Thursday, August 16, 2007

Some more Thoreau from Civil Disobedience.

Men vote for an election candidate for being the only available candidate, which makes him as well off as a foreigner voting.

"The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by htose who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own cannot act and authrity he disregards and sets at naught..."

If you are cheated by your neighbor, you are not satisfied unless you mention that money or ask to have it payed back. You also make sure it is payed back in full and for the situation never to occur again.

On unjust laws, he asks if they should be obeyed, or if they should be ignored until they no longer exist.
If man who has no land refuses to pay the government, he is put in jail and not released until those who placed him there decided to do so. But if someone were to steal 9x that, he would soon be released.

"If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go...but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law."
"A man has not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should do something wrong."

He states how if one honest man were to be locked up in jail for ceasing to hold slaves, then it would be Abolition.
"For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever."
"A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight."
"If there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man--not to make any invidious comparisons--is always sold to the institution which makes him rich."
"Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it."
"The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor."

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