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The people who move to force justice onto unjust states or societies are typically branded as traitors and criminals. They are often imprisoned or executed by the the unjust state or society they seek to reform. If you believe that our Founding Fathers were correct in their treason against the Crown of England by which the free and independent nation we all love was born, or that Martin Luther King was right when he violated the segregation laws that existed in the southern states, which immoral or oppressive laws, if any, should be disobeyed today?
When your conscience says law is immoral, don't follow it. ~Jack Kevorkian
Dare to do things worthy of imprisonment if you mean to be of consequence. ~Juvenal
Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one. ~Chinese Proverb
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it. ~Albert Einstein
No radical change on the plane of history is possible without crime. ~Hermann Keyserling
When leaders act contrary to conscience, we must act contrary to leaders. ~Veterans Fast for Life
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. ~Voltaire
If... the machine of government... is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. ~Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobediance, 1849
You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it. ~Malcolm X
Human history begins with man's act of disobedience which is at the very same time the beginning of his freedom and development of his reason. ~Erich Fromm, Psychoanalysis and Religion
Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. ~Mark Twain
Integrity has no need of rules. ~Albert Camus
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. ~Louis D. Brandeis
Laws are only words written on paper, words that change on society's whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool. ~John J. Miller, And Hope to Die
Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices. ~George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists
Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." ~Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Why We Can't Wait, 1963
We cannot, by total reliance on law, escape the duty to judge right and wrong.... There are good laws and there are occasionally bad laws, and it conforms to the highest traditions of a free society to offer resistance to bad laws, and to disobey them. ~Alexander Bickel
It is necessary to distinguish between the virtue and the vice of obedience. ~Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays, 1911
I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not so desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. ~Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, 1849
As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever. ~Clarence Darrow
It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. ~Edmund Burke, Second Speech on Conciliation, 1775
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. ~Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction behind him would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime. ~Martin Luther King, Jr., March 22, 1956
If I say I agree with you I might be put on one of those watch lists by Obamas brownshirts.
I think we are already seeing the people standing up against the unjust taxing. Just look at NY State. The people are leaving that state with its extremely high taxes including Golisano. The disobedience is in the form of moving to red states
Is it a duty?
I would guess that technically it is.
I commend anybody that has the guts/gumption to stand up for their principles even when I don't agree with them.
And......
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. "
- Edmund Burke
Break as many laws as you wish but do not be suprised when the take you away to GITMO. Cheney and his thugs established that horror show for American dissidents and would be using it now to repress dissent if McCain had been elected.
Is it a duty?
I would guess that technically it is.
I commend anybody that has the guts/gumption to stand up for their principles even when I don't agree with them.
And......
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. "
- Edmund Burke
I think it's funny how nations fall into these moral holes for periods of time. Germany was an excellent example of that. The German people supported Hitler and Nazism and viewed Hans and Sophie as traitors. Today they would be guilty of a hate crime and despised by the society they were trying to save.
Break as many laws as you wish but do not be suprised when the take you away to GITMO. Cheney and his thugs established that horror show for American dissidents and would be using it now to repress dissent if McCain had been elected.
My OP asked if it were the patriotic duty of Americans to disobey immoral or oppressive laws. The actions of al Qaeda and foreign terrorist organizations like them fall outside the parameters I established and the examples I cited.
There is a point at which the law becomes immoral and unethical. That point is reached when it becomes a cloak for the cowardice that dares not stand up against blatant violations of justice. A state that supresses all freedom of speech, and which by imposing the most terrible punishments, treats each and every attempt at criticism, however morally justified, and every suggestion for improvement as plotting to high treason, is a state that breaks an unwritten law."
- Kurt Huber [The head of White Rose], killed by the Nazis in 1943
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