Civil Obedience II

The last post on civil disobedience didn't get much response, but I keep thinking about the topic, and I can't figure out the answer. I'm trying find a theory for when it is okay to violate incorrect laws. Obviously this is a continuum problem. On the one hand, we have to obey some laws we believe are imprudent. If we didn't, the result would be anarchy. On the other hand, certainly some truly oppressive laws should be violated.

Here are the proposed answers so far.

We can/should violate laws:

1. When you are in a position to change the law through your disobedience.

2. Only in extreme circumstances

3. When the law is unjust

4. When the law violates inalienable rights

5. When the law prohibits exercising freedom of conscience

6. Something else?

1.

The problem here is it's results driven. Can you realistically know whether your actions will have the desired affect before breaking the law? Supposing Shadrack, Meshack and Abedego would not have changed the law by refusing to worship the idol of Nebuchadnezzar II, should they have worshiped the idol? I think the answer must be no.

2.

I agree that we should only disobey the laws in extreme circumstances. I just don't know that this test gives us much guidance to identify which circumstances warrant disregarding the law.

3.

This is the Martin Luther King Jr. argument. I think all sorts of well intentioned laws are "unjust" under his definition of "degrading human personality" and would be continually violating laws if I subscribed to this argument. Also, is the constitution unjust before the civil rights amendments, back when slaves and women could not vote?

4.

This is question begging. What are inalienable rights? Again maybe, but how do we recognize these rights.

5.

This may be close, but I fear that freedom of conscience may not be broad enough to justify all the circumstances were we think civil disobedience was justified. It works for the Shadrack example. Does it justify the american revolution? Maybe. What about the civil disobedience in the civil rights movement? eh, probably not. I'm currently leaning toward this one.

Other suggestions?

Civil Obedience

Do you believe in following the law, regardless of how wrong it is? Everyone in church Sunday seemed to agree that you should. One lady member went as far as to say she would send her sons off to war for Nazi Germany, had she been German at that time.

We believe in being ^asubject to ^bkings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in ^cobeying, honoring, and sustaining the ^dlaw. Link.

 and then there is this section:

 21 Let no man break the ^alaws of the land, for he that keepeth the laws of God hath no need to break the laws of the land.

There are no caveats in these scriptures, but certainly we don't always believe in following every law right? Then I remembered this section in Doctrine and Covenants:

We believe that all men are bound to ^asustain and uphold the respective ^bgovernments in which they reside, while protected in their inherent and inalienable rights by the laws of such governments; and that sedition and ^crebellion are unbecoming every citizen thus protected, and should be punished accordingly; and that all governments have a right to enact such laws as in their own judgments are best calculated to secure the public interest; at the same time, however, holding sacred the freedom of conscience. Link.

Now, this scripture doesn't directly say that men are free to rebel against government when the government does not protect their inherent rights, but isn't that what it implies? I think so. However, if I remember the commentary to these verses in the orange Doctrine and Covenants study guide correctly, it essentially says that members are required to uphold the government, no exceptions. If you have that commentary, I would appreciate you posting the section I am thinking about.

So I think you can commit civil disobedience if the government does not protect your "inherent and inalienable rights." But what are those rights? The only one identified here is freedom of conscience.

UPDATE:

What I'm looking for is some sort of guiding principles that helps explain when breaking laws is appropriate. Here's one such principle from Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from Birmingham Jail (which I think is flawed in some respects):

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.