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Post 24 Feb 2017, 9:55 pm

rickyp wrote:However, when the laws are bad. Change them.
Sometimes they aren't changed because certain stake holders benefit in an out size way. Or because the levers of government aren't responsive to the will of the people.
If the law is demonstrably bad, and harming society then civil disobedience might be worth the risk.


The risk of what?

I think we are close to agreement, depending on the form of disobedience.

I use the abortion issue as an example that would explain my position. The law is bad. The law is not changed because of certain stakeholders are in power, and the levers of government aren't responsive to the will of the people. I believe the law is demonstrably bad, and harming society.

Civil disobedience of burning clinics or murdering a doctor is beyond the pale. I would want to change the law, but would not break a law to be disobedient.
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Post 25 Feb 2017, 8:45 am

Doctor Fate wrote:
This is the former head of the EPA, Gina McCarthy, as she's packing up to leave DC. Yes, the "art" says "Coal sucks." She was very open-minded on the matter.

Image
Slight falsehood there. It was not her office, and not even in DC. It was in fact taken at the Sacramento office of a Cali State Senator. At least that is how Daily Caller and other conservative sites that mention it describe it.
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Post 25 Feb 2017, 9:17 am

bbauska

The law is not changed because of certain stakeholders are in power, and the levers of government aren't responsive to the will of the people.

If the will of the people can be evidenced by polling, and it can...

More than 40 years after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, 69% of Americans say the historic ruling, which established a woman’s constitutional right to abortion in the first three months of pregnancy, should not be completely overturned. Nearly three-in-ten (28%), by contrast, would like to see it overturned

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... oe-v-wade/

If the law is demonstrably bad, then popular opinion would have changed over 40 years. because if it is demonstrably bad, people should be persuadable...

Drug laws ARE changing. (Colorado etc.) because those laws are demonstrably bad, and people have been persuaded to change them. (One of the advantages of the system of governance in the US is that change can happen on a state by state basis until a preponderance of states force national change. See gay marriage)

bbauska
Civil disobedience of burning clinics or murdering a doctor is beyond the pale

You might want to look up the term civil disobedience. I think you are confused about its limitations.
Proponents of it don't condone violent criminal behaviour.
Examples of civil disobedience by abortion opponents would be the ignoring of court orders to keep protests away from abortion clinics. Being arrested for disobeying the court order....
Not murder.

Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is a symbolic or ritualistic violation of the law, rather than a rejection of the system as a whole. Civil disobedience is sometimes, though not always,[1][2] defined as being nonviolent resistance.
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Post 25 Feb 2017, 9:41 am

RickyP, I asked you what you meant by the risk of what. Answer that, please.
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Post 25 Feb 2017, 10:12 am

Why is that you think that the abortion law is demonstrably bad and the will of the people is being thwarted, Brad? Only 19% of the country support making it illegal in all circumstances and pro-choice people and pro-life people are about evenly split. 41% percent support it in either all circumstances or most circumstances. The real ambiguity comes in the 37% who say it should be legal in a few circumstances and what people understand few to be. Polls do not support your contention that the will of the people is being thwarted.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
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Post 25 Feb 2017, 1:33 pm

We have discussed this topic before, and it is my opinion. I have to practice civil disobedience if I disagree with a law. That is the point of my statement. I chose a topic that would be antithetical to RickyP for clarity's sake.

For your enjoyment (and not argument), I privde the following data:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
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Post 25 Feb 2017, 2:51 pm

bbauska
RickyP, I asked you what you meant by the risk of what. Answer that, please.

Civil disobedience as practiced by people like Martin L King consisted of attending at segregated lunch counters and being arrested. (Often beaten as well. Illegally).
Its different depending on what law and what the form of protest is ...
I offered you another example for abortion protesters.

As for drug laws... there are people who have group marijuana smoking protests. That would be civil disobedience.
There are police departments that have decided not to arrest casual drug users ... That would be disobedience or the selective use of discretion to not enforce drug laws..

bbauska
I chose a topic that would be antithetical to RickyP for clarity's sake

Although I do not support those who would protest legal access to abortion... I do support their right to protest. In the case of civil disobedience ... getting arrested for failing to honor restraining orders would seem to me to be ineffective.
The problem is that where most civil disobedience is aimed at laws that unfairly restrict liberty, this particular protest is aimed at restricting a woman's liberty.
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Post 25 Feb 2017, 3:17 pm

Thank you for telling me what MLK thought about civil disobedience. I was more interested in what YOU thought, but thanks for trying.
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Post 26 Feb 2017, 10:42 am

bbauska
Thank you for telling me what MLK thought about civil disobedience. I was more interested in what YOU thought, but thanks for trying.


What was wrong with this?

rickyp
Proponents of it don't condone violent criminal behaviour.
Examples of civil disobedience by abortion opponents would be the ignoring of court orders to keep protests away from abortion clinics. Being arrested for disobeying the court order....
Not murder.


or this?
As for drug laws... there are people who have group marijuana smoking protests. That would be civil disobedience.
There are police departments that have decided not to arrest casual drug users ... That would be disobedience or the selective use of discretion to not enforce drug laws..
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Post 26 Feb 2017, 11:38 am

rickyp wrote:
However, when the laws are bad. Change them.
Sometimes they aren't changed because certain stake holders benefit in an out size way. Or because the levers of government aren't responsive to the will of the people.
If the law is demonstrably bad, and harming society then civil disobedience might be worth the risk.



The risk of what?

What do you mean by the phrase "worth the risk"

That is what I asked. Worth the risk of what?
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Post 27 Feb 2017, 6:52 am

If the law is demonstrably bad, then popular opinion would have changed over 40 years. because if it is demonstrably bad, people should be persuadable...

Bad example
First off the same thing can be said about a 40 year old law, it should gather more support over time should it not?
But put that aside for a moment, your question / opinion is just WRONG
using polls Ricky loves so much, let's see if what he says is true

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx

The opinions are fairly flat for forty years, that part is correct but look at the question asking if you consider yourself pro choice or pro life, When the law started in 1975
60.56% considered themselves "Pro-Choice"
yet in 2016 it was down to 47%
That is a pretty drastic decline (While "Pro-Life" rose from 28.83% to 46%)

Using his precious polls it would seem we have proven popular opinion has indeed changed over time, the people have been persuadable and the law is in fact demonstrably bad.
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Post 27 Feb 2017, 7:19 am

bbauska
That is what I asked. Worth the risk of what?


The risk of punishment for whichever act of civil disobedience you choose.
Obviously that risk varies according to the act and the whim of both enforcement officials and the judiciary.
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Post 27 Feb 2017, 7:40 am

tom
Bad example
First off the same thing can be said about a 40 year old law, it should gather more support over time should it not?
But put that aside for a moment, your question / opinion is just WRONG
using polls Ricky loves so much, let's see if what he says is true

First Freeman answered this before.
Second: This poll
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... oe-v-wade/
asks specifically about the law, and not about the issue. Your polls ask, non-specifically, about the issue and not the law in question that currently governs abortions.

The poll I referenced asks about Roe Versus Wade...Roe versus Wade would need to be over turned for any change in abortion law.
More than 40 years after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, 69% of Americans say the historic ruling, which established a woman’s constitutional right to abortion in the first three months of pregnancy, should not be completely overturned. Nearly three-in-ten (28%), by contrast, would like to see it overturned

This Pew Poll says there is no willingness to do so and the margins against overturning the law are growing.

Tom
the question asking if you consider yourself pro choice or pro life, When the law started in 1975

This all depends on your definition of prolife. And the polls you quote don't define it, leaving it up to the respondents perceptions.
More specifically, its important to understand whether you believe your personal convictions on abortion mean that you think others should not have the right to make a choice for themselves. That the law should deprive a woman the liberty to make decisions concerning her own body.
A person can be prolife but believe that every woman should have the liberty to make the decisions about her own body ....at least up until the point where a fetus becomes viable. (Which would mean support for Roe v Wade).
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Post 27 Feb 2017, 8:05 am

rickyp wrote:bbauska
That is what I asked. Worth the risk of what?


The risk of punishment for whichever act of civil disobedience you choose.
Obviously that risk varies according to the act and the whim of both enforcement officials and the judiciary.


Agreed then. As long as you accept the risk, it is always a personal choice on civil disobedience.
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Post 27 Feb 2017, 8:58 am

Just out of curiosity--given your 20? years in the military--what would be your position on a soldier's duty to carry out what they believe to be is an unlawful order, Brad? Also, in the 1960s say would have it have been wrong for a white business owner to break laws that required blacks to use separate bathrooms?