Civil Disobedience
Humans tend to desire superiority for themselves, yearning for self awareness and egotistical reasons. There comes a time when resistance to civil law needs to be done. If a law or act becomes unjust and violates our basic rights as humans, we as humans, can revolt without being penitent. . A form of a peaceful rebellion without blood and lives being lost, is through words. It has been shown throughout history how human rights have been violated on many numerous accounts. From the beginning of time, women were seen as inferior than men. As time goes on, humans tend to pin point a new target to use as a scapegoat for all their problems. Women, children, Puritans, Quakers, Baptists, African Americans, slaves, Jews, Irish, Catholics, Asians, Hispanics, Muslims, and gays are just a broad list of people whose basic human rights have been abused. Writers such as Henry David Thoreau wrote about this heated topic to draw awareness to it. People such as Gandhi fought for human rights, a much needed act. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was one of the most needed in our society. The way to bring justice to the table under these circumstances is to nonviolently rebel; such as boycotts, disintegration of schools, and protests. We are able to obtain much more progress through words than with violence. As the famous saying says, "The pen is mightier than the sword."
Civil disobedience can be portrayed as violent and a wrongdoing in the eyes of those instituting the laws. Is it really wrong to fight for your rights as a human being? There were two ways of countering injustice. " One way is to smash the head of the man who perpetrates injustice and to get your own head smashed in the process." This makes prideful and victorious nations bad tempered, and see violence as the only option to seek to solve their problems with others. Not only is violence a bad option to fix our problems, it also causes us to become hurt and suffer in the process. "Everywhere wars are fought and millions of people are killed. The consequence is not the progress of the nation but it's decline." War does not bring the ends to meet, it only rips the strands further and further all while stealing lives away from the world. On different accounts, war has proven to be an awful method to solve disputes. "No clapping is possible without two hands to do it and the quarried without two persons to make it. Similarly, no state is possible without two entities, the rulers, and the ruled." The problem with being ruled is that an unjust selfish narcissist ruler may stomp all over the ruled for their own sake. This can be shown in various governments that have instituted law on the citizens. The ruled need to rise and speak out,for justice. A more prosperous society should obey their conscience rather than human law, as Antigone said in Sophecles's play Antigone. As Martin Luther King Jr quoted from Saint Augestine, " An unjust law is no law at all." There is no need to permit an unjust law to continue to torment innocent people.
The civil rights movement was one of the most desperate things we needed in America. Things such as hateful violent racism existed such as the Ku Klux Klan and segregation among whites and people of color. Why? Why treat someone like they're meaningless and demeaned? We all are human no matter what our skin color is, we are all 99.8% the same, genetically. Why must this .2% difference make such hateful essence among us. Following the American Civil War, three constitutional amendments were passed, including the 13th Amendment that ended slavery; the 14th Amendment that gave African Americans citizenship, adding their total population of four million to the official population of southern states for Congressional apportionment; and the 15th Amendment that gave African-American males the right to vote (only males could vote in the U.S. at the time). From 1865 to 1877, the United States underwent a turbulent Reconstruction Era trying to establish free labor and civil rights of freedmen in the South after the end of slavery. Many whites resisted the social changes, leading to insurgent movements such as the Ku Klux Klan, whose members attacked black and white Republicans to maintain white supremacy. When white Democrats regained power, they passed laws that made voter registration more restrictive, essentially forcing black voters off the voting rolls. The number of African-American voters dropped dramatically, and they no longer were able to elect representatives. From 1890 to 1908, Southern states of the former Confederacy created constitutions with provisions that disfranchised tens of thousands of African Americans and U.S. states such as Alabama disfranchised poor whites as well. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in 1909. It fought to end race discrimination such as racial segregation, disenfranchisement, and mass violence towards African Americans; through litigation, education, and lobbying efforts.
Not only have people been discriminated for their thoughts and physical appearances, but unfortunately, people have and are also being discriminated for whom they love. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community has faced many atrocious hateful acts towards them. On a daily basis, these people have to continue their daily routines with degrading stares and vile comments. Not only do they face these demeaning comments in person, but they are constantly haunted by these vengeful deteriorating thoughts at home too. Numerous members of the LGBT community have been harassed, persecuted, bullied, and even physically abused and killed for their beliefs. If someone does not share the same beliefs as you do, it is immoral to persecute them. So, why do many continue to do this any way? To this day, there are countries who find loving someone of the same gender a sin. Afghanistan, for example, condemns the man who committed an "atrocious act" to the death penalty. In some Middle Eastern countries, the "sinner" is whipped in public, sent to jail, and even killed. These people, who are unable to choose whom they love, are even killed for something they have absolute no control over. This can be tied to the discrimination faced by other ethnic, religious, and cultures, as people are demeaned for things they have no control over, such as whom they love, respect, or their skin color. Civil disobedience against any laws that are unjust and discriminating can be and should be rebelled by the people. No one, should be persecuted and nor without just demeaned in any sense, especially if it is about something they have absolute power over, such as being a women, a certain religious, of color, or gay. Civil disobedience, in the form of boycotts, speeches, sit ins, poems and writings, and peaceful protests are the way to achieve change with the unjust tyranny and discrimination faced. Public and typically peaceful resistance to public power would remain an integral tactic in modern American minority-rights politics. It is proven to be an adequate method, since at some means, those who have been discriminated against, finally are heard as they roar together.
On different accounts, the persecution of people of contrasting backgrounds and lifestyles has been present in history since as long as it has been written. Howard Zinn wrote, "There may be many times when protesters choose to go to jail, as a way of continuing their protest, as a way of reminding their countrymen of injustice. " Martin Luther King Jr also stated, " I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law." Both men demonstrate the ability to bring consciousness to a laws that should not be tolerated. Martin Luther King Jr in no way wanted to cause disobedience just to contradict the law. All he wanted was to bring awareness to it, such as many other prominent figures that participated in the Civil Rights Movement and other Civil Disobedience acts. Not only were speeches and protests the forms to bring awareness to these issues, but so has writing. Authors such as Henry David Thoreau have faced acts deemed unjust, and written about it to the public in order to cause an uprising followed by the consciousness of the issues. Due to the increase of awareness, thankfully, many people from around the world are becoming much more conscience of the occurrences around the world. People are becoming much more active and outspoken. Famous figures, such as artists are composing music to also bring awareness, and contributing to organizations to help discrimination against all people to an end. As mentioned before, it is a psychological ordeal in which humans tend to crave the upper hand in whatever it is we do. We yearn for an advantage. Who might be the next target of our narcissistic thoughts?
