Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

NFL Nats topic:

Resolved: that civil disobedience is justified in a democracy.

Discuss. Again, values rather than policy topic, so of particular interest are any philosophical frameworks by which we can determine whether an action is "justified".

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 25010

To me, an action is justified if it meets my needs.

EXAMPLE: If rolling the guy in a wheelchair into the swimming pool will cause enough distraction so I can get more of the free shrimp from the buffet, it's justified.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
Posts: 10477

I wish I understood debate lingo enough to know what the caveats at the end mean (values rather than policy). I guess you mean to discuss the device of civil disobedience as opposed to the reasons it might be used. In a perfect world civil disobedience would be unnecessary in a democracy, because protests and change could be enacted at the ballot box.

There was a pretty good discussion somewhere around here (I think) about civil disobedience when the Mayor of San Francisco was claiming he was practicing it with gay marriage. Some felt that he was not being civilly disobedient because he was a government official and had no expectation of being jailed for his actions. A definition someone used then was that you had to willingly break an unjust law and suffer the punishment to make an example of the foolishness of the law and spark debate and change.

I haven't really answered the question. But there wasn't a question. How does this work? Argue for or against the statement?

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13002

hmmm I would have thought one could argue both for and against the proposal on utilitarian grounds. Example 1 is above by TT, but also civil disobedience may be necessary and to achieve the "greatest happiness for the greatest number" principle, thus making it justifiable. This is obviously dependent upon what the premise for civil disobedience is. Similarly one could argue that the actual action of civil obedience may hinder the achievement of the "greatest happiness" principle and thereofr eis not justified. i.e. civil disobedience may cause un utilitarian ends whilst it occurs but achieve utilitarian ends when it is complete and successful. On the gorund of liberty, as per Mill's defintion of liberty, civil disobedience is not justified if it restricts the liberty of another.

From a Marxist viewpoint, if working withint the materialist dialetic it is certainly justified, esepocially even more so within a democratic framework, what with Marx being a democrat and all.

Need to think some more on this one.

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Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Den
Posts: 11475

There might just be one person out there who hasn't heard about "Civil Disobedience" by Thoreau, so I would just mention it. It's one of the coolest things.

From some homepage:
"In "Civil Disobedience" Thoreau tells how he refused to pay a Poll Tax, because he did not wish to support the Mexican-American War. Thoreau says, "Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure." He is arrested and thrown in Jail. He could easily afford to pay the tax, but he felt it takes at least one person to stand up for what they believed. The poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson comes to visit him while he is in jail. And asks Thoreau what he is doing in jail. Why not just pay the tax? Emerson asks. Thoreau replies, are you against the war? Emerson replies, yes. Thoreau says, then the question is what are you doing out there?"

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
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quote:

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Originally posted by philjit
On the gorund of liberty, as per Mill's defintion of liberty, civil disobedience is not justified if it restricts the liberty of another.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

To clarify on the whole values/policy thing:

The debate topic is not asking what policy the US government shoudl adopt, or indeed what policy ANYONE should adopt. It is asking whether the action itself is morally justified. This means that such arguments as the practical mechanism for restricting civil disobedience are out of bounds for the negative; the debate is supposed to be conducted on philosophical grounds over whether it is ethical for the individual to engage in civil disobedience in a democratic society.

Edit: in other words, yeah, DM, argue for or against the statement, but from the perspective of whether individual acts of CD are justified, not whether governmental restrictions on it are.

Last edited by CHiPsJr on 05-15-2004 at 04:45 AM

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
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Here's a question. Was King a civil disobedient?

Civil Disobedience traditionally means defiance of the law in order to force change. King contended that the Constitution overrode Jim Crow and that therefore his actions were in accordance with the law, not in defiance of it. Eventually the Supreme Court more or less agreed.

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Registered: Sep 2000
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By definition, regardless of intent, it seems that King would be a civil disobedient. Even though he was appealing to a higher or different law, he was defying the law to enforce change.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
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I think a lot of US civil disobedients would argue on the grounds that the constitution affords them protection from the law they are protesting. I don't think there should be a method to deter civil disobedience per se, because they should be arrested for whatever law they are breaking, to force the issue in the public debate and in the courts of law. If they are protesting for extreme reasons that many people don't share (smashing up Starbucks, for example) then they will just go to jail and a small amount of people will lobby to win their release and claim tyranny. If their issue catches public favor and people respond to it there will be sudden political pressure, media pressure and growing civil disobedience until the matter comes to a head and is resolved. I guess this could be seen as an extension of democracy, in that people will either jump behind an issue or ignore it. In a way it is an affront to the orderliness of a democracy, but it seems like the extreme option for extreme situations.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
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I don't think I really took a stand either way. I fail at debating.

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Still Orygun
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I have a problem with arguments about whether or not an action is moral. Some would argue that legal and moral are the same thing, so that civil disobedience, if illegal, would be immoral. I do not share this view. Then you have moral relativists and moral absolutists, and people whose morality is based on their religious upbringing vs. people whose morality is based on a different system of values. And finally you have the difference between what is moral and what is ethical. So before you start arguing whether civil disobedience is moral, maybe you want to talk about how you are defining your terms, or what kind of stance you are going to take?

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
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Quite correct, ignatz. It is traditional in the activity to begin by defining terms clearly, and then to set up a philosophical framework by which values can be judged.

I'm not necessarily expecting that of the thread participants; I'm just mining your brains for original ideas and arguments.

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Still Orygun
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I think that's my basic problem with arguments about moral issues--that people have such deeply held feelings on the subject, the 'discussions' tend to degenerate into shouting matches, often with people arguing the same side doing the shouting at each other, simply because they failed to define their terms or because they have systems of values that differ by a hair. on the other hand if the basis of the debater's moral system is religion or legality I don't even bother entering the argument.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: zanzibar
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Yeah, but nobody is shouting here.

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Still Orygun
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I just wanted to know how he was defining "moral" and was explaining why ... I didn't think anyone was shouting, but thanks for that helpful post.

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Registered: Sep 2000
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DMOON YOU STUPID ASSHAIR. YOU ALREADY ADMITTED YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO DEBATE TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS THREAD!!!@@!!!¡¡¡¡111!!!!one

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
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I didn't realize that the debate topic dealt with morality though. Ignatz has good points (as confirmed by CHiPsJr.), but what does morality have to do with civil disobedience in a democracy?

A) Democracy is rule of popular law and civil disobedience breaks those laws, thus it does not belong

or

B) Democracy is government by the people and if they are not adequately represented within the legal framework of the society, circumventing, ignoring, or end-runnign around that framework is fully within the realm of a democratic society.

There are other options as well, of course. This seems to be less a question about civil disobedience than about what exactly democracy is.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Cambridge
Posts: 7113

In a true democracy anyone who does not break the laws they do not believe in can easily be classified as an anti-revolutionary.

Social contract prevents us (or encourages us not to) from breaking any law that would serverely impact the liberty of another. The severity can be measured based on the difference between the unjust law and the liberty that is being infringed upon.

Any law broken should be enforeced, of course, but mass (or even highly publicised) civil disobedience serves as check for our body of government.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
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quote:

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Originally posted by Nutrimentia
but what does morality have to do with civil disobedience in a democracy?

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Kansas City
Posts: 7504

quote:

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Originally posted by Caffeine
snip

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See? Even fucktard quarterfinalists can do this well.

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