Rule Breakers Or Law Abiding Citizens?

Yesterday, we talked a little bit about mass incarceration. While empathetic to those neglected and abused by the legal system, most did the crime. I do not want liars, thieves, and violent criminals in my family.

On the other hand, many of my heroes were rule breakers: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Daniel Boone, etc. If they saw injustice or things they believed were wrong, well, they wouldn’t always follow the rules.

What to do with my children, or myself? How do we navigate injustice?

Here is what Henry David Thoreau had to say about it:

“Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them?” – Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

“If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth–certainly the machine will wear out… but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.” – Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law” – Martin Luther King, Jr.