February 16, 2004

• I'd say, in general, that when the powerless do it, in portest against the powerful, its alright. When the powerful do it, against the powerless, its not.
• I would say that civil disobedience is ok when it's nonviolent, aimed at ending discrimination and bigotry, and clearly targetted at specific laws. The civil rights movement (and sit-ins all over the country at various times, and for various reasons) taught us that it works, although can result in excessive violence against the people participating.
• To me, the line between "civil disobedience" and "lawbreaking" is pretty simple. If you actively want to get caught and held responsible for your actions, it's civil disobedience. If not, you're just breaking the law. So--for example--somebody who invites a reporter and a policeman to her house, illegally downloads MP3 files, and then goes to jail is performing civil disobediance. By contrast, somebody who downloads MP3 files privately, using various means to hide her identity, is just breaking the law. Or, to put it another way: the aim of civil disobedience is to change the law. The aim of crime is just to circumvent it.
• As a first thought, I'd suggest that it might be a good idea to distinguish between two types of civil disobedience. There can disobedience that is directly related to the grievance (so, you disobey by sitting where you're not allowed on the bus, or by granting marriage licenses to homosexuals), or unrelated disobedience that simply serves as a protest, to highlight the issue or to discomfort your opponents (so, blocking traffic because of fathers being denied acces to their children). Unfortunately, I don't think there's any clear 'one is right and the other's wrong' distinction to be drawn between them. While in general directly related protests would seem to be preferable - on the grounds of greater justifiability - they have the problems of a) being potentially counterproductive, and b) suggesting the principle of 'just break any law you don't like'. I think, ultimately, you might have to go back to social contract theory to look at this. Didn't Locke say that it was the duty of the citizen to disobey if the govenment (or rather, monarch) failed to honour the contract? Perhaps the justification for civil disobedience can only come from the context of the society in which it occurs. In other words, if the populace in general aquiesces to your disobedience, then it's okay - a form of democracy on demand. But... minorities, majorities and the tyranny thereof... It's a tricky bugger, I must say. (On preview: what jacobw said is very good - as I noted in the San Francisco thread, the striking down of the gay marriages is almost a goal in itself. But in terms of theoretical justification, I'm not sure just standing there with your hands up saying "come and get me" is enough to transform any lawbreaking into legitimate civil disobedience... although perhaps if you add in a caveat about the disobedience not harming any other individuals, you're getting pretty close. Maybe. Err.)
• "the aim of civil disobedience is to change the law. The aim of crime is just to circumvent it." Jacobw, that's as concise a definition as I've heard. It reminds me of what MLK's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," in which he (responding to charges of disrespect for the law) says that those who break an unjust law and accept its consequences are in fact showing the highest respect you can have for the concept of law. If I remember correctly, King had three criteria for determining what was or wasn't civil disobedience. 1. The law you're breaking must be an unjust one 2. All other legal channels must have been attempted. 3. The act of disobedience must bring no great harm to innocent people.
• 2. All other legal channels must have been attempted. Hmmmmm. I'll withhold comment... ...for now.
• I agree that there's some problems with "2. All other legal channels must have been attempted" - which, while fine in theoretical terms, in practise leads to different standards of justification depending on how impatient somebody is. I mean, it's fine if you're talking about a court-based legal battle, where there's a clear point (the final appeal at the highest court) where that option has been exhausted... but in this debate, "legal channels" must also refer to change through the democratic process - and where do you draw the line on that? "Attempted" could mean anything, while "exhausted" could stretch out to infinty. But the real problem with those principles is surely that "1. The law you're breaking must be an unjust one" is utterly subjective. If we could decide on a definition for that, why would anybody need to resort to civil disobedience? (I'm referring to the situation in a reasonably democratic, civil society, of course, not to a totalitarian system - that being where the difficulty in this question lies...)
• Yes, as with the problem of so-called legislated morality, who's to decide whether a law is unjust or not?
• It's easy to decide if a law is unjust: 1) Does it confer benefits on some citizens but not others, based not on any actions the others have taken, but just on who they are? 2) Does it actively hurt those being impacted by it? (in a legal, societal, or financial way?) 3) Does it carry ramifications that extend past the law to general treatment in society?
• No one wants to have to arrest people for getting married. The gay community wants to challenge the law. If a gay couple gets arrested, the ACLU will step in and the press would be a pain in the ass for the Bushies. The media will ask them if they support prosecuting gays that try to marry. Those press gaggles with Scott McClellan will be comedy gold.
• They wouldn't be arrested though, Sullivan. Their marriages would simply go unrecognised and no government department would accept their wedding certificate as a legal document. The ACLU could step in if, say, a newlywed homosexual couple tried to file a joint tax return and had it rejected -- but that won't make for exciting press. It hardly puts pressure on Bush's administration at all. All this particular case of civil disobedience really does, to me, is raise awareness of the desire/need for legal gay marriage and increase public sympathy, and that may well put pressure on Bush. (This should probably be in the other thread, sorry -- I just wanted to respond to Sullivan's comment.)
• amberglow: there goes affirmative action... Sorry, couldn't resist.
• I have another related question here: How would be the best way to deal with civil desobedience if you regard that the causes behind it are unjustified, unethical or just wrong from your philosophical point of view?
• I've thought about that one, Zemat. The group that comes to mind for me is abortion protesters, especially ones who block the entrances to clinics or otherwise harass doctors and patients. I disagree with their cause (and sometimes their methods) and try to remind myself that the way I look at them is the way some peole look at environmentalists: as deluded, pitiable wackos. They should be ultimately tolerated, as long as they do no real harm.
• f8x: someday there won't be a need for affirmative action (especially if we start to live up to the ideals of an equal society), but as long as people are disadvantaged solely because of who they are, or what color their skin is, we need those laws--you can protest them if you like (with civil disobedience if you think they're unjust), or more helpfully: you can help end the discrimination and unequal education and opportunity. Zemat: I think you have to deal with it--as long as those people stay non-violent.
• Or we can continue to arrest lawbreakers. The ones that break the law because of their beliefs do so in the hopes of changing the law. If that law is changed through the will of the people, then they will be free, and their time will have been spent in service to the people. If the law doesn't change...oh well, they broke a law. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
• What if two gay geese decide to marry? I gander that they would have to be arrested ;)
• Hehe, please, don't assume I'm against some particular movement. The reason for my question is that sometimes I get tired of seeing protesters on the news. It gets to the point I began to regard all of them as mindless sheep. Even if I agree with their ideas. In some places, the level and kind of protests become so absurd one starts to think if maybe it's something more like a kind of sociological phenomenon or a fad. Like, for example, if you are young and hip, you must protest for or against something just to show you have "a mind of your own".
• Ok, I think I need to clarify my last statement. It's that I wasn't looking for a response like yours, amberglow. It's not about just letting it be. Is there a way you could reach the protesters and convince them to stop protesting? What if it is just a missundestatement or something misguiding and eventually it grows up into a big movement that can't be held up and bursts up in violence or the government finally concedes just to avoid such conflicts and a law is passed that it turns out is more harmful for society in general?
• We already have that, Zemat--when antiabortion protests get violent, the law steps in, and that happened in the 60s too...otherwise, you have to allow people to protest what they see as worth protesting even if they're abhorrent (see Fred Phelps and his ilk), as long as they either stay within the law, and/or are non-violent. Free speech can be a bitch sometimes, no? You can try to reason with them, but i've found that most people (on any side of a issue) aren't usually open to reason, and believe they're in the right.
• "It's easy to decide if a law is unjust" Really? Don't get me wrong now, amberglow, I really quite like those three points. But I honestly don't think that they'll do the job of defining, exclusively and in totality, for all ideological perspectives, what an unjust law is. On the one hand, there'll be people who could easily apply your test to a certain issue (gay marriage being the obvious current example) and come up with the opposite answer. And, on the other end of the scale, what about people who would have a much wider definition of what is unjust? Say, environmental protesters who think that planting a field of GM crops without proper public consultation is unjust, and so destroy them. Very few civil societies set out to create unjust laws - if it was that easy to decide what was unjust, then we wouldn't have to puzzle so hard as to when civil disobedience was justified.
• Often, though, its not the laws that are unjust but the system.
• Very true, dng - it's always a useful thing to remember that one of the better, more enlightened constitutions ever adopted by a country was that of the Weimar Republic. Laws are only as good as their implementation.
• I agree with flashboy: it's impossible to decide such things objectively. It's all going to depend on your frame of reference. I like jacobw's succinct definition very much; it's practical and doesn't try to decide whether the protest is "right." I'm always annoyed when I read about protesters whining about being dealt with as lawbreakers by the cops and other authority figures; that's the point, dumbass -- you're breaking the law! Back in the '60s, when we practiced disobedience... *reels under a hail of rotten vegetables flung by younger monkeys sick to death of Boomer Monkeys, retreats in confusion*
• And another of the better, more enlightened constitutions ever adopted by a country was the 1936 Constitution of the USSR. Constitutions don't make good countries; free people do.
• flashboy: On the one hand, there'll be people who could easily apply your test to a certain issue (gay marriage being the obvious current example) and come up with the opposite answer. And, on the other end of the scale, what about people who would have a much wider definition of what is unjust? I'm sure my definition is limited, but it works for me--we're all free to decide what's acceptable behavior when dealing with things and laws and systems that are unjust. For instance, I can demonstrably prove that denying civil marriage to gay and lesbian americans is harming us (from people denied attending at their lovers' deathbeds in hospitals to children taken away from lesbian mothers, etc etc etc)--if someone on the other side can prove that other people are hurt if I'm given those rights (according to my rules), well, i'm still waiting to see that. As for a wider definition of what's unjust, I use people as my yardstick--my rules still apply, at least for me. We all have different positions on any issue, and we also all have tools for action about them--from voting, to exercising our free speech through education or protesting, to civil disobedience, or, godforbid, to violence.
• Amberglow, I was thinking more of other countries aside from the US where civil disobedience is put aside in favor of violence more often but governments doesn't move a finger in fear of overseeing NGOs, which are rightly worried about the consecuences of any retaliation against the population but often overreact to what is a probably a needed enforcing of the law. I know third world governments have a bad reputation of violent represion but, in some countries that try to clean their image, things have turned upside down recently. But I now think I'm derrailing the thread. Time to go back to the cave.
• you're not derailing...we're talking about different things in different places is all. : >
• Glenn Reynolds doesn't believe that Gavin Newsom can not paticipate in civil disobedience since he is the Mayor of San Francisco. Glenn feels that prejudice against gays is the same as prejudice against guns (which I believe are not living entities. I've actually noted that leftish prejudice against guns is a lot like rightish prejudice against gays. I, of course, oppose both varieties of prejudice. I rather doubt, though, that we'll see "civil disobedience" by government officials in support of gun rights in San Francisco any time soon.
• Don't you be pointing that gay at me, boy!
• But let's remember that Schwerner,Chaney and Goodman were killed all those years ago because they protested the exclusion of black Americans from the voting prosess. And that doctors have been killed because they performed abortions. I'm not convinced that everyone out there is as rational as monkeys are. The issue about gays has always been emotional for those who are somehow threatened by it. My fear is that cukoos out there will decide that their militia rights allow them to take out yet other people who step on their red necks. Maybe this country has gotten beyond that, but I wouldn't count on it.
• Late to the party here, but as far as what one can do about protesters who you disagree with, try talking to them. If it keeps them from shouting and being obnoxious, then hey, progress. Or, you can set up a counter protest on the other side of the street. Look at all the people who show up to protest Phelps when he shows up somewhere to protest homosexuality.
• I'd show up to protest Phelps, and I'm a Christian AND disagree with homosexuality! Where does that put me, I wonder?
• f8xmulder: In this monkey's high esteem :)
• You, ah, *disagree* with homosexuality? *boggles*
• Perhaps in the middle of the street protesting both the protesters and the counter-protesters. Which would make you some sort of crazy counter-counter protester. Or you could switch sides every few hours. Have a reversible sign perhaps?
• Wolof: it is a polite way of saying he believes it is immoral (please correct me if I am wrong, f8x) - we're all being nice monkeys and agreeing to repect disagreements, and all agreeing that Phelps could use some intensive therapy :)
• Flashboy, you're right that "trying to be caught" isn't really an all-encompassing theoretical justification of civil disobedience. It's more a rule of thumb for recognizing it when you see it. I thought about adding in a caveat about not harming other people, but it occurred to me that it might be redundant. In practice, people whose protests are harmful try to escape getting caught. The folks who (say) put metal spikes in trees, in the hope of maiming some logger, don't stick around to take responsibility for their actions. By contrast, people who (say) nonviolently chain themselves to fences at missile sites invariably hang around until the police arrive--after all, that's the whole point. The closest thing I can think of to a counterexample is suicide bombers. They're obviously engaged in murder, and not civil disobedience--but they make no effort to hide their actions. However, I would argue that suicide is just the ultimate way of dodging responsibility. Suicide bombers don't want to get caught any more than a criminal who flees the country; it's just that they think they're escaping to heaven, rather than Mexico.
• jb: "...it is a polite way of saying he believes it is immoral (please correct me if I am wrong, f8x)" You're right. Thanks for clarifying.
• jacow - true, true. It's certainly a good line to draw; if you try to avoid being held to account for your actions, you're not taking part in any legitimate form of civil disobedience. It clarifies a lot, and I'm not sure that beyond that any definitive formula for what constitutes justified disobedience can be made. amberglow - I do agree absolutely with what you're saying. If we differ, I think it's because we're talking about slightly different things. You're talking about personal justification, while I'm looking for a (probably non-existent) political theory behind that. Those tests for disobedience would work pretty well for me and my political views, which is basically fine because... well, because I'm fairly certain that I'm right. I'm just aware that history is full of people who were pretty certain that they were right, and all the misery they caused. In justifying and deciding upon my own actions, I'll willingly go along with the gentleman who said, "the purpose of politics is to to protect the unfortunate from the tyranny of the fortunate". What's troubling me here is how to protect politics from the tyranny of me.
• well said, flashboy.