Civil Disobedience Essay Examples

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Civil Disobedience

Civil disobedience can be a touchy subject for some, but it is a topic that needs to be addressed, not ignored. This country was founded on the knowledge that laws, if declared unjust by the people, could be protested and with the gain of enough support, overthrown. The Founding Fathers saw that on certain things and at certain times, a government may become corrupted, unconnected with its people, or just simply stuck in their ways. There are many examples of all of these circumstances that can be observed throughout history and in modern times. For example, if civil disobedience was in favor of rights, such as group rights, like that of the civil rights movement, or individual rights, like that of Kim Davis, they are a positive for democracy; however, if they are in service of pet causes and not related to rights, such as it was with the case of the Dakota Pipeline, it is a negative for democracy. One of the most well known examples of civil disobedience is that of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. They used such means as …show more content…
The pipeline has been protested for quite some time as being wrong for going through a tribe's sacred ground. However in this case, instead of logical thoughts and honest truth being the primary objective, these have instead given way to the mob-rule way of thinking which creates a hole in a persons mind of although no rights are being trampled upon, there is still protest because of the human desire to always get what we want. It also shows the human nature of the constant need to disagree and fight, and though this trait could be good, even helpful at times it can be harmful when carried over to issues where it is not necessary, such as this. This type of civil disobedience shows that when conducted in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons, it can be harmful to

Civil Disobedience Essay example

pay taxes, the objection to cast a vote, and the rejection of personal property are all declarations of disapproval directed to an unjust government. The people of any unfair system are obligated to tailor their government through relentless civil disobedience or rebellion. For the sake of the governed, immediate action, or lack of action, must be taken when a government deviates from its course. It is not a man’s duty to eliminate any wrong, but he must not participate in any wrongdoing. With such…

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Civil Disobedience In Julius Caesar

provoked determining actions to be taken by the conspirators. According to Thoreau’s essay On Civil Disobedience, an action can be considered “civil disobedience” if it follows general criteria. One component of civil disobedience is communication. Cassius wrote letters with false messages in order to persuade Brutus into the participation of Caesar's murder. Cassius used false evidence to gain a man’s participation, an example of dishonest communication. “Don’t worry. Good Cinna, take this paper and be…

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Civil Disobedience Rhetorical Analysis

Civil Disobedience is an essay that caused great controversy in the past and the present, mainly because of its appeal against government system. The essay was written by Henry David Thoreau, a transcendentalist surveyor who opposed government through the use of pasivist methods. He wrote the essay during the 1800s, a period of great discontent for society, he was known for criticizing everything around him and characterized by his pessimism and hopelessness towards mankind. Much alike biblical beliefs…

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The Boston Tea Party: An Analysis

governmental structure, civil disobedience can become an invaluable tool. Peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts…

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Thoreau's Role In Civil Disobedience

Africans as the majority of the population, much worse. Gandhi, like Thoreau, was arrested for nonviolent protest against unjust laws. Gandhi read Thoreau's essay, "Civil Disobedience". It encouraged him to not give up, even when the challenges seemed much too hard to deal with. Gandhi dedicated his entire life to nonviolence and civil disobedience for a change in the…

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Shooting An Elephant Rhetorical Analysis

Essays, no matter the subject, have certain elements within them that make their argument objectively better than another. This is no more true than with the works of George Orwell and Henry David Thoreau. Their writings, (Shooting an Elephant and Civil Disobedience respectively), show this concept extremely well, as even though both pieces of literature focus around ethical decisions, one is unequivocally more poignant to their audience. The use of style is a big part of any form of writing, which…

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Henry David Thoreau Protest

This essay focuses on the question of whether or not twenty-first century activists have maintained the principles for inspiring change that past movement leaders and idealists such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Henry David Thoreau stood for in there respective time periods. The argument presented is that modern protestors do possess the same characteristics as previously inspired leaders. The antithesis is that present day movements have lost sight of the principles of civil disobedience and…

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Examples Of Transcendentalism

should “let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand.” The point of simplicity is to provide us humans with a more productive lifestyle without numerous distractions. A perfect example of effectiveness through simplicity, along with another transcendentalist idea, civil disobedience, is with the Cuban Revolution. Fidel Castro disagreed with Batista’s way of ruling after he seized power, as did many others. However, instead of expressing his feelings over social media like many…

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Thoreau's Use Of Peaceful Resistance To Civil Disobedience

“If it [the law] is of such a nature that it requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.” These words and Henry Thoreau’s larger essay “civil disobedience” helped to inspire other reformers such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi to use peaceful resistance of unjust laws, in their own fights against injustices. But how does such acts of resistance impact a free society. If resistance to an unjust law results in the abolition of that form of injustice…

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Rhetorical Analysis On Civil Disobedience

When one thinks about civil disobedience they tend to think negatively about it because all laws are made and placed here for a reason, but after one reads Henry David Thoreau’s essay on Civil Disobedience it really makes one think about how unfair some of our laws really are. In Thoreau’s essay he says that he believes, “That government is best which governs least.” Thoreau believes that the government is something unnecessary, impractical, and inconvenient. I believe that government and law was…

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