November is Banana Pudding Lovers
Month!
BONUS POINTS: See the play
this weekend—bring your
stamped ticket next week
**If you’d like, buy your own
copy of Macbeth for next week!!
Get out your “Civil Disobedience” notes & get ready for an open
note quiz!
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16
TODAY’S AGENDA

Quiz / Review “Civil Disobedience”

Uncle Walt & “Song of Myself”
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
I
Government should be merely a tool for carrying out the will of the people,
but it can become a tool of abusive power
II
Wants a better government
The majority only rule because they are the strongest
Be a man first, subject second
Only obligation = to do what’s right
Having too much respect for the law turns you into an agent of injustice
Serve the government not with your body or with your head, but with your
conscience
III
Unjust laws exist in the world and unfortunately, men wait
until the majority agree until they try to change them
The punishment (remedy) they face will be worse than the
injustice (evil) so they do nothing
Citizens should be ready to point out the government’s
flaws, and the government should be ready to hear
them
Sometimes the injustice is a necessary evil and will fix
itself
OTHERWISE, if a law causes you to be unjust to your
fellow man, you MUST BREAK THE LAW
[Sidebar: As MLK, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat
to justice everywhere”]
IV
Thoreau writes about his run-in with the tax collector
who is serving the state with his body (machine,
no respect for him)
It is important to meet the agent of injustice head
on, i.e. why he did not pay his tax
It only takes one person to start change: “what is
once well done is done forever.”
People only love to talk about reform and not act on
it
V
Thoreau gives his reasons for civil disobedience
Truth holds power; it is always stronger than the
error
He also writes that if a man experiences some
injustice himself, he will be a more passionate,
eloquent, and effective protestor
A man’s conscience is where his true manhood
and immortality reside
VI
Even though Thoreau was put in jail, he still felt free
They had punished his body, not his mind
The government never confronts a man’s intellectual ability or
morality, only his body
The state is armed with superior physical strength
The acorn & the chestnut: one does not give way to the other,
each grows according to its nature
The same is with man—if he cannot live according to his nature,
he dies