01-28-2016, 11:57 AM
quote:
Originally posted by PunaMauka2
"Civil disobedience by it's very definition involves unlawful activity.
That is not true. People may chose to commit specific illegal actions while engaged in civil disobedience. However, it is those specific actions themselves which are proscribed. However, for civil disobedience itself to rise to the level of being deemed as illegal, it must meet the threshold laid out by law. Which is why I quoted the applicable statute.
Civil disobedience, when not coupled with other actions that are in and of themselves illegal, is not itself illegal, until it rises to the level of sedition. Many forms of permissible civil disobedience are in fact protected rights. Such as civil disobedience which occurs within the bounds our First Amendment rights.
Another example of how civil disobedience does not always rise to the level of being unlawful, is that for specific conduct to be illegal it must (a)be codified as proscribed, and (b)that codification must carry a specific penalty. Though it is unlawful to desecrate the flag, insofar as the United States Code prohibits doing so, there is no penalty for doing so, and therefore it is not actually 'illegal' to do so in either the common vernacular sense of the word, or the legal sense of the concept.