, I'd say that a strong display of civil disobedience is FAR more preferable to being poised to literally SHOOT DOWN those who may disagree with you.

Honestly, those who think that civil disobedience is NOT the way to go, in a nation so afflicted as ours is by corporate and political-dysfunction, a massive and POWERFUL non-violent statement is likely the most effective recourse. Until OWS happened, one relatively small group or party had cornered the discourse and taken control of people's attentions; they literally sought to steer people's minds in a certain direction. Well, the OWS movement was/is a counter-voice... and that is speaking for a much larger segment of the America population than just a few.

I don't think the purpose of civil disobedience is to be "legit"... thus the term "disobedience". That is, people either go-along with things as if things are okay/acceptable, or they ACT UP to show that there are problems. Honestly, I can say that I'd MUCH rather see someone picketing downtown with signs (and NO PERMIT), than some guy displaying his 'awesome' personal arsenal of loaded firearms, threatening those he disagrees with (as we saw enough of in the heydays of the Tea Party).

Occupy!!

 

Right. And also, too much of anything can put someone off-balance.

In the case of using illegal drugs, that's a very bad choice.

 

Silicon:

The last gasp from someone who is comprehensively defeated. There is a link on my post to CBS and no doubt further links to the financial disclosure forms that prove what CBS reported.

I'm actually not a "foreigner" either and last time I looked this is a global discussion website.

 

Who are you to decide what is a legitimate form of following one's conscious? Are you God that you judge the worth of human beings and decide what the social order should be, or you are just a worshiper of thugocracy that believes it heretical when others find other means of achieving political goals?

Civil disobedience is as valid as any other form of protest. It carries consequences, of course, and that is the point of civil disobedience. To show the injustice of government and whatever else is being protested against. Sometimes, it backfires, as there's not really a good reason to protest. In other cases, it's very powerful, as in Rosa Parks and her civil disobedience, or the Boston Tea Party. In other cases, it's powerful but deadly, as in the civil disobedience that led to the Boston Massacre.

The Quakers are known for using civil disobedience as it is the one process of political change that does not rely on violence. They were particularly famous in the US for operating the underground railroads in clear violation of the Fugitive Slave Act. Gandhi followed the same model to lead his people in massive demonstrations of civil disobedience.

Slaves obey. Free people follow their conscience even when those who claim jurisdiction over them demand obedience to injustice. Which are you?

 

civil disobedience is how some of the recent revolutionary movements gained momentum, there would still be segregation if the civil rights movement did not use these tactics

they wouldn't be able to make their speech heard if they were confined to a small area, they have to sit in front of traffic and buildings and block people from going to work

 

The only legitimate means of achieving political goals is through peaceful discourse, the use of the press and media and compromise on those terms. Radicalism is unacceptable in America and always has been. The Founding Fathers set up the system so that radical voices were not necessarily silenced but not necessarily given representation either. America is about compromise among the mainstream and radicalism is supposed to be eschewed, any view of the events of our history backs me up on this.

Perhaps I should've narrowed down the topic title to "Violent forms of civil disobedience are not legitimate means of protest" but my original intent is to show that movements like OWS are simply not legitimate movements and have no relation whatsoever to civil rights struggles or other true protest leaders like MLK and Ghandi, in fact, OWS spits in the face of such leaders.

I am not a slave, remaining loyal to the Republic is the civic duty of Americans! Why have people forgotten that?

Is or is not our republic the pinnacle of human thought on governance? I believe so, and I see the OWS movement as a direct threat to the Republic and to the flag for which it stands something I spent my entire life pledging allegiance too. Maybe people don't see oaths as important anymore, but I was raised by an older generation who took such things quite seriously.

There is no "injustice" going on in America. We have legitimate court systems and we're all adequately represented in Congress. That is a fact. The only people who feel this nation is "unjust" are radicals and social misfits.

Our Government is not "bought" or owned. It is being torn apart by radical populism fed by internet conspiracy theorists and radical thought. The entire perception of reality in America being upended by false narrative after false narrative. Lies.

Populism has become a pathological nightmare thanks to the internet and the false narratives that it often advances as fact and I believe that the Republic that I grew up under is being threatened by it.

I am an American loyalist and a capitalist. There is nothing disgraceful, or enslaving about that. My conscience is clear. There is nothing wrong with maintaining faith in the system and the checks and balances that the Founding Fathers left us. They are still there and still working.

Claims that the checks and balances the Founding Fathers left us are no longer working is a false narrative being pushed by populist propagandists who wish to destroy the system itself.

 

Whether or not civil disobedience is legitimate is a matter of opinion.

All that matters is that civil disobedience cannot include violence or destruction of property. It can include all sorts of obstruction and inconveniences to everyone else, and it does often result in arrests.

Intimidation isn't part of civil disobedience, so that's where your OP misses the mark.

It sounds like you're criticizing something other than civil disobedience.

 

Civil desobedience is what has given the rights that we have today. Civil desobedience against totalitarian, authoritarian or injust laws is a legitimate form of fight. Indiscutable.

The law is not justice.