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Why Is Civil Disobedience Still Relevant Today

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Civil disobedience is one of the oldest known forms of protesting. Henry David Thoreau felt strongly about it, dedicating a whole essay as well as spending a night in jail for paying his taxes in protest of the unjust mexican american war. Civil disobedience is a form of protesting that most likely will result in legal repercussions, thus making it a more extreme form of protesting. Thoreau wrote about Civil Disobedience and the need for it is still relevant today. In thoreau’s time period he believed more men needed to stand up for what they believed in. He tried his best in not paying his taxes because he thought that by doing so he was funding the army that was fighting an unjust war. This was the mexican american war. By not paying his taxes Thoreau ended up having to go to jail and spent a night in jail. Thoreau also stood against slavery, he believed “According to "Civil Disobedience," the symbolism of a public act of principled defiance would galvanize the nation and lead quickly to the abolition of slavery” . Thoreau opens his essay stating that "That government is best which governs least.” showing his disdain with the american government and their unethical legislature. He believed justice was only achieved …show more content…
More than any company, no one is even near. November 8th 2013 there was a protest in china town against walmart and protesters would sit in the middle of streets and abstract traffic and thus were arrested. They say it was the largest single act of civil disobedience in Walmart’s 50-year history. The protest had 54 arrestees, with about 500 protesting Walmart workers, clergy and supporters, demonstrated outside LA’s Chinatown Walmart. Walmart accounted for 17% of all food stamp usage and about $13.5 billion out of $76 billion the Government uses in food stamps. The world as we know it is being damaged thankfully through civil disobedience, there is being put a stop to it

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