This thread is dedicated to the proposition that intelligent people can disagree.
Some notable conservatives on this blog have implied that civil disobedience is ethically wrong simply because it's legally "wrong." Is that really so?
Let's consider specific cases. The Civil Rights Movement, for example. When Martin Luther King Jr. was ordered by Birmingham police not to march in that city with his supporters, legally, the police were "right" and MLK and friends were "wrong." Although the history books don't record this, many middle class Americans of the time — including even some Blacks — thought that MLK was "pushing it" and was wrong for breaking the law, regardless of his justification.
Or consider the American Revolution. What was the Revolution, after all, if not one big act of "disobedience" to the lawful authority of the British who had already granted many (not inconsiderable) rights to the colonials? — though clearly not as many as the colonials would have liked.
What say you, Gandalf?





















































































