Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience” was really interesting to me in his persuasiveness. He argues a valid point, and he did a good job of sucking me in for a little while. He kind of bashes the government, and pretty much everything it does. Of course, I don’t agree that the government is useless. I do believe it is necessary to have government to regulate, however, I do see where Thoreau is coming from when he says that voting and petitioning are not always effective for reform. Sometimes it does require civil disobedience, and I think our country would be in a very different place if no one were ever brave enough to disobey a law.
Martin Luther King Jr. offers another, yet slightly different, take on civil disobedience. He argues that civil disobedience is necessary because there are just laws and unjust laws. And it is those unjust laws that are used against the people, not to help and protect the people.
Both of the author’s are advocating peaceful demonstrations to make their point. However, protests and boycotts are not actually illegal—not paying your taxes, like Thoreau, is. In Luther’s essay, he says that he doesn’t encourage defying or evading the law. He says that the demonstrations he is talking about still hold the highest respect for the law, where Thoreau does not respect the law, or any government action.
I believe Luther’s argument was more convincing because I think it speaks very much to how people see government today. Not many people find government something so ridiculous that we should dodge it altogether like Thoreau. Most people believe that sometimes government and its laws have been unjust and that is where a public, peaceful demonstration is necessary.
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