What are two modern examples of Civil Disobedience?
Best known 20th century examples were Prohibition (people who didn’t normally drink started drinking in protest) and the burning of draft cards in the late 1960s and early ’70s. The defeat of Prohibition showed that civil disobedience worked. Come to think of it, it was the repeated and constant civil demonstrations against Viet Nam that got us out of there so it worked then, too. Oh, and civil disobedience got India its freedom from Great Britiain. (See Gandhi) Oh, and civil disobedience toppled the communist government in Poland. (See Lech Walesa and Solidarity) The next example we might have of civil disobedience working could be when all the uninsured Americans strike for health care. That is coming. Who said civil disobedience doesn’t work? It works if enough people participate. On the individual level, it does not and is usually dismissed as free speech.
