Civil Disobedience

• Blog – Think of the Declaration of Independence. What is the role of resistance in democracy?

Resistance in a democratic society is pivotal, it allows for protest and dissent, testing whether a democratic society’s ideals and ideas actually hold water. The proof of this is that the United States still exists today. Because the United States was born out of civil disobedience “When in the course of human events” it became necessary do dissolve the bonds between the United States and Britain. Confrontation through civil disobedience and rebellion becomes necessary to prevent more abuse from what is perceived as unjust rule. The United States has also been shaped by many other acts of civil disobedience, most notably during the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King’s Letter From Birmingham Jail was the Civil Rights Movement’s equivalent to Thoreau’s Resistance to Civil Government. Societies that cannot tolerate Civil Disobedience will suffer from it Orwell’s Allegory of communism, Animal Farm is an example of this, it shows how in Napoleon’s (the pig representing Joseph Stalin) crushing of resistance turns him into the farmers (czars) that he was rebelling against.