Reflection on Civil Disobedience

Henry David Thoreau was very interesting on his idea of civil disobedience, on the sense of breaking the law and challenging the authorities, in a non-violent fashion. This reminded me of protesting, the act of having your voice heard. Although this is very different because in his terms he would go and break the law. Whereas people are allowed to have a peaceful protest as long as it stays peaceful. The way Thoreau responded to Emerson with “Why are you not in jail” was a very good question to ask. Civil disobedience is the mortality that requires you to disobey unjust laws.

I like the reason that he was also not paying his taxes, it was because he had believed the money was being used for immoral purpose. Which is actually still going on this todays society. People pay taxes and lose 20 - 30% of their paycheck to taxes and people don’t have a way of tracking what their tax dollars go to. So the question he asked Emerson “why are you not in jail” shows that Emerson is kind of being ignorant since he doesn’t know where the tax money is going either yet he is being passive to accept the possible corrupt society. This cannot be done on today’s society, people are doing what Emerson does and passively accept it. No one knows where their tax money is specifically going but not paying taxes is a pretty high offense.