{"id":1387,"date":"2004-02-19T16:34:02","date_gmt":"2004-02-19T20:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/02\/19\/civil-disobedience-and-local-contro"},"modified":"2004-02-19T16:34:02","modified_gmt":"2004-02-19T20:34:02","slug":"civil-disobedience-and-local-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/02\/19\/civil-disobedience-and-local-control\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil disobedience and local control"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Political people don’t generally like civil disobedience, unless it’s for a cause that they support.  Witness the spectacle going on in my former domicile, San Francisco<\/a>. 
\n(And enjoy the punctuation problem that kept the restraining order from
\ngoing out.  It makes this former editor and current teacher’s
\nheart absolutely warm.)  Conservative religious groups are foaming
\nat the mouth at the act of mass civil disobedience to California’s
\nunjust law defining marriage as only occurring between one man and one
\nwoman.  But just a few months ago, when Roy Moore’s Ten
\nCommandments monstrosity was being fought over in Alabama, civil
\ndisobedience of the law was all the rage with this same group of people.<\/p>\n

My point above is not profound.  People are hypocrites,
\nespecially when it comes to questions of power or perceived
\npower.  But it still surprises even cynical me when hypocrisy
\noccurs in public and we all see it.  Same idea’s going on with all
\nthe hullaballoo about “activist judges” — they only seem to be
\n“activist” when they rule against you; when they’re for you, then the
\njudges are just upholding the rule of law.<\/p>\n

But the members of the groups opposing gay marriage and acts of
\ncivil disobedience against an unjust regime, such as in San Francisco,
\nshould remember the words of the teacher they profess to revere:
\n“You hypocrite!  First remove the plank of wood from your own eye,
\nand then you will see clearly to remove the speck of dust from your
\nbrother’s eye.”<\/p>\n

Still, I am never surprised by hypocrisy in American (or other)
\npolitics, by all parties involved, whether Howard Dean types or George
\nW. Bush.  Politics simply cannot bring out the best in people
\nwithout also bringing out the worst in them also.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Political people don’t generally like civil disobedience, unless it’s for a cause that they support.  Witness the spectacle going on in my former domicile, San Francisco.  (And enjoy the punctuation problem that kept the restraining order from going out.  It makes this former editor and current teacher’s heart absolutely warm.)  Conservative religious groups are foaming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-mn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}