Taking responsibility

I don't know the origins of this, although I did at one time, no doubt it has slipped my mind.

What I'm going to talk about is the concept of just and unjust laws and, more importantly, taking consequences for your actions.

As an Australian, I am obliged to follow the laws of Australia. I am also obliged to follow the laws of whichever country I might be travelling through, but that is not so important for this post.

If, as an Australian, I believe that a law is unjust, than I have two main choices. I can either obey the law and whinge and complain about it. This is not a moral choice, as it does nothing to improve the strength of our community or make things better.

Alternatively, I can disobey the unjust law, but, most importantly, I need to accept the consequences for my actions. I am breaking the law, which I believe to be unjust, and will receive the unjust punishment to show that I am a law abiding citizen.

This is basically the same as the principles espoused by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, evoking change through civil disobedience.

Now this doesn't really work in an environment where violence and murder are routinely used as parts of the political process. How has it worked so far for the Falun Gong in China or for the opposition in Zimbabwe? But as a way to achieve change it certainly is effective, as long as the laws that are being protested are sufficiently unpopular.

Currently in Tasmania we have protestors trying to stop the construction of a new road in the Upper Florentine valley, with many police out there trying to get them out of the way to enable the loggers and the road builders through. There's been a great deal of vitriol expended in the media and other places about these greenies and their attempts to "destroy working people's livelihoods".

I see it like this. As long as those protestors take their punishment than I have no problem with them continuing to act to try and prevent something that they believe is wrong. If they get sent to gaol than when they get out they should go straight back to the protest and continue to put themselves on the line.

If they're arrested and than bleat about the unfairness of it than I am not going to be sympathetic. They know that they're breaking the law. If they don't get involved and bleat about Forestry and the police than I don't care much either, they don't have the courage of their convictions.

But I can respect someone who cares enough about a situation to risk arrest and imprisonment to try and effect change, no matter what it is they're trying to achieve.

Just because you don't agree with someone doesn't mean you can't respect them.

cheers

Harry

The Great Debaters

Just finished watching a Denzel Washington movie called The Great Debaters. I'd never heard of it either, but I bought it for a buck fifty in Thailand, so it would have had to be pretty poor not to be worth that much!


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427309/


Turns out it was actually a pretty interesting movie, about a debate team from a negro university in Texas in the thirties and their experiences.

In the final debate, one of the team pulls out a quote from Thomas Aquinas, about an "unjust law being no law at all".


My opponent says nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral. But there is no rule of law in the Jim Crow south. Not when Negroes are denied housing. Turned away from schools, hospitals. And not when we are lynched. St Augustine said, "An unjust law in no law at all.' Which means I have a right, even a duty to resist. With violence or civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter.


This is similar to the Martin Luther King quote, which was also based on Aquinas, that there are "just laws, and unjust laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws, but conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."


We seem to get a lot of people in our modern world who are very unhappy about things, although they maybe haven't thought the finer details through of what makes an unjust law. I'm thinking the kinds of anarchists, anti-globalisationists, protectionists, etc who violently protest at any event that features international leaders.


That's all well and good, if you believe that something is unjust than you should stand up and try and change things. However, if you do that you should be prepared to accept the consequences, because that is how civil disobedience works. The reason that nobody takes the anti-globalisation protestors and their ilk seriously is that don't have the courage of their convictions, they hide behind anonymity, they run away from their battles, they try to avoid the consequences of their actions.

That's my thought for the day.


Harry