Reponse to Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government”

“Resistance to Civil Government”
This is my first writing based on the information obtained from the Cyberspace, to my surprise, most of the people on the net agree with Thoreau on less government control. After a careful study of all the available information to me, I found myself on the opposite side.

Nowadays, government is omnipresent; from the time we are born, it will ask for a birth certificate, to the time we die, it will charge a property tax on our cemetery, let alone in our daily lives. Thus people normally don’t like the government. Henry D. Thoreau in “Resistance to Civil Government”, gave his feeling toward the government, and his opinions reflected the structure of the American government in his time. Thoreau’s position showed his belief “That government is best which governs not at all”. Even today in the modern American society, there are still a lot of believers in Thoreau’s ideas. But I can NOT agree with Thoreau on his idea of the government, though I love his idea of naturalism. There are reasons for the existence of the current government and the way it works. Let’s start from the term “government”.

“Government”, is a group of people who are responsible for governing a country or state. No one knows exactly when did government appear in the human history, but the origin of the government can be summarized as follows. Each individual human-being has his own moral law according to his own origin, education and perspective, or whatever. When a crowd of people agrees on a common moral law, it becomes a civil law, which needs a group of selected people, the “government”, from the crowd to enforce. Thus the “group” is from the “crowd”, and the “government” is part of the “crowd”. It is the best if civil law agrees with moral law, otherwise a revolution probably will be started, and the government will be replaced by a new government which will represent the moral law of the majority of the people it represents, either peacefully or by force. Thus a government has to represent the moral law of the majority in order to survive.

According to Thoreau, “the power is once in the hands of the people, …, but because they are physically the strongest”, thus “a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice”. This is an idealistic view of the government. Although the origin of the government determines that it has to serve the common moral law of the most of the people, as we can see, the current government is not only composed by the majorities, but also the minorities. For example, there are a lot of laws and regulations protecting the benefits of the Indians, instead of the majorities. Even in schools and universities, especially in public schools, there are always some organizations to protect the educational opportunity of minorities. Sometimes people have to give up to the government; every man has a conscience, but sometimes he has to resign his conscience to the legislator, for the benefit of others in the society; although it is a great pain to do this, it is well worth the loss, and most of the people cannot keep their consciences all the time, anyway. Government is politics, politics is to compromise, and no one can live in this world without compromise; he has to compromise to the nature, he has to compromise to himself, at least.

In his article, Thoreau apparently disliked the State government as a machine, also the people who serve the government, “not as men mainly, but as machines”; and Thoreau considered himself “a wise man” and “will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be clay”. As far as it seems to me, he was saying that army who protect our country, the police who guard our neighborhood and other diligent people working in our government are merely “on a level with wood and earth and stones”, and they are “as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God”. But who knows if they are serving the devil or the God? No one can tell, it is impossible to judge the morality of the action of the government in the short run, although it is possible in the long run, like the Civil War. And Thoreau would not be able to determine that himself, the final decision came from the collection of the opinion of all the people at that time.

To most of the people, voting is the way to express their ideas and beliefs, but to Thoreau, “All voting is a sort of gaming, like chequers or backgammon”. What he suggested people should do is “Action from principle…”, “it is essentially revolutionary and does not consist wholly with anything which was”. If everyone in the society are taking this kind of action, and will not compromise, we will have a country full of chaos and never able to calm down. Action from principle is a great idea from the beginning, but it is impractical as the famous communism theory from Karl Marx.

Thoreau believed that moral law is more important than civil law because he believed in God. He understood people living in the world should prepare themselves for an everlasting joy with God, therefore he would rather resist to civil government when civil law contradicted with moral law, HIS moral law. Thoreau believed in God, but other people in the same time believed in God, too. While Thoreau believed slavery is immoral according to his understanding of God, others thought the God would agree with slavery, because they believed it’s moral. Even today in the nineties, the believers in God still have a lot of discrepancies in their moral laws.

One of the strengths of government, even according to Thoreau’s opinion, is its superior physical strength, so government can enforce civil laws easily. People who do not obey civil laws, will end up losing their freedoms or properties. Although this enforcement may not be the best way, it works. In today’s America, we need this strength to ensure the safety and stability of majority of people in the society. There has been always an argument between “Freedom” and “Government”, and unfortunately, people don’t have the conscience to obey the civil laws without enforcement. Say you tell a thief he can rob a bank without being punished, what will he do next?

Since the majority income of the government is coming from tax, it seems to be the first priority for citizens to pay their taxes. To enforce the civil law, one should “pay it, or be locked up in the jail.” Thoreau was put into jail until someone paid the tax for him because he had not paid the poll-tax for six years. Law only represents the opinions of the majority, or the one who has the power. In the current society, if everyone follow what Thoreau did, does not pay the tax that he thinks to be immoral or refuse to take the duty that he thinks to be immoral, we will not have any common interest in the nation anymore, we will lose our power in this competing world.

As a large country, America will have to “afford to be just to all men, and treat the individual with respect as a neighbor” according to Thoreau. Is that possible in the real world? There are millions of crimes in this country every year, can we treat all the criminals with respect and as a neighbor? It will take us forever to punish a criminal that way. Will the state be able to “recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, …, and treat him accordingly”? The government will have to consider the opinions of each individual and try to make everybody happy, is that possible?

All in one word, we need a strong government to ensure the stability and safety of ourselves. Love America, support it even though it is not perfect.

 

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