Peaceful Resistance To Law

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Peaceful resistance to laws positively impacts free societies; in fact, it is integral to preserving the freedom of the people in every society. Historical precedent shows that peaceful resistance has the potential to create positive change, draw the attention of the general public towards the law, and hold legislators more accountable to citizens. The idea that citizens are the impetus for change is a key principle of a free society, and peaceful resistance is the medium through which citizens can do so. Movements against unjust legislature have created change in states around the world, including in the Civil Rights Movements in the United States. The prejudice faced by African Americans was not only reflected by their peers, it …show more content…
Communication between legislative officials and citizens is important for the law to best serve a society. A critique of peaceful resistance, as articulated by Carl Cohen, is that “civil disobedience take the law into their own hands.” Cohen argued that this meant every citizen decided to agree which laws they wanted to follow, but civil disobedience often serves as a way to change the laws itself. Cohen disregards the fact that laws are inherently human creations, and, as such, subject to human bias and are sometimes unjust. Citizens in a free society do in fact have the right to determine if a law is violating their personal rights, and through protesting it peacefully, they can show lawmakers that such legislation is inequitable. Legislators, like any other governmental official in a free society, must be held accountable to their citizens. Public protest and other forms of civil disobedience show lawmakers that they must act as representatives for the public by respecting the citizens that follow their …show more content…
Rather, it serves as a way for citizens to contribute more directly to the state of their society and communicate to their legislators what they view as unjust legislature. Peaceful protesters do not disregard the law; they respect its place in society and thus protests what they see as corrupt versions of it. A free society, no matter what type of governmental system, must allow its citizens the ability to protest. Furthermore, in a free society allowing citizens the ability to peacefully demonstrate against enhances the liberty of the people within the society by allowing them the right to speak out against potentially unjust governmental actions and the ability generate change against those perceived
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