Pros And Cons Of Civil Disobedience

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Recommended: Analysis of Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience

Civil disobedience originated from Henry David Thoreau in his essay in which he refused to pay the state poll tax that was embedded by the American government in order to raise money to start a war in Mexico and to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law (Furtak, 2005). In my understanding civil disobedience refers to the refusal to follow certain laws or to pay taxes and fines, in a non-violent form of political protest. Any individual out there will find a law in which they don’t wish to agree with, it could be for personal reasons, religious reasons, or it may just go against their beliefs. Thus it is unethical to stop someone from expressing his or her beliefs in a form, which does not cause any form of trouble. I will argue for the view that citizens do indeed have a moral right to engage in acts of civil disobedience in a mannerly form. There are three reasons to …show more content…

I discussed that they have the freedom to be able to express their thoughts and beliefs, and also be able to protest which is stated in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, if we were all to fight for little basic things, there would be a lot of chaos. Secondly, there are many unjust laws in place in which if the people of the society don’t change, nothing will change. My counter argument to this was that how are we all able to come to a conclusion on what is defined as a right or wrong law. Lastly, I discussed how citizens always have good intentions at heart. To oppose this I discussed that we will never the outcome until a protest is finished. The government has many flaws, and they sometimes might only be representing a group of minorities and forget the rights of the majority, thus civil disobedience is important in the sense that it lets the people of the society speak for

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