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From: steve@valid.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Civil Disobedience
Message-ID: <117@valid.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Feb-86 21:31:03 EST
Article-I.D.: valid.117
Posted: Thu Feb  6 21:31:03 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Feb-86 06:45:13 EST
References: <1557@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: Valid Logic, San Jose, CA
Lines: 39

> ...The auto-dialing of
> Falwell would be civil disobedience if it were aimed at changing laws
> regarding the use of phones...  
>    If, on the other hand, the auto-dialing were aimed specifically
> at Falwell, who is not the author or enforcer of any United States
> federal, state, or local law or ordinance, then I must assume that
> the auto-dialing was not civil disobedience.
>    Please correct me if I am wrong.
>   T. Cox   ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!benn

I think you're basically right.  I don't think that the auto-dialing of
Fallwell's fundraising phone was civil disobedience (CD) as those of us who
do CD define it.  As I recall from my local newspaper, the guy
who called Fallwell was just trying to foul up the Rev's fundraising,
but had no quarrel with telephone laws or Fallwell's right to do
fundraising.  Civil disobedience is aimed at changing unjust laws OR
unjust social practices.  Fallwell's fundraising might be dishonest in
the way it portrays reality, but it certainly isn't ``immoral'' to
raise money for his political causes.

I'd love to see Fallwell's 
fundraising efforts fail miserably, but I'd also hate to see
right-wingers pull that sort of telephone tactic on a low-budget
left-wing organization that I belonged to.  

Even if the goal of the auto-dialing was to change a law, many
proponents of civil disobedience would oppose it.  One school of
thought says that CD should not destroy property, because doing so is
immoral.  I think running up Fallwell's phone bill would count as 
property destruction.  Another school of thought says that while 
violence against people is wrong, violence against property is okay 
if it helps the Cause.

Yet a third school of thought says that whether it's immoral or not,
destroying property is generally a bad tactic, because it makes the 
people doing it look irresponsible and violent in the public's eye.  

	Steve Homer
	{hplabs,amd,pyramid,ihnp4}!pesnta!valid!steve