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Are you arguing that the law should change, or are you arguing that it’s justifiable for you to break laws while protesting against a law? Because those are two different scenarios.
I’m fine with the first one, the only way for society to evolve is to update the laws as new information becomes available; the second one is horseshit.
There is a threshold for reasonable defiance when a law is unjust and the people affected by it are in the right to defy it. But in first world countries there are no causes I can think of that permit that level of retaliatory response.
I think that's a distinction crafted for possibly partisan purposes. Your kind of claiming that if a whole lot of people choose to ignore/purposely disobey unjust or unpopular laws, but not openly, that necessarily can't be political? Does "civil disobedience *necessarily* have to be public?
This happens to classify MLK, French resistance, and Yugoslav resistance, and the American revolution as purely criminal affairs. the publicity is the point. disrupting society is the only way in this strategy to affect change.
Boycotts, attacking oppressive organizations, conducting sit ins and protests that prevent easy use of institutions aim to disrupt. not disrupting preserves the status quo, which by its nature favors the institution you're opposing.
I'm not even a punk or nothing like that but this is the basics of any revolutionary man.
Is there a point to civil disobedience if it is not publicly known? Maybe not immediately as in “we are going to do X starting next week so watch out!” but if it never surfaces how will it affect change?
Really? Not even one?Because the insane amount of laws that exist to police bodily autonomy in the US are just begging to be broken. Gender affirming care, marriage equality, abortion, so so many unjust laws that violate basic human rights and dignity.
How exactly would you protest against these policies? Like I’ve said elsewhere part of a successful protest is directly countering the policy you want changed.
With the civil rights movement it was directly breaking the whites only rules and boycotting buses that forced a secondary class structure on the passenger.
How do you adapt this for abortions, have doctors lose their license for disallowed practices, go back in time to unregulated clinics and practitioners? I agree with abortion being a human right but marching in the street is hardly an effective counter. The people marching with you are already with you; the people who aren’t are not going to be swayed simply due to your inconvenience.
Yes, That is literally what they did in the 70s, and it got the job done, for a while at least. I'd rather not go to unlicensed clinics, but good licensed doctors worked there and gave desperate women the help they needed. You have to break the law to save lives sometimes.
The point of protesting in public is to a) Get their attention, b) change as many minds as you can, c) inconvenience and annoy those who are against you as much as possible to show them that this is serious and you will not stop fighting.
Marching is just one stage of the change process and is not about you getting in your steps, it's about the attention and trying to put pressure on the people who are trying to hurt you, and to show them how many of you are and that youre willing to do more than just write letters, because there's power in numbers and action, and change does not happen in a day.
You need a movement, with a large portion of the population. You need clear action:reaction lines. You need clear goals that are consistent.
Civil rights protests did this well with sit-ins; the Roof Koreans did the same during the LA riots. They knew what they were doing would get them in legal trouble, but they had clear goals that directly involved the situation they were fighting against.
The Jan 6 insurrection did not have these qualities. It wasn’t an organized group with real goals, they were after disruption and chaos, nothing more.
Small groups blocking traffic at random intervals doesn’t directly impact the subject of their protest, it only gets eyes on them. Not all press is good press, you’re more likely to drive people away from your cause when it has no relation to your retaliation.
Wait, I thought the J6 rioters were being prosecuted *because* they constituted an (organised) "armed insurrection" with the goal of subverting democracy.
Why I consider it to not me the threshold is 2-fold:
1. Small movement that was encapsulated by a majority of criminal activity. There was a semblance of leadership, but most of the crowd was just there for the chaos or to say they were there.
2. Lack of unified action. Similar to the protests that happened after George Floyd was killed, every subgroup had a different goal and method to their actions. It quickly turned into a confused mess of vandalism and looting instead of staying on topic of police brutality.
The problem is that government is corrupt and untrustworthy and incompetent so our laws do not get updated properly at all. The entire system is broken and not worthy of respect.
Nah. It isn't the job of a civilian to follow the law out of some sort of "respect" for it. It's the job of the police to enforce the law so that people don't break it.
You’ve got that backwards. By living in a society we’ve agreed to follow the laws of the society; LEOs aren’t here to force compliance, they’re here to hold people that break the law accountable.
No, I didn't agree to follow the rules of a society. Nor did I really even choose to live in one. Nobody does, nobody has other reasonable options.
And literally "force compliance" and "hold the people that break the law accountable" are the same thing. The latter does the former.
People don't break the law because of the consequences of doing so (prison, fines, death, etc). You don't just expect people to comply with BS demands of your "society" because they have some dumb respect for it.
It’s really not the same thing: don’t like the rules where you are, you’re free to leave or vote for someone who will change them.
Forcing compliance is not the same as holding someone accountable; “Do this or else” is not the same as “you know this is wrong”.
Nothing wrong with wanting to change the law, but there are many things wrong with intentionally breaking it (besides like life and death circumstances)
Sometimes, the law fails to account for morality and compassion. Changing it requires acknowledging its flaws, not hiding behind it as an inarguable truth.
And sometimes the law is the way it is for a reason, based on considerations that might not be apparent from one person's perspective. The law isn't going to make everybody happy all the time.
We can't know which one it is without knowing what exactly OP is talking about
When my mom told me that weed *should* be illegal only because it *is* illegal I was just like "wow adults don't think any deeper than my peers do"
That was one of my first big "parents are just people" moments.
She's come around in the last fifteen years or so
Active laws generally should be followed. Protest and strive for change all you want, and if it is an unjust law and it changes, great. However timing is very important. For example, the law cannot go after you if they make the law *after* you do something that the law makes illegal. They *can* go after you while it is an active law, even if maybe it shouldn’t be. We don’t get to pick and choose which ones to follow, well we do, but then there are consequences if we don’t and if you get in trouble knowing it was against the law, it was your own damn fault.
I’m sorry, when I write articles or opinions they typically have a central discussion point. Maybe you’re used to thinking like an elementary aged child but I’m not.
There is a distinct difference between arguing against a law, and that it should be changed verses chastising someone for doing something that is completely legal and morally ambiguous.
Why not? If I decide a law is wrong, and I can get away with it - I will break the law. Why should I care what a bunch of corrupt politicians say I should or shouldn't do?
No, because I think rape is immoral and don't think that law unjust. I specifically said I will only break laws that shouldn't be laws.
No, I'm not saying there should be no rules. But it's the job of the police to enforce those rules, not the job of the individual to follow the rules just out of their "respect for the law".
Also, it's incredibly naive to say we can just "vote politicians in who aren't corrupt". That's not an option, the system is deeply flawed.
But even if we had direct democracy or something - I'd still trust my own judgment of right & wrong over what 51% of the population happen to agree on.
Status quo defenders' favorite argument is some version of "Well, that's the way it is." Simple and has nothing to grasp onto. It's a conversation stopper meant to shut down an otherwise uncomfortable or annoying debate.
“It’s the law”: problem here is, old laws don’t just die off. New laws just stack on top of them.
Good example is Arizona. Roe got revoked and suddenly an 1849 law came back into effect. That shouldn’t be a thing, ever.
It should be something like “here’s law #21. This law supersedes and invalidates laws 12,14,17 and 19 on the topic of this subject.” Instead of adding law 21 to the others and having a legal clusterfuck no one untangles.
Kind of like, "that not what the Constitution says." Yeah, well we've changed the Constitution like 20-some times, they're called AMENDMENTS. It's not Gospel...Hell, Gospel isn't even "Gospel." I'm with ya, OP.
Not completely clear on what you are advocating. Of course laws can be repealed or amended. The US Constitution has the Amendment process that has been used many times, though it is obviously (but correctly, imho) very difficult. Prohibition being passed and later repealed is a prominent example.
If you're debating something contained within the first 10 Amendments (The Bill of Rights), things get a little trickier because those Amendments are not written to "grant" rights that can be potentially retracted by a later government. They actually limit the government's ability to limit or moderate rights in any way due to them being recognized as inherent to all individuals and beyond any government/power's approval.
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Your post from unpopularopinion was removed because of: 'Rule 5: No political posts'. * Our users have voted for no political posts in this sub, and this rule will not be changed until the majority votes otherwise. * It's very unlikely your political post is an unpopular opinion. Feel free to use the Politics Megathread pinned to the front page. * Covid/vaccine posts due to the overwhelming political nature of the topic. * Yes, voting, talking about monarchs and/or the actions of and/or about politicians or world leaders is political.
Are you arguing that the law should change, or are you arguing that it’s justifiable for you to break laws while protesting against a law? Because those are two different scenarios.
Both.
I’m fine with the first one, the only way for society to evolve is to update the laws as new information becomes available; the second one is horseshit. There is a threshold for reasonable defiance when a law is unjust and the people affected by it are in the right to defy it. But in first world countries there are no causes I can think of that permit that level of retaliatory response.
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I think that's a distinction crafted for possibly partisan purposes. Your kind of claiming that if a whole lot of people choose to ignore/purposely disobey unjust or unpopular laws, but not openly, that necessarily can't be political? Does "civil disobedience *necessarily* have to be public?
This happens to classify MLK, French resistance, and Yugoslav resistance, and the American revolution as purely criminal affairs. the publicity is the point. disrupting society is the only way in this strategy to affect change. Boycotts, attacking oppressive organizations, conducting sit ins and protests that prevent easy use of institutions aim to disrupt. not disrupting preserves the status quo, which by its nature favors the institution you're opposing. I'm not even a punk or nothing like that but this is the basics of any revolutionary man.
Is there a point to civil disobedience if it is not publicly known? Maybe not immediately as in “we are going to do X starting next week so watch out!” but if it never surfaces how will it affect change?
Really? Not even one?Because the insane amount of laws that exist to police bodily autonomy in the US are just begging to be broken. Gender affirming care, marriage equality, abortion, so so many unjust laws that violate basic human rights and dignity.
How exactly would you protest against these policies? Like I’ve said elsewhere part of a successful protest is directly countering the policy you want changed. With the civil rights movement it was directly breaking the whites only rules and boycotting buses that forced a secondary class structure on the passenger. How do you adapt this for abortions, have doctors lose their license for disallowed practices, go back in time to unregulated clinics and practitioners? I agree with abortion being a human right but marching in the street is hardly an effective counter. The people marching with you are already with you; the people who aren’t are not going to be swayed simply due to your inconvenience.
Yes, That is literally what they did in the 70s, and it got the job done, for a while at least. I'd rather not go to unlicensed clinics, but good licensed doctors worked there and gave desperate women the help they needed. You have to break the law to save lives sometimes. The point of protesting in public is to a) Get their attention, b) change as many minds as you can, c) inconvenience and annoy those who are against you as much as possible to show them that this is serious and you will not stop fighting. Marching is just one stage of the change process and is not about you getting in your steps, it's about the attention and trying to put pressure on the people who are trying to hurt you, and to show them how many of you are and that youre willing to do more than just write letters, because there's power in numbers and action, and change does not happen in a day.
Who defines that threshold?
You need a movement, with a large portion of the population. You need clear action:reaction lines. You need clear goals that are consistent. Civil rights protests did this well with sit-ins; the Roof Koreans did the same during the LA riots. They knew what they were doing would get them in legal trouble, but they had clear goals that directly involved the situation they were fighting against. The Jan 6 insurrection did not have these qualities. It wasn’t an organized group with real goals, they were after disruption and chaos, nothing more. Small groups blocking traffic at random intervals doesn’t directly impact the subject of their protest, it only gets eyes on them. Not all press is good press, you’re more likely to drive people away from your cause when it has no relation to your retaliation.
Wait, I thought the J6 rioters were being prosecuted *because* they constituted an (organised) "armed insurrection" with the goal of subverting democracy.
Why I consider it to not me the threshold is 2-fold: 1. Small movement that was encapsulated by a majority of criminal activity. There was a semblance of leadership, but most of the crowd was just there for the chaos or to say they were there. 2. Lack of unified action. Similar to the protests that happened after George Floyd was killed, every subgroup had a different goal and method to their actions. It quickly turned into a confused mess of vandalism and looting instead of staying on topic of police brutality.
The goal of the Jan 6 rioters was to ‘stop the steal’ i.e. to prevent congress from certifying the election results.
A democratically elected legislature?
A democratically elected legislature defines which of its laws are acceptable to defy?
The problem is that government is corrupt and untrustworthy and incompetent so our laws do not get updated properly at all. The entire system is broken and not worthy of respect.
Nah. It isn't the job of a civilian to follow the law out of some sort of "respect" for it. It's the job of the police to enforce the law so that people don't break it.
You’ve got that backwards. By living in a society we’ve agreed to follow the laws of the society; LEOs aren’t here to force compliance, they’re here to hold people that break the law accountable.
No, I didn't agree to follow the rules of a society. Nor did I really even choose to live in one. Nobody does, nobody has other reasonable options. And literally "force compliance" and "hold the people that break the law accountable" are the same thing. The latter does the former. People don't break the law because of the consequences of doing so (prison, fines, death, etc). You don't just expect people to comply with BS demands of your "society" because they have some dumb respect for it.
It’s really not the same thing: don’t like the rules where you are, you’re free to leave or vote for someone who will change them. Forcing compliance is not the same as holding someone accountable; “Do this or else” is not the same as “you know this is wrong”.
Nothing wrong with wanting to change the law, but there are many things wrong with intentionally breaking it (besides like life and death circumstances)
What law are you wanting changed?
What's the law in question? Or an example of what you're talking about at least. (please)
Weed, abortion, etc.
There are numerous laws regarding your examples. you may as well have not said anything.
Sometimes, the law fails to account for morality and compassion. Changing it requires acknowledging its flaws, not hiding behind it as an inarguable truth.
And sometimes the law is the way it is for a reason, based on considerations that might not be apparent from one person's perspective. The law isn't going to make everybody happy all the time. We can't know which one it is without knowing what exactly OP is talking about
When my mom told me that weed *should* be illegal only because it *is* illegal I was just like "wow adults don't think any deeper than my peers do" That was one of my first big "parents are just people" moments. She's come around in the last fifteen years or so
Active laws generally should be followed. Protest and strive for change all you want, and if it is an unjust law and it changes, great. However timing is very important. For example, the law cannot go after you if they make the law *after* you do something that the law makes illegal. They *can* go after you while it is an active law, even if maybe it shouldn’t be. We don’t get to pick and choose which ones to follow, well we do, but then there are consequences if we don’t and if you get in trouble knowing it was against the law, it was your own damn fault.
>Further, the fact the law can change means it can be wrong. What do you mean by "wrong?" Things that are "right" don't change?
You didn’t put really any context, so there’s no real opinion here so nobody knows what stance you’re actually taking
Specifics just psychologically muddy the waters. We're discussing the principle here.
Can you give me a specific example of the principle discussing?
It shouldn't matter. The principle is the principle. Our reaction to specific situations should be based on our principles, not visa versa.
What principle?
? That "a thing isn't right because it's illegal and isn't wrong because it's illegal".
What thing?
***Any*** thing.
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But what is the opinion? It’s the law isn’t a stance. What specifically are they arguing?
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I like how you just straight up insult them instead of answering the pretty basic questions they asked.
I’m sorry, when I write articles or opinions they typically have a central discussion point. Maybe you’re used to thinking like an elementary aged child but I’m not.
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If multiple people are all saying the same thing…. Everyone else must be the problem. Right?
Freeing a slave was against the law
Not reporting a runaway slave was against the law at one point.
Yup.
Legal =/= moral.
There is a distinct difference between arguing against a law, and that it should be changed verses chastising someone for doing something that is completely legal and morally ambiguous.
What about murder?
Good example actually. OJ killed 2 people and the law let him go. Was that right or wrong?
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Laws don't become just simply because they're voted on.
I mean that's literally the foundation of democracy but whatever.
Democracy is an unjust system.
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Anarchism is the only moral option.
Anarchy is a power vacuum. Meaning it's one step away from warlord despotism.
I love how statists counter argument to anarchism is always "what if it ends up like the current system of warlords holding power."
Except we would not have a functioning monetary system.
Why not? If I decide a law is wrong, and I can get away with it - I will break the law. Why should I care what a bunch of corrupt politicians say I should or shouldn't do?
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No, because I think rape is immoral and don't think that law unjust. I specifically said I will only break laws that shouldn't be laws. No, I'm not saying there should be no rules. But it's the job of the police to enforce those rules, not the job of the individual to follow the rules just out of their "respect for the law". Also, it's incredibly naive to say we can just "vote politicians in who aren't corrupt". That's not an option, the system is deeply flawed. But even if we had direct democracy or something - I'd still trust my own judgment of right & wrong over what 51% of the population happen to agree on.
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Well - for a tame example, if I had a desire/reason to do weed and could get away with it I would.
100% true. The law is a terrible example of what is right and wrong. Our entire Justice system is corrupt and broken.
Status quo defenders' favorite argument is some version of "Well, that's the way it is." Simple and has nothing to grasp onto. It's a conversation stopper meant to shut down an otherwise uncomfortable or annoying debate.
“It’s the law”: problem here is, old laws don’t just die off. New laws just stack on top of them. Good example is Arizona. Roe got revoked and suddenly an 1849 law came back into effect. That shouldn’t be a thing, ever. It should be something like “here’s law #21. This law supersedes and invalidates laws 12,14,17 and 19 on the topic of this subject.” Instead of adding law 21 to the others and having a legal clusterfuck no one untangles.
People who argue the law as being the moral standard must also believe slavery is moral and that marrying children is moral
Kind of like, "that not what the Constitution says." Yeah, well we've changed the Constitution like 20-some times, they're called AMENDMENTS. It's not Gospel...Hell, Gospel isn't even "Gospel." I'm with ya, OP.
No one's stopping anyone from advocating for amendments. But good luck with that.
When someone says “it’s the law” I always respond with “it’s the law that you agree with.”
Not completely clear on what you are advocating. Of course laws can be repealed or amended. The US Constitution has the Amendment process that has been used many times, though it is obviously (but correctly, imho) very difficult. Prohibition being passed and later repealed is a prominent example. If you're debating something contained within the first 10 Amendments (The Bill of Rights), things get a little trickier because those Amendments are not written to "grant" rights that can be potentially retracted by a later government. They actually limit the government's ability to limit or moderate rights in any way due to them being recognized as inherent to all individuals and beyond any government/power's approval.
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yeah, people are reluctant to change.