Considerations on Civil Disobedience

October 18, 2024 by Bert Oliver

In his essay, Civil Disobedience (published in 1849, p. 29), Henry David Thoreau writes: 

The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to — for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well — is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher [probably a reference to Confucius; B.O.] was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. 

Readers who have read my earlier article on Hannah Arendt and Thomas Jefferson concerning the question of ‘direct government,’ where the latter could be seen to have been opposed to representational government without it ultimately being founded on the ‘little republics’ of wards and counties (where individuals could participate in decision-making and governance), will detect in Thoreau’s words an echo of Jefferson’s convictions. 

Here, however, the emphasis on the individual as the ultimate foundation of government has, decades after Jefferson’s passionate arguments in favour of participatory government, assumed a different tone. To insist, as Thoreau does here, that, for the authority of government ‘to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed,’ clearly indicates a degree of disillusionment with the American government of the time, which he was only partly willing to ‘submit to,’ provided it was ‘better:’ ‘I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government’ (p. 6).

What was particularly disillusioning to Thoreau (who was an outspoken abolitionist), was the continued practice of slavery in the US, as well as the Mexican war of the time. Here he is expressing his objections to the very existence of a government in a philosophical-anarchist register (p. 5):

I heartily accept the motto — ‘That government is best which governs least;’ and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — ‘That government is best which governs not at all;’ and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure. 

Small wonder Thoreau has been an inspiration for individuals as varied as Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Leo Tolstoy, all of whom championed the same sense of principled opposition to excesses of government, and particularly instances of injustice, including institutions which are demonstrably engaged in unjust actions. Few people in history have been as outspoken against unjust laws and government, and as passionate in the promotion of the idea that all of us have the moral obligation to resist these in word and deed, as Thoreau. Reading his works, it is hard to imagine a person more independent in their thinking and acting, and more self-reliant than he was, except perhaps his friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

A ‘small’ – then again, perhaps not so small – example of Thoreau’s active, principled resistance to what he regarded as being unjust, was his refusal to pay a specific tax called ‘poll tax’ for six years (taxes being an instance of governmental presumption in his opinion), which landed him in prison for a night, which did not seem to bother him for a minute, believing as he did (with ample reason) that even within the prison walls he was freer than most other people (pp. 20-24).

How many of us, conditioned as we have been since childhood that we are dependent on ‘the government,’ have the moral courage to oppose, openly and articulately, the excesses of our ‘governments’ today? If Thoreau believed that he had reason to be disgruntled with the American government of his time, I would wager that, had he been alive today, he would have been incarcerated long ago, if not assassinated. Not that such threats would have cowed him; he was evidently someone of great courage. Consider what he writes here (p. 9):  

All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution of ‘75.

It is hard to agree with him that all people recognise the ‘right of revolution’ today; most are just too compliant and lily-livered (and uninformed), but it is easy for anyone who is aware that republican, democratic governments owe their establishment to ‘We the People,’ to agree that, should their governments renege on their duty to the people, the latter have the right to depose such governments. In other words, the more egregious the government abuses its position vis-á-vis the rights of the people, the more the right, if not the duty, of the latter to overthrow such a government. Many philosophers throughout history have agreed with this – even the mild Immanuel Kant in the 18^th century, in his famous essay, ‘What is enlightenment?’  

Against the backdrop of Thoreau’s essay, it is hardly believable that the very governments which, for all intents and purposes, suspended their Constitutions at the beginning of the ‘Convid plandemic,’ still claim, implicitly if not explicitly, to be legitimate. If ever there was a time when the people should have risen up against their governing ‘authorities,’ it was then, in the face of all the unspeakable abuses inflicted on them. Admittedly, the fact that a disease which was really quite mild – my partner and I had it twice, and got through it quite easily with the help of Ivermectin – but importantly, was dramatised as being ‘deadly,’ put the fear of the devil into many, if not most, gullible people; hence the compliance. And hence the conspicuousness of them being light years removed from the temperament of a Jefferson or a Thoreau (or Emerson).

But, on the assumption (a justified one, I believe) that many more people have become aware of how they have been conned, the time is ripe for them to realise that we stand at a historical juncture similar to what Thoreau, above, described as ‘the Revolution of ’75.’ At that time American patriots knew that, unless they suspended any fear they might have felt (and it is fine to be afraid; without fear, no one can be said to be courageous in its face), they would have to live under the yoke of British rule for heaven knows how long. 

And it could not have been easy for many who took up arms against Britain to do so; because of different allegiances even in the same family, or among close friends, valued relationships were put under severe stress, if not destroyed. Anyone familiar with the moving Netflix series Outlander will recall the difficulty faced by Jamie at the onset of the American Revolutionary War, when he decides to take up arms against the British, given his close friendship with a British officer. But he did it nevertheless – priorities are priorities. 

The time in which we live is again such a time of having to be clear about one’s priorities. Do you act – or perhaps rather, fail to act – in such a way that you allow the tyrants of the present, who are all in cahoots with one another, to advance their One World Government and (not so) ‘Great Reset’ unhindered? Or do you have the courage to oppose them in every way possible? Make no mistake: those who masquerade as legitimate members of the highest echelon in government are all compromised – it is as true where we live, in South Africa, as it is in America, or in Britain, or Germany, or France, or the Netherlands, or Spain, or Portugal…and so on. 

In the United States this need to face the possibility – no, the probability – that one will have to act decisively, has not been as urgent since ‘the Revolution of ’75.’ I am excluding participation in international wars such as World War II, for obvious reasons. The enemy today is not outside the gates; it is inside the gates, pretending – rather disingenuously – to be the friend of the American people.

But recent events in North Carolina and Florida should leave no American in any doubt about the Federal government’s intentions. It is not the friend of ordinary Americans.

These hurricanes have left scores of people homeless, displaced, and without shelter, food, or clean water. And through it all, the dubious role of FEMA and of the US government was visible for anybody with ‘eyes to see,’ with FEMA blocking aid, from private individuals or organisations, to people in need, and the US government pledging $750 to every affected person. As many commentators have pointed out, this is an insult to Americans, in light of the millions of dollars gleefully dished out to illegal immigrants (let alone Ukraine and Israel). Who should be given priority? The answer is obvious. 

More than that, the answer to the question of priority should leave one in no doubt that the time has arrived for true Americans to be willing to fight for the survival of their country – at least those who do not wish their country to be destroyed for the sake of promoting the goals of the globalist cabal (for that is what it is: they cannot achieve their goal if Americans stand in their way). 

Beyond the egregious example of the two recent hurricanes, anyone who still believes in the legitimacy and benevolence of governments and their agencies should recall the so-called ‘vaccines’ which were touted as a miracle cure for Covid-19. By now, if you still believe this to be the case, you are either anaesthetised or otherwise desensitised; the evidence of their deadly toxicity is all around you.

Here is the latest piece on a recent study I have come across, which, shockingly (if one can still be shocked by anything), uncovers the ‘ingredients’ of most of the Covid (non-)’vaccines.’ Everyone should read this article in its entirety, but here is an excerpt to give you an idea of what to expect:

Notably, most of the specific elements discovered were alarming, as they’re known to be detrimental to the body.

‘…among the undeclared elements were all 11 of the heavy metals: chromium was found in 100% of the samples; arsenic 82%; nickel 59%; cobalt and copper 47%; tin 35%; cadmium, lead and manganese in 18%; and mercury in 6%,” the study said in the ‘Abstract’ section. ‘In all brands, we found boron, calcium, titanium, aluminum, arsenic, nickel, chromium, copper, gallium, strontium, niobium, molybdenum, barium and hafnium.’

The full list of what these injections contain is also provided, as well as a list of the effects on people who have had them – and it makes for some ‘nasty’ reading. Did these people really think they could get away with this? My point in mentioning this is to cure those readers who still cling doggedly to the dogma that Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and other pharmaceutical companies have your best interests at heart. THEY DON’T. 

So take a hint from Henry David Thoreau, and become self-reliant. Forget compliance. Consider (legitimate) civil disobedience. That may just entail having to face the reality, that you have to take back your independence. 

Bert Olivier works at the Department of Philosophy, University of the Free State. Bert does research in Psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, ecological philosophy and the philosophy of technology, Literature, cinema, architecture and Aesthetics. His current project is 'Understanding the subject in relation to the hegemony of neoliberalism.'