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From: learn@igloo.scum.com (Bill HMRP Vajk)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Sophistication of Dissidents
Message-ID: <3271@igloo.scum.com>
Date: 11 Jan 91 13:05:13 GMT
References: <1991Jan7.165650.14066@ariel.unm.edu> <1991Jan11.023353.18154@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Organization: Igloo, Public access Unix, Northbrook IL
Lines: 41

In article <18154@ddsw1.MCS.COM> Sameer Parekh writes:

> In article <26587@ddsw1.MCS.COM> Karl Denninger writes:

> >Let's not forget that you can't sue the government, any prosecutor, or
> >anyone who helps in such an investigation unless the government lets 
> >you do it.
 
> 	That is terrible.  I'm going to post 'Civil Disobedience.'  I think
> it would be a good idea, an inspirational piece.

> 	(Is is copyrighted?  Even if it is, I don't think Thourou (sp?) would
> mind.)
 
Harper & Row, Signet, Penguin and others are still publishing the piece
(see Books In Print.) Of course, they don't have phone_cops (tm) :-)

"I had gone down to the woods for other purposes. But whenever a man goes,
men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can,
constrain him to belong to their desparate odd-fellow society. It is true I
might have resisted forcably with more or less effect, might have run "amok"
against society; but I preferred that society should run "amok" against me,
it being the desparate party. However, I was released the next day, obtained
my mended shoe, and returned to the woods in season to get my dinner of
huckleberries on Fair Haven Hill." [The Village]

There is much to be said for Thoreau's methodology. While it is true he spent 
a day in the gaol, he wasn't additionally charged with resisting arrest or 
"obstruction of justice." He had a hand in creating the circumstance, and
in the resolution.

I think Thoreau's example is good if confronted by the Secret Service
at your door. Thoreau quoted _Confucian Analects_ in closing the chapter. 

	"You who govern public affairs, what need have you to 
	employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be 
	virtuous. The virtues of the superior man are like the 
	wind; the virtues of the common man are like the grass; 
	the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends."

Bill Vajk    |    Better to bend than to have a broken back.