
On Snowden and the Enduring Need for Civil Disobedience - bobwaycott
http://bobwaycott.com/blog/snowden-civil-disobedience/
======
jessriedel
Waycott says

> However, Slate fails to even take on the challenge of disabusing people of
> their expectations that one must submit to egregiously harsh punishment to
> be validly considered a civil disobedient.

and spends much of the rest of the article arguing that Snowden's actions pass
the _other_ requirements that thinkers have claimed is necessary for
justifying civil disobedience. So I'm pretty sure the Waycott is trying to
claim Snowden's actions are justified even if he doesn't submit to punishment.

But I can't find anywhere that the Waycott distinguishes between Snowden and
the historical cases of civil disobedience where thinkers _have_ agreed that
submission to punishment was necessary for justification. Surely those past
examples didn't submit to punishment for no reason. So what's different here?

The Slate article, for what it's worth, makes a distinction: the magnitude of
the punishment.

~~~
PavlovsCat
I found this from wikipedia about civil disobedience interesting:

 _ACT-UP 's Civil Disobedience Training handbook states that a civil
disobedient who pleads guilty is essentially stating, "Yes, I committed the
act of which you accuse me. I don't deny it; in fact, I am proud of it. I feel
I did the right thing by violating this particular law; I am guilty as
charged," but that pleading not guilty sends a message of, "Guilt implies
wrong-doing. I feel I have done no wrong. I may have violated some specific
laws, but I am guilty of doing no wrong. I therefore plead not guilty." A plea
of no contest is sometimes regarded as a compromise between the two._

And then there is always Sophie Scholl. But exactly because of that I think
sometimes that can be a waste of perfectly good life... so in the end, I don't
know what to think exactly.

~~~
jessriedel
Interesting. For what it's worth, Alford pleas exist in the US that explicitly
accept punishment while still actively asserting innocence.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea)

------
andrewla
Why do we have to abuse terminology so much? Snowden's actions and sacrifices
stand on their own without having to apply the label of "Civil Disobedience".
It does not diminish or tarnish his actions to omit that label; but it does
diminish them to apply it incorrectly.

Fundamentally, he did not protest an unjust law by publicly and openly defying
it, thus showing to the world the injustice of enforcing it. Rather, he
brought unjust actions to light by violating a law, namely that of government
secrecy, that is not really central to the issues raised.

If he were protesting government secrecy in an of itself, then without
standing up to face the punishment of the offence his protest would be
ineffectual. But violating that secrecy is not what he is protesting, so
staying to confront the legal consequences buys him nothing.

~~~
jessriedel
You don't need to get bogged down in semantics if you just address the core
issue: were Snowden's actions justified? Previous practitioners of civil
disobedience clearly thought that submission to punishment was necessary for
their actions to be justified.

You seem to be arguing that submission to punishment is not necessary if the
disobedience is indirect rather than direct (i.e. if the injustice which is to
be exposed is not the actual law broken). But I don't see why that's
important. If MLK decided to break a traffic law in order to speak out against
segregation, he surely would accepted the punishment for this violation of the
law. If anything, submition to the punishment is even _more_ important for
indirect civil disobedience, since the punishment itself is just.

~~~
calibraxis
The masochistic "disobedience = submission to punishment from those you're
disobeying" idea is not only bizarre, it's a blatant distraction. The point of
punishment is to scare people from further disobedience, and project an image
of overwhelming dominance.

It's an interesting case study on how terms like "civil disobedience" get
coopted by those in power, to convince people that disobeying them should be
hilariously self-defeating. (Imagine the US government submitting to
punishment and reparations when it breaks international law.)

As with all things, you choose actions based on their predictable
consequences. ("Let myself get destroyed? Hmm, what could go wrong..?")

~~~
jessriedel
The importance of the acceptance of punishment for such disobedience was
stressed by the original practitioners, e.g. MLK and Gandhi (not by those in
power). Do you expect people to take your argument seriously if you dismiss
the reasoning of these famous minds out-of-hand?

~~~
calibraxis
Just on general considerations, it's amusing to subordinate our thinking to
"famous minds" on a topic like "disobedience". Any ahistorical
misunderstandings about these Famous Minds aside, you evaluate a tactic on its
effectiveness. If a particular masochistic, submissive tactic furthers your
goals, it's worth considering. (Though so are the costs.) Otherwise, it's
plainly absurd.

As MLK himself would've no doubt pointed out, there were others participating
in the Civil Rights movement. These movements aren't reduceable to the famous
minds of Great Leaders, though of course those in power (who want people to
obey leaders) try to frame history that peculiar way.

~~~
jessriedel
I am not assuming these famous minds are correct, I am saying you won't get
people to listen to you if you dismiss these famous minds as obviously wrong
with a 4 sentence comment.

------
oleganza
99% of the time we all successfully exercise disobedience in our personal
life. We meet with people we like and then do not meet when we don't like
them. It includes relatives, friends, coworkers, small shops, big shops etc.
99% of the time you _voluntarily_ decide when to devote your time, money and
attention to someone and when to stop doing it. 99% of your life is a
wonderful peaceful anarchy.

Now there is state. You cannot decide not to provide funds to the state when
it behaves the way you dislike. Even if you hide your taxes, the state
controls all your currency and prints it for itself without asking you. You
cannot simply choose another currency. You can move out — to another state
just like yours or worse. You are only allowed to make a humble limited input
every 4 years in a form of choosing who will tax you.

There is nothing strange or bad in disobedience. You do it everyday in your
life. It's only state propaganda which starts from the early age at school
that keeps people terrified at the idea that they are simply bullied to give
money for wars, police, spying and terrorising people around them. Under the
premise of "social good", of course.

~~~
mpyne
> 99% of your life is a wonderful peaceful anarchy.

Even the time I spend in traffic has already exceeded your timeframe of
"wonderful anarchy". Not to mention all the other personal matters that I
could theoretically choose to do, _if I were a douchebag_.

What if I choose not to spend time with my children? Or to say 'Hello' to my
wife? Am I sticking it to The Man with my rugged individualism?

> You cannot simply choose another currency

Sure you can. Just make sure to convert enough of it to legal tender when it
comes time to pay the taxes that paid for your schooling (and the schooling of
those idiots you interact with everyday), the environmental inspectors and
regulators, medical researchers, Peace Corps works, USAID, etc.

~~~
oleganza
Do you want to say that you say "hello" to your wife because of some law
enforcement? I think, no amount of enforcement will make your children or wife
happy if you decide to leave them. Voluntarism and peace does not mean
everyone must be happy. It means everyone has ability to seek happiness
without violent barricades.

And there is a difference between "we take your money, then educate you" vs.
"you pay voluntarily and then we educate you". If my parents were forced to
pay for my school, I'm not obliged to be thankful for my education. Otherwise,
how can I then be really thankful when I learned voluntarily with people I
chose?

~~~
mpyne
> And there is a difference between "we take your money, then educate you" vs.
> "you pay voluntarily and then we educate you".

By remaining a citizen and staying in the country you agree to do these things
though. The "social safety net" does not pay for itself, whether you're a
liberal or a libertarian or an anarchist.

i.e. by being here you have caused the state to have to provide for you in
some regard, whether it's delivering mail to you, accounting for you in a
census, medical emergency services, protection from the other citizens,
military defense, safe transit from one spot to the next, and far, _far_ more.

The exchange to that is that you contribute some fair share to pay that back.
If you end up paying more today then that's OK, because the state paid more
when you were a child and will likely pay much more when you're elderly.

If that's something you personally don't like then I would recommend
renouncing your citizenship and moving somewhere where taxes cannot be
enforced. That or working to fix the government you're in to magically provide
no services and therefore require no taxes.

> If my parents were forced to pay for my school, I'm not obliged to be
> thankful for my education.

I might at least thank my parents, but perhaps that's just me.

~~~
oleganza
You are describing a relationship with the state as a contractual agreement.
Then I guess you have some theory of property rights (btw, I myself don't have
any such theory, I only advocate not using violence while resolving issues).
That is, according to your theory, state has made something useful belonging
to it and then provided it to me on condition that I play by its rules. Am I
right?

Now the question to you is how do you define property rights and how exactly
state legitimately acquires property? You cannot use the same argument shifted
one generation back ("it was paid by previous users of the state") because
it'll be circular argument. There must be some valid legitimate source of good
produced by the state (who exactly, btw?) before anyone was taxed.

I believe there never was any legitimate source of state income which then can
be "traded" with you for taxes. It was always violent extraction first, then
questionable "service" after that. Because logically, if there were no
violence in the first place, it would _never_ be called "tax", but "payment".
No one would ever talk about "giving fair share" and "contributing to
society". If there was a private gathering of individuals who voluntarily
raised money and made some service, they wouldn't need to make any propaganda
about how good it is to pay. Because there wouldn't be any violence to justify
with moral commandments.

~~~
mpyne
So basically you say that the children must pay for the crimes of their
ancestors far back in the past?

History is far too undocumented to go back for millenia and settle old scores.

What I'm saying is, here's the status quo, here's the rules and structure we
inherited from the "shoulders of giants" that came before us.

If this is what we like then we keep it. If this is not what we like then we
change it. But I'm not going to reframe society as if everything that was ever
created is illegitimate because Hammurabi was mean to other people before he
created his Code.

~~~
oleganza
> So basically you say that the children must pay for the crimes of their
> ancestors far back in the past?

How do you derive this from my words? Children are created by adults who may
use peaceful methods to raise them, or use violent methods.

If you support "status quo" you should equally support any status quo in any
point in history. Be it slavery in 19th century, or catholic tortures in
medieval times. Was slavery "OK" in your view because many people thought it
was OK back then? It's just a double standard. If it was morally okay before,
it should be morally okay in every time in the history (from the point of view
of the same observer, that is you or me).

About status quo: there are two ways to change any status quo. Voluntarily
(via mutual agreement) or violently (the strongest wins). Every time you go to
work you are changing status quo. You create wealth that did not exist
yesterday. Or you fix things that got broken and would remain broken until you
fix them. Typically you do it peacefully: by agreeing with everyone whom it
might concern that they don't mind doing what you do (and may even pay you for
that). Now, imagine we agreed together that I do something useful to you for a
payment. Everyone who is really concerned about such change in the universe is
participating voluntarily and has no objection. But then comes a guy who calls
himself a "government" and brings a thing called "income tax". He now wants to
change the status quo violently. Instead of providing us something of value
and negotiating, he simply states "since you produced something of value to
each other, both of you now must pay me". And shows his gun.

In other words, if you use "status quo" as a moral principle, you create many
more problems. You either have no moral stance whatsoever, so your argument
self-destructs (e.g. if slavery was okay in 19th century and not okay in 21st,
then you have no opinion on slavery per se). Or you have some moral stance,
but then you need to come up with a theory why certain status quo is okay and
some other is not.

My position: "Why don't we bring down weapons and discuss on equal grounds".
Your position: "No, lets keep those weapons as they seemingly solve my
problems, and if you have objections you are probably being immoral and
against children."

As you can see, if you are pointing government's gun at me, it could never be
_me_ who is immoral because I have no power of objection. But it could be that
the immoral guy is the one who proclaims what is good and forces people to
follow him.

