> It's like you think if I put myself out there protesting a law and subjecting myself to arrest or other consequences by virtue of this opposition I really don't want to accept consequences. What do you think happens to people who protest against the enforcement of a law?
In democracies, they are just protesters protected against the retaliation by laws and constitutions. In autocracies and wanna be autocracies, police can abuse them with various levels of impunity.
In fact, people are protesting the law and it enforcement. What they do not do is following this idiotic idea OP was promoting that all protesters should do and promote:
> One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. [...] willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice
No, of course not. No, civil disobedience does not have to imply you will let yourself be abused. That can be occasionally used as tactic, but is absolutely unnecessary for it to be valid.
And it was not even what most protesters in bus protests were doing this all that much. They were trying to avoid the penalty and they were not intentionally giving themselves up to the law.
"In democracies, they are just protesters protected against the retaliation by laws and constitutions"
This is a mind numbing statement to make in context. What do you think the civil rights fight was about? You think black people marching around freely in the pre civil rights South were treated as "just protestors"? You realize for a long time the Constitution outrightly failed to protect people who were black, right?
This is just one example. And sorry, it was part of their philosophy that exposing the country to this brutality would awaken the conscience of the nation. As it eventually did. That meant accepting the police brutality they knew was waiting for them. You are simply wrong, and frankly again, shockingly so.
1. Don't seem to understand the nature of civil disobedience - disobedience being a key word here.
2. Don't seem to understand how engaging in civil disobedience invites severe consequences - especially in the face of an aggressive state. We aren't just talking criminal penalties we are talking risk to life and limb.
3. Don't seem to understand the nature of nonviolence - it wasn't just about not being violent. It was about exposing the barbarity of the state as they attacked nonviolent people not responding even remotely in kind.
4. Don't seem to understand the nature of democracies in reality. Engaging in outright fiction re how democracies treat protestors vs autocracies, as if there is some obvious invisible line. Apparently ignorant of the fact that especially in King's time, protestors rights were often not protected by local authorities in the South.
5. Don't seem to understand that's kind what the entire movement was about, rights for me but not for thee.
I was kind of expecting this response given it was the only logical rejoinder after your previous statements, but it rests on a real misstatement and misunderstanding of the facts that even though was anticipated, is still disappointing.
Democracies can abuse protestors too. Always have, always will. It's why the founders feared the people's temptation for mobs as well as tyrants.
In democracies, they are just protesters protected against the retaliation by laws and constitutions. In autocracies and wanna be autocracies, police can abuse them with various levels of impunity.
In fact, people are protesting the law and it enforcement. What they do not do is following this idiotic idea OP was promoting that all protesters should do and promote:
> One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. [...] willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice
No, of course not. No, civil disobedience does not have to imply you will let yourself be abused. That can be occasionally used as tactic, but is absolutely unnecessary for it to be valid.
And it was not even what most protesters in bus protests were doing this all that much. They were trying to avoid the penalty and they were not intentionally giving themselves up to the law.