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Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play.

Civil disobedience's main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not.

Civil disobedience is - it's no fun.

Thoreau points out clearly that civil disobedience gets its moral authority by the willingness to suffer the penalties from disobeying a law, even if you think that law is unjust.

Sometimes to do the right thing, you have to break a law. And the key there is in terms of civil disobedience. You have to make sure that what you're risking, what you're bringing onto yourself, does not serve as a detriment to anyone else. It doesn't hurt anybody else.

Government was intended to suppress injustice, but its effect has been to embody and perpetuate it.

Civil disobedience has almost always been about expression. Generally, it's nonviolent, as defined by Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and King.

Our government just won't enforce civil rights laws. The laws will be ignored.

Treating people fairly and with civility is not a bad thing... It would be good for our country if political leaders actually took that to heart.