Thoreau and Civil Disobedience [video]
youtube.comThe original essay is eminently readable and, in my opinion, inspirational: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/71.
Under 10,000 words, funny, and insightful. It tells of a man who didn't just complain but acted on his conscience. Gandhi and MLK followed in his footsteps.
"They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body, but not my obedience."
Which is a great attitude to take until you run into someone who's okay with having your dead body.
Killing the person you are to keep a person you're not alive for a bit and then still dying at some point seems like a really bad trade-off to me; and if all people always had thought that way, you and I would have been born chained to a wall.
Interesting, I had not realized how much today resembles the mid 19th century.
I'm glad to see that after 8 years civil disobedience is once again acceptable.