Posted on 12/30/2007 8:35:43 PM PST by ventanax5
The Courageous Act of Civil Disobedience
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Ghandi pointed out three possible responses to oppression and injustice. One he described as the coward's way: "To accept the wrong or run away from it. The second option was to stand and fight by force of arms." Gandhi said, "This was better than acceptance or running away." But the third way, he said, "was best of all and required the most courage to stand and fight solely by non-violent means."
When a government violates its own laws - the rights guaranteed to the citizens by its Constitution, when a government violates international law, specifically violating international treaties and covenants it has signed and ratified and thereby agreed to uphold, the people themselves have the right, indeed the responsibility, to uphold the law themselves. The history of civil disobedience, as enshrined in the essays of Henry Thoreau and the leadership of Frederick Douglas, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, instruct that when a nation violates the rule of law and tramples upon the rights of man, it is incumbent upon the people themselves to not accept the wrong and not fight by force of arms but to fight solely by non-violent means.
Sorry, but I just don't have time to entertain any further discussion of this exercise in futility!!!
I wasn’t putting the good doctor down. Au contraire, I was pointing out in a light-hearted way that I didn’t think he had some kind of radical agenda as some posters seemed to suspect.
Sorry.
Happy New Year!
“It was demon possession.”
Probably the most accurate answer...
“Why go off topic?”
By merely asking me this question you are as guilty as I.
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