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civil disobedience

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civil disobedience

Politics a refusal to obey laws, pay taxes, etc.: a nonviolent means of protesting or of attempting to achieve political goals
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

civil disobedience

any overt act(s) of deliberate lawbreaking with the aim of bringing to public attention the alleged illegitimacy of certain laws, or their lack of moral justification. The term was originally introduced by Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) in his essay on the duty of civil disobedience (1849), which supported the nonpayment of tax as protest against the government support of slavery Perhaps its most famous exponent was Mahatma Gandhi in India in the 1920s. His broad strategy of peaceful civil disobedience was adopted by the Indian National Congress to protest against the British imperial government. The strategy has been adopted by several modern CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENTS such as those in the US and Northern Ireland. See also CIVIL RIGHTS.
Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000
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References in periodicals archive
If the answer to these questions is in the affirmative it would still remain for us to demonstrate that the petrol protest satisfies the requisite theoretical conditions and thus constitutes legitimate civil disobedience.
cat-and-mouse tactic and other civil disobedience to send a message.
Section IV discusses some problems and dangers of punitive damages in the area of civil disobedience. Section V suggests that punitive damages should not be awarded in cases of civil disobedience.
Civil disobedience pits the conscience of participants in it against an established law or policy and seeks to appeal to the conscience of others in their society so they will in turn demand change.
In each case, the 'civil' in civil disobedience has been conflated with civility, as in politeness or general respectability.
For his part, Rawls was adamant that any law-breaking be undertaken 'within the limits of fidelity to the law.' He was echoing Martin Luther King Jr., who argued that one who breaks the law in the name of civil disobedience 'is in reality expressing the very highest respect for the law,' by highlighting its fundamental injustice in such a way as not to foreclose on future cooperation with one's fellow citizens.
The Sudanese authorities at the time denounced the massive participation of the Sudanese Diaspora in the civil disobedience campaign and vowed to hunt the activists.
My primary incentive for even considering civil disobedience was the basic teaching "Thou shalt not kill." Other groups had different motives: the environment, children, the economy.
Second, the claim that "people of faith" have provided a check on the intrusive power of government by the moral guidance of churches and synagogues leading the way with civil disobedience is mistaken.
Civil disobedience can undermine that professional standing--anything we do that erodes it is unhelpful to our cause.
Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown
TIMERGARA -- Traders' bodies in Dir Lower on Tuesday rejected Imran Khan's call for civil disobedience and non-payment of utility and a tax saying it was a conspiracy against the state.
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