Civil Disobedience In America

We live in a time when modern America has never been more divided. Courts are slow, costly, and inefficient. The executive branch is stronger than ever before. The legislature inserts itself in nearly all affairs, and states’ power to make decisions for themselves is all but diminished. Where bad laws exist and no fast and clear path exists to change them, direct action must be taken. Civil disobedience is an effective means of changing laws, changing public opinion, and resisting tyranny. This resistance of tyranny and direct action has a positive impact of a free society.

To remain a free society, we should try to eliminate laws that hurt people. Good laws defend someone’s right to life, liberty or property, and if a law does one of those …show more content…
The path Americans are taught growing up is simple: first contact your representatives to express your concern, then protest and petition against said law, then (only after someone has been harmed by the law) take it to court. This path, full of checks and balances, should be foolproof, but in reality, does not provide an efficient way to change a law. Representatives are increasingly polarized and refuse to diverge from the partisan stance. Rather than representing the interests of their constituents, our legislature has succumbed to corporate influences (Washington Post). Our representatives also have more constituents than the founders intended. In 1804, each representative represented on average, 40,000 people. Now the average representative represents nearly 700,000 people (thirty-thousand.org). Our courts have been subject to critique as well, being deemed, “underfunded,” “slow,” and “inaccessible.” Now protesting is becoming something constricted to “free speech zones” and subject to permits, and lawmakers in ten states have proposed laws criminalizing or endangering peaceful protests (The …show more content…
During the genesis of this movement, GSM couples would repeatedly apply for marriage licenses despite their illegality. Across the country, many couples conducted wedding ceremonies and declared themselves “husbands” or “wives,” despite the government’s opposition. In the landmark GSM rights case, Obergefell v. Hodges (a consolidation of six lower-court cases), at least two of the plaintiffs included those that originated with acts of civil disobedience (Love v. Beshear, Obergefell v. Kasich). Ultimately the courts could catch up with public opinion, but civil disobedience laid the groundwork to gain public support, and eventually be the foundation for the supreme court case that gave rights to millions of people

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Civil Disobedience In Colonial America