Civil Disobedience Research Paper

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Pages: 3

About one-hundred thousand Vietnamese died as a result of subjection to Ho Chi MInh's dictatorship. About ten million perished under Stalin and another seventeen million under Hitler. While avoiding accrediting these genocides to public submission, they do serve as examples to demonstrate how potentially dangerous a government can become if allowed free rule. I believe the role of the governed is to check the power of the state, restraining the government before it can become too powerful. Civil disobedience can positively impact a free society by balancing power, producing a precedent, and providing for the safety and well-being of the people. The balancing of powers is most familiar as present in America's system of government. One of three government branches is composed of locally elected representatives from districts in each state as well as two senators per state. This system of allowing the common people a voice allows for the population to check the powers of the government alongside the …show more content…
The precedent for limiting the power of authority came in 1215 when the common people of England forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, submitting him to the "law of the land". Civil disobedience saved the English people from years of tyranny. When Rosa Parks peacefully refused to give up her seat on the bus, she sparked an entire movement. Along with the followers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks sympathizers peacefully boycotted the bus systems and brought about a positive change. Today, America is a country unsegregated by law, united as one. More recently, when unjustly ordered to forfeit their land, again, to the government of the United States as provided in the name of Eminent Domain, the native people of the Dakotas peacefully refused. Many supported the fight against the pipeline and the project was soon forced to