Civil Disobedience in a Democracy is Morally Justified

I am a novice in Lincoln Douglas debate, and want some practice. Experienced and Novice debaters are free to accept this challenge. I negate. Resolved: Civil Disobedience in a Democracy is Morally Justified. I offer the following definitions for today's round. Civil Disobedience is defined by Merriam Webster as refusal to obey laws as a way of forcing the government to do or change something The value is MORALITY. The resolution fundamentally asks us to weigh the moral reasons in favor of civil disobedience against the moral reasons counseling against it. Therefore morality is the end-goal of the resolution. It is important to note here that given the definition of morally justified, the resolution is comparative. In other words, simply providing one example or set of examples where civil disobedience would be justified is not sufficient to affirm the resolution. Rather, both sides have a burden to prove their position as a general rule. The standard is RIGHTS PROTECTION. People come together to form democracies in order to ensure that their rights are protected. Democracies are only acting morally, then, when rights are protected. All impacts must link back to citizens" rights. Contention one: civil disobedience undermines the democratic process. As members of a democracy, citizens have say in the creation of the laws, thus they consent to them. For civil disobedience to destroy those laws is unjust, Carl Cohen explains "Every citizen of a lawful government, then, has a most important duty to obey its laws. That is true whatever the form of government " Where each citizen has a proportionate voice in the making and the framing of laws (either directly or through representatives), his acceptance of this role as partial legislator commits him yet more strongly to abide the laws of that body." Cohen explains clearly how citizens" voices are what shape a just government. To allow minorities to un-proportionately voice their ideas by side stepping laws destroys the democratic system. Second, This articulates the key problem with civil disobedience. Every law may look just or unjust to different perspectives however civil disobedience would allow any person to act against any law they didn"t like, regardless of majority consent or legal means. This opens the society as a whole up for anarchy as laws become devoid of meaning and laws are broken meaninglessly. Contention two: civil disobedience can support legitimate and illegitimate causes. The action "civil disobedience" has no inherent moral quality because it can yield both good and bad results. Similarly "driving" can be both just and unjust, on one hand you can drive someone to the hospital and on the other hand you can hit the person with your car so they have to go to the hospital. Thus, while there may be legitimate outcomes of civil disobedience we must also look at what else it would justify. It would justify any citizen acting out against any law they felt needed change. The inherent repercussions could involve murder, riots, terrorism and more. Because civil disobedience always violates the rights of citizens who have come together to agree upon laws, it always harms rights. However, civil disobedience does not necessarily guarantee rights as it is often just a tool for people to circumvent the democratic process. Indeed, civil disobedience hinders rather than helps the fight for justice. Leon Jaworski in the Morality and the Law, 1988, p. 87 elaborates One of the most appalling and frightening of the trends in recent years is the self-serving practice of choosing which laws or court orders to obey and which to defy. The preachments that generate this attitude are cancerously dangerous to our system of government under law. To rest upon or hide behind the claim that if one"s conscience speaks to the contrary, justification exists for ignoring laws or decrees are but to say that the rule of law is not to be the governing yardstick of our society"s conduct. It is dangerous to allow people to choose the laws they obey and there is no way to judge whether or not that law is unjust. Contention three: there are more legitimate avenues than civil disobedience. Susan Tiefenbrun explains The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees us the right to dissent, to protest, to assemble peaceably, to criticize a law or government, and to oppose a law. The more difficult question is how one may permissibly dissent if a person's first legal and moral imperative is to obey the law. Using means of opposition and dissent that are permissible under the U.S. system of law will not subject a dissenter to punishment by the state. The right to dissent may be exercised by the use of written and spoken words, by acts or conduct such as picketing, "peaceable" mass assembly, sit-ins and demonstrations, which are referred to as "symbolic speech." The basic means of permissible protest under the U.S. system is the right to vote, "the right to organize and to elect new officials to enact and administer the law." Thus, because Civil disobedience can support clearly unjust things, because there are alternatives that legally and legitimately achieve the desired ends, and because Civil disobedience twists and destroys the democratic process, I urge a negative ballot.