Is Government More Powerful

Throughout history and in today's society, corrupt and overly-powerful governments are not uncommon. This raises the question: Is government more powerful than the people? My answer: Only if the people let it become so. Peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts a free society by bringing attention to issues and showing the government that the people seek change.

Unless the people stand up for their freedoms, many times a government will uphold laws that are unjust. For example, before 1920 it was against the law for women to vote in the United States. However, the marches and efforts of women, which began with the Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention in 1848, swept across the nation. Until the 19th Amendment passed, American women had

For example, when U.S. troops fought in Vietnam many Americans expressed their discontent through peaceful protests. Therefore, when Richard Nixon ran for his first term in office, he promised the American people that he would make an effort to gradually reduce the number of U.S. troops fighting in the conflict. He called this "Vietnamization." The peaceful protest of the people against the U.S. executive actions and laws that supported the Vietnam War efforts had hence shaped President Nixon's presidential mandate. Similarly, at the very beginning of United States history, the American Colonies retaliated at first relatively peacefully against the tax laws that Great Britain had set for them. Although these peaceful attempts were met with more aggressive and then violent repercussions from the British governance, which in turn forced the American Colonists to rise up in non-peaceful rebellion in their own defense, their original peaceful intent was the birth of change for the better. Eventually, their efforts led to the Declaration of independence and the writing of the Constitution. In this case, their resistance led to the creation of their very own government, which was to become one of the most respected countries in the

In recent weeks, there have been many peaceful protests against new policies issued by President Trump through Executive Orders. Some examples of his current policies put into place through Executive Orders would be his ban on Muslims entering the U.S. Now more than ever, such peaceful protest can grow particularly rapidly as well as show injustices better than ever, and this is thanks to the world wide web. Via the Internet, a peaceful public can rally together in extremely short time, express their sentiments to billions in the touch of a key on an electronic device, and expose any injustices, lies, fabrications, or misrepresentations of the truth by an elected official. In this case, President Trump for example has claimed that Muslims from selected countries have been banned from the U.S. since citizens from these countries are dangerous to the U.S. Yet the world wide web shares with society that no one from these countries has participated in a terrorist attack in the U.S., and Americans in turn thus begin valid, peaceful protesting. The protesters know that they can dare to hope that this will make a difference. Not only do they know that they have gathered subsequent support from the rest of the country and from the international community, but they also dare to hope that peaceful protest is remarkably effective, as U.S. and world history have taught us many times