Peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts any free society, such as our own. There is no way that the founding fathers of the United States could have foreseen every problem our country would face, but they made it abundantly clear that the power is vested--first and foremost--in the people. Voting is the most popular form of political participation in the United States, but protest and civil disobedience are other ways to participate in our democracy. With voting participation at about 50% in presidential elections (and dismally lower in midterms and local elections), alternative forms of participation are more important now than ever. Martin Luther King Jr., Henry David Thoreau, and Edward Snowden exemplify how effective civil disobedience
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He saw the Mexican-American War as an aggressive act by the U.S. Government to acquire more land. In his essay, Civil Disobedience, Thoreau justified his refusal to pay the tax as him rejecting something that “the people would not have consented”. The United States’ Constitution guarantees its citizens taxation with representation, by allowing people to directly elect members of Congress, who hold the sole power in the federal government to levy taxes. However, Thoreau recognized that this method is not without flaws, and that Congress is “liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it” (Henry Thoreau, 1849). Refusing to adhere to a law one does not believe in and accepting the consequences, just as Thoreau and Dr. King did, is a respectable and effective way to make one’s voice heard in …show more content…
Snowden was disturbed by the amount of information about individual Americans that the NSA had collected, so he spoke out. He considered the collection of this information to be unamerican and “not something [he was] willing to support or live under” (Edward Snowden, 2013). Snowden felt obligated to inform the public this hidden truth, despite violating Espionage Act by doing so. Americans like King, Thoreau, and Snowden took government into their own hands when they refused to adhere to wrongful laws; considering that America was built on self-government, these noble acts of civil disobedience are essential to maintaining a truly free
He saw the Mexican-American War as an aggressive act by the U.S. Government to acquire more land. In his essay, Civil Disobedience, Thoreau justified his refusal to pay the tax as him rejecting something that “the people would not have consented”. The United States’ Constitution guarantees its citizens taxation with representation, by allowing people to directly elect members of Congress, who hold the sole power in the federal government to levy taxes. However, Thoreau recognized that this method is not without flaws, and that Congress is “liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it” (Henry Thoreau, 1849). Refusing to adhere to a law one does not believe in and accepting the consequences, just as Thoreau and Dr. King did, is a respectable and effective way to make one’s voice heard in …show more content…
Snowden was disturbed by the amount of information about individual Americans that the NSA had collected, so he spoke out. He considered the collection of this information to be unamerican and “not something [he was] willing to support or live under” (Edward Snowden, 2013). Snowden felt obligated to inform the public this hidden truth, despite violating Espionage Act by doing so. Americans like King, Thoreau, and Snowden took government into their own hands when they refused to adhere to wrongful laws; considering that America was built on self-government, these noble acts of civil disobedience are essential to maintaining a truly free