[quote]Headhunter wrote:
What would Ayn say?
"But there is no justification, in a civilized society, for the kind of mass civil disobedience that involves the violation of the rights of others�?�¢??regardless of whether the demonstrators�?�¢?? goal is good or evil. The end does not justify the means. No one�?�¢??s rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others. Mass disobedience is an assault on the concept of rights: it is a mob�?�¢??s defiance of legality as such.
The forcible occupation of another man�?�¢??s property or the obstruction of a public thoroughfare is so blatant a violation of rights that an attempt to justify it becomes an abrogation of morality. An individual has no right to do a �?�¢??sit-in�?�¢?? in the home or office of a person he disagrees with�?�¢??and he does not acquire such a right by joining a gang. Rights are not a matter of numbers�?�¢??and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.
The only power of a mob, as against an individual, is greater muscular strength�?�¢??i.e., plain, brute physical force. The attempt to solve social problems by means of physical force is what a civilized society is established to prevent. The advocates of mass civil disobedience admit that their purpose is intimidation. A society that tolerates intimidation as a means of settling disputes�?�¢??the physical intimidation of some men or groups by others�?�¢??loses its moral right to exist as a social system, and its collapse does not take long to follow.
Politically, mass civil disobedience is appropriate only as a prelude to civil war�?�¢??as the declaration of a total break with a country�?�¢??s political institutions."
[/quote]
What would Thoreau say?
If… the machine of government… is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law
What would Twain say?
Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.
What would Miller say?
Laws are only words written on paper, words that change on society’s whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool.
What would Emerson say?
Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.
What would the objective epistemologist really say?
A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
She’d be more on board with the protests than not I’d daresay.
