Get out your “Civil Disobedience” notes & get ready for an open note quiz! November is Banana Pudding Lovers Month! BONUS POINTS: See the play this weekend—bring your stamped ticket next week **If you’d like, buy your own copy of Macbeth for next week!!

 Quiz / Review “Civil Disobedience”  Uncle Walt & “Song of Myself”

I Government should be merely a tool for carrying out the will of the people, but it can become a tool of abusive power II Wants a better government The majority only rule because they are the strongest Be a man first, subject second Only obligation = to do what’s right Having too much respect for the law turns you into an agent of injustice Serve the government not with your body or with your head, but with your conscience

III Unjust laws exist in the world and unfortunately, men wait until the majority agree until they try to change them The punishment (remedy) they face will be worse than the injustice (evil) so they do nothing Citizens should be ready to point out the government’s flaws, and the government should be ready to hear them Sometimes the injustice is a necessary evil and will fix itself OTHERWISE, if a law causes you to be unjust to your fellow man, you MUST BREAK THE LAW [Sidebar: As MLK, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”]

IV Thoreau writes about his run-in with the tax collector who is serving the state with his body (machine, no respect for him) It is important to meet the agent of injustice head on, i.e. why he did not pay his tax It only takes one person to start change: “what is once well done is done forever.” People only love to talk about reform and not act on it

V Thoreau gives his reasons for civil disobedience Truth holds power; it is always stronger than the error He also writes that if a man experiences some injustice himself, he will be a more passionate, eloquent, and effective protestor A man’s conscience is where his true manhood and immortality reside

VI Even though Thoreau was put in jail, he still felt free They had punished his body, not his mind The government never confronts a man’s intellectual ability or morality, only his body The state is armed with superior physical strength The acorn & the chestnut: one does not give way to the other, each grows according to its nature The same is with man—if he cannot live according to his nature, he dies