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Civil disobedience : Matt Damon speech/ Opinions ?


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A bunch of vague largely non-specific bollocks of another actor who seems to've forgotten what his job is.  I mean i like what he's saying but it's nothing anyone in the world with an ounce of sense doesn't know already and i dont see why the fact that it's coming out of Matt Damons mouth means anything.

Edited by Len B'stard
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22 minutes ago, The Archer said:

People who have their own fantasies about anarchy are usually very liberal when it comes to discounting the safety that the rule of law provides them in indulging in such fantasies.

Protesting unjust laws through civil disobedience - breaking the rule and accepting the consequences to prove the absurdity of the law - is not the same thing as anarchy.

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15 minutes ago, axlslash said:

Protesting unjust laws through civil disobedience - breaking the rule and accepting the consequences to prove the absurdity of the law - is not the same thing as anarchy.

Civil disobedience is merited against tyranny and the rules of tyrannical governments. Railing against the rule of law in a system that allows you to do so, or calling for its overthrow, when instead you have the opportunity to form majorities of opinion similar to your own and change the laws you disagree with, seems awfully like anarchy to me. 

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1 hour ago, The Archer said:

Civil disobedience is merited against tyranny and the rules of tyrannical governments. Railing against the rule of law in a system that allows you to do so, or calling for its overthrow, when instead you have the opportunity to form majorities of opinion similar to your own and change the laws you disagree with, seems awfully like anarchy to me. 

Civil disobedience is how you form that majority. Remember the Montgomery bus boycott? The march on Selma? The Indian Salt March? No one is saying that laws shouldn't exist. But if a law is not just, it does not deserve to be followed.

Also: Civil disobedience is the ultimate respect for the rule of law. It is the recognition that law presents choices: follow or accept the consequences. So the willing acceptance of those consequences is both a method of attracting a democratic majority and a demonstration of the acceptance that law matters.

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1 hour ago, axlslash said:

Civil disobedience is how you form that majority. Remember the Montgomery bus boycott? The march on Selma? The Indian Salt March? No one is saying that laws shouldn't exist. But if a law is not just, it does not deserve to be followed.

Also: Civil disobedience is the ultimate respect for the rule of law. It is the recognition that law presents choices: follow or accept the consequences. So the willing acceptance of those consequences is both a method of attracting a democratic majority and a demonstration of the acceptance that law matters.

I think that those inequities themselves were unjustified and antithetical to the country's constitutional principles and therefore merited civil disobedience, or would have eventually worn themselves out over time as unsustainable in a democratic polity. You don't necessarily need civil disobedience to form a majority, but I agree that it is useful in mobilizing opposition to a powerful and intractable authority and where the law leaves no recourse to justice. However,  when civil disobedience within the law is in fact protected by the law, calling for civil disobedience against the law, or all laws, or any law that you don't agree with just doesn't make sense.

Gradual, incremental change by mobilizing popular opinion however, is both democratic and welcome. It maintains stability and order and allows societies to adjust themselves to the laws that they need at their own pace.

With respect to the video, that the OP posted and my comment - I disagree with you that no one is saying that laws shouldn't exist - a call to flout all laws that maintain the system as it exists, without working to change those laws when there are strong institutions and majorities that preserve them, is as good as saying that laws shouldn't exist.

Now, what is Mr. Damon calling for here? What particular unjust laws merit his call to civil disobedience? What merits a general call for people worldwide to resist the laws of all their governments? He says that the problem is not civil disobedience but civil obedience. He says that the rule of law maximizes injustice everywhere. That is just flat out untrue.

Some of the other things he says - he equates all people supporting a government at war, with people supporting Hitler and Stalin. He calls for worldwide opposition to government because there is worldwide inequity in the distribution of wealth. All governmental leaders are bad - he knows this because they all smoke cigars together. Richard Nixon is as good as Brezhnev in his book (suspend the thoughts that Nixon was either a crook and a liar or that he just happened to be caught, and think about that objectively) and all leaders are bad because they are all basically alike.

Finally, to preserve the 'values of the declaration of independence', Mr. Damon calls for civil disobedience to oppose incarceration for minor crimes and military interventions, and to demand individual accountability for corporate crimes - none of which are things that cannot be achieved through mobilizing majority opinion through the regular democratic process.

So, he's either just being a lazy, wishful anarchist or at best, just indulging in some hyperbole.

Edited by The Archer
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Keep in mind the Zinn essay was from after Kent State and a lot of protests were going on and World War II having happened in his lifetime as a young adult. Things were pretty heated and tense, but a lot of it is still relevant in 2015-2016. 

People in the military at that time were committing acts of civil disobedience, sometimes they won, sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they were arrested, but sometimes not, and if they were, were pardoned a few years later. 

I was going to make a few comments about people like Manning & Snowden, but I'll post this instead -

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/06/24/edward_snowden_bradley_manning_and_the_end_of_civil_disobedience.html

As far as Matt Damon goes, again, he's just doing a reading a 45 year old essay, no different than someone reading "I Have a Dream" or the Gettysburg Address. I think the "People's History of the United States" is a fascinating read because it tells American history from the "losing" side. Matt Damon talking about wealth distribution is kind of funny considering he's getting 20-30 million dollars a picture.  

Martin Luther King and Gandhi were influenced by this essay, and I know Zinn (and others) were as well.  

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/walden/Essays/civil.html

 

 

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11 hours ago, The Archer said:

Civil disobedience is merited against tyranny and the rules of tyrannical governments. Railing against the rule of law in a system that allows you to do so, or calling for its overthrow, when instead you have the opportunity to form majorities of opinion similar to your own and change the laws you disagree with, seems awfully like anarchy to me. 

you know nothing about anarchy, imho (or don't really understand what anarchy stoods for)

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5 hours ago, Strange Broue said:

you know nothing about anarchy, imho (or don't really understand what anarchy stoods for)

There are wide ranging definitions of words such as anarchist and democrat, as well as wide ranging perceptions of what those words mean.  I would love to hear what you think I understand or know about anarchy.

Edited by The Archer
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All a load of bollocks if you ask me, anarchy and that, just a bunch of middle class nonsense and anyone that believes in it is a twat.  Its something university students get on as a cure for employment.

Edited by Len B'stard
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Do you remember those riots in London a few years ago? do you know what stopped that civil disobedience? After about 4 days it fucking pissed down raining :lol: It was full steam ahead rioting when it was hot weather but a bit of rain and it's like fuck that I think I'll stay in tonight :lol:

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So no one's up for riot then? Guess I'll just have another beer. Just wait til Trump gets in and we are about to nuke Iran. Basically unless you bomb my 8 cans of Asahi I don't care. Foresight is unless. People need a ballistic missile to like destroy their house then might do something. Probably just moan a bit then go down the pub. 

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Its just nonsense, you got 300 different strands of the same unmanageable idea all masking the fact that it is a ridiculous and untenable philosophy, some of em talk up a scheme that is akin to tribal systems they got going in Afghanistan (and we all know how well they got on), half of em are just commies dressed up as lamb and the rest are just wankers.

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Religion or ideology is just a mask. They are just broke as fuck "criminals". People become terrorists or join regimes just to get a better pay check. Or a pay check. Everywhere is the same. Human nature is the same. It just depends what kind of video budget you got. I mean would isis do youtube beheadings if they had Heal the World video budget. No, with money you can finesse shit. Like drones, that's a fancy, arty, "pc" way to kill kids in schools. But you got Obama, the Sidney of Politics walking like a pimp living in the White House. It's a big budget production. Then we got the same thing over in some broke ass shit hell hole in desert. No budget. They gotta hijack planes to make their MTV video. I think I might of got off topic. Cocktails anyone?

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19 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

English people are shit at anarchy.

The crash of that little White Ship and a King by the totally un-King like name of Stephen.

19 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

We do not do revolution. We do do tea, but not revolution.

The Anglican takeover of Catholic England under Edward VI.

Them Roundhead fellas.

 

 

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