In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate weapon in the fight for justice

Let's just jump right into it. Offense- 1) "It also seems that you are misunderstanding the resolution, it does not ask whether civil disobedience is justified it asks whether civil disobedience is an appropriate weapon to achieve justice. The word you should really be looking at here is "appropriate" Not true. Appropriate can mean in any field. Plus, Civil Disobedience could be an appropriate weapon, to say, achieve a goal, but it is not 'an appropriate weapon IN THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE'. In this resolution, it would be paradoxical to achieve civil disobence and fight for justice. 2) "it is the only one out of the four definitions that could be applied in this situation that mentions "lawfulness," most of the definitions are based off "righteousness" or morality." Is not the one about 'lawfulness' the most contextual in the round? It wouldn't have any impact whatsoever if I talked about mortality. And that in now way affects my stance. Even if there are other definitions in the context of rightousness, it doesn't mean there can't be a definition in the context of law. 3) < > I would like to point out that that is not a contradiction. Our country now, by your definition, is a democracy. My point was that the examples you gave of civil disobedience working were, in fact, not in a democracy, Like that of blacks in the civil rights movement. That was unconstitional and did not allow them the right to vote. 4) "This may be partially true, but the vast majority of instances of civil disobedience do not erupt in violence." My answer is: why take the risk? There is a significant number that do escalte, even though not all do. This can not be compared to things like sporting events because those almost NEVER are violent. By that definition, talking to you right now could escalate into verbal violence or something. The fact is, if people are breaking laws, are protesting against people who have strong beleifs, there is a much greater chance that that could escalte into violence. 5) < > First of all, how can we be sure of this? Many African Americans were already protesting, and continued to throught the Mongomery Bus incident. We can not say for sure that these are what made people think. I know if I lived back then, I would oppose these laws even if MLK wasn't around. Second, My argument was that nowadays, in our democracy, anyone who protested a law could take it to court directly, sign a petition, or one of many other things to get their point across. This argument is only specific to one instance of civil disobedience that wasn't even in a democracy. 6) < > The reason is very simple: If there are no laws to keep people in place, what's holding them back from commiting 'crimes'? The government would fail because they have no way to keep their citizens under control. What's holding me back from stealing something? The fear of law. If there's no law, there's no fear, and there's nothing holding me back from stealing that object. rebuilding my points- 1) The word 'justice' in the resolution voids civil disobedience being an appropriate weapon, because fighting for justice means obeying rule of law. 2) Many examples of civil disobedience working are flawed, because they did not exist under a democracy. In a real democracy, there are other ways things can be dealt with. (see #5) 3) We can not all be civil disobedient, or all hell would break loose, because there is nothing stopping us from commiting 'crimes'. To set a double-standard for some people would itself be unjust and pointless, because who's gonna apoint them? The government? I'm sure the govt. doesn't want people breaking laws. 4) Civil Disobedience can very well lead to more violent conflicts when two parties disagree. 5) There are other effective ways to get your message across and obeying the law such as court, petitions, and even peaceful protests. Defense- 1)<> Yes, the US is a democracy NOW, not THEN, as I have already stated. 2) < > Yes, it very well is. You must give examples that meet the resolution, or they do not mean anything. If I said 'The UK is a democracy', that would not have anything to do with the US being a democracy, even though it talks about another instance of democracy. 3) < > The fact is, Legal ways are just as effective in a true democracy. There would be no reason to break the law. The jury would pick what they believed to be right or wrong, and the topic would be resolved quickly. That does not involve breaking a law. You could raise the same amount of attention with a court case than you could with being arrested. 4) <> Well, obviously if a country calls themselves a democracy, like ours, and they don't meet their own rule of law, they aren't a democracy! The constitution is a set of guidelines to stay on the right track with democracy. If we break those rules, we can't call ourselves a true democracy. Good debate, I really learned a lot. We're done with our debate season but still have a class, so many of my classmates are trying PuFo. I wanted to see what this was all about.