1. To what extent should we obey the authority of our governments?
DISSENT
To what extent should we obey the authority of our governments?

2. Enlightenment
Reaction to high level of government controls, including freedom of speech (did not have right to question king)
Voltaire – freedom of speech essential
Democracy – rule by people = need to criticize and express opinions
Leads to revolutions in the 18th and 19th centuries around world

3. Dissent: to differ in opinion, to disagree
DEFINITIONS
Dissent: to differ in opinion, to disagree
Can dissent peacefully or violently
Legally (union on strike) or illegally (FLQ kidnapping)
What liberal rights allow for us to express dissent?

4. DEFINITIONS
Civil Disobedience: refusing to follow certain laws to influence government policy
A peaceful but illegal form of protest
Eg. Occupying a tree to prevent logging
Can include the use of non-violent actions like boycotting, picketing, not follow laws like paying taxes or registration, unauthorized rallies, causing mass arrests
Suffragette movement, against police brutality

5. THREE KEY POINTS – ARE THESE ACTIONS JUSTIFIED?
How does this relate to liberalism?

6. Use civil disobedience to wear down British occupation
Gandhi
Use civil disobedience to wear down British occupation
Salt march
Making own fabric

7. WOMEN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENTS
The evolution of women’s rights extended over a century
Actions of dissent
Letter writing campaigns, legal protests, using the courts (Person’s Case)
Some actions of civil disobedience
Illegal protests/parades, boycotts, property destruction, filling jails, Emily Wilding Davidson

8. Counter-culture movement6
i.e. Hippies
Based many of their ideas on Enlightenment philosophers like Rousseau
Government opposed – tried to repress, sometimes violently
Violent actions like students getting shot at Kent State – protestors were peaceful = civil disobedience

9. THREE KEY POINTS – ARE THESE ACTIONS JUSTIFIED?
How does this relate to liberalism?

10. Civil Right Movement 5
For the most part, the US Civil Rights Movement adopted civil disobedience
Rosa Parks
MLK
Bus boycott
Million Man March
Selma

11. JIM CROW LAWS
After the Civil War, Southern States enacted laws that mandated “separate but equal” status for black Americans.
The most important laws required that public schools, public places and public transportation have separate buildings, toilets, and restaurants for whites and blacks.

12. 1955, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Alabama and is arrested.
Inspires black leaders to mount a one-day bus boycott. A main speaker is a new minister in town, 26-year-old Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
The boycott lasts until December The bus company suffers economically; violence erupts; bombs are thrown at organizers' homes; and the white Citizens Council and the Ku Klux Klan hold rallies.
At last, a Supreme Court decision integrates the buses, and soon thousands of black riders are on the buses again -- sitting where they please.

14. 1954 legal decision Brown v. Board of Education, the supreme court declared segregated classrooms were illegal. when desegregation began, many black students found mobs protesting outside their integrated schools, and other schools chose to close rather than integrate.
The Little Rock Nine were a group of courageous black students who integrated the Arkansas capital city's Central High School in September Initially thwarted by violent white mobs and National Guard troops who refused to help, the students eventually entered school after President Dwight Eisenhower ordered paratroopers to protect them.
Little Rock Nine -

15. THE BLACK PANTHERS
Like Malcolm X, the Panthers did not discourage the use of force in self-defense, and they often resorted to violence.
Critics tended to ignore their many non-controversial activities, including running medical clinics and free breakfast programs for the poor.
Branded "America's greatest threat" they found themselves under assault by the FBI and police.
Tensions culminated in a December 4, 1969, raid that left Chicago Panthers leader Fred Hampton and a colleague dead.

17. By 1964 a Civil Rights Act was passed which achieved many of the aims of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which had been quickly overturned. The 1964 law barred discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in public facilities such as restuarants or hotels. Later laws were passed to legislate fair election practices.

18. THREE KEY POINTS – ARE THESE ACTIONS JUSTIFIED?
How does this relate to liberalism?

19. ABORIGINAL PROTESTS IN CANADA
Issue of land claims
Specific and Comprehensive Claims
Lubicon
Nisga’a
Violent Protests
In each of these cases, land claims disputes erupted into violence
Oka Crisis (1990) – golf course
Ipperwash Crisis (1995) – land taken during WWII, made into military base, never returned
Caledonia land dispute (2006) – granting building permits before land claims have been settled

21. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTESTS
Eco-terrorism
Tree spiking
Burning down recreation areas/resorts
Shooting at fishermen (especially whaling)
Greenpeace
Rainbow Warrior
PETA
Anti-fur campaigns
Baby-seal hunt protests

22. THREE KEY POINTS – ARE THESE ACTIONS JUSTIFIED?
How does this relate to liberalism?
Is violence ever effective or necessary?

23. ANTI-WAR PROTESTS Vietnam (1960s) Iraq (2000s) Hippies Kent State
Dixie Chicks

24. DISSENT IN THE US TODAY
Tea Party – created in 2009 to protest the increasing amount of spending and intervention of the federal government
Minutemen – named after militiamen in the US Revolutionary war, they patrol the border to prevent illegal immigration from Mexico
Militias – various groups united in their beliefs of the federal government's threat to their freedom, especially the 2nd amendment

25. OTHER EXAMPLES Thailand Ukraine Tunisia/Egypt WTO/G8 Summits
Red Shirts vs Yellow Shirts
Ukraine
Orange Revolution
Tunisia/Egypt
Willing to die for revolution
WTO/G8 Summits
Started in Seattle
Using violence gain attention to the conditions of coffee growers

26. Shock and Awe 10 Throwing paint on fur Anti-abortion media campaigns
Ramming whaling boats
Burning down resorts to protect environment
Spiking trees

27. THREE KEY POINTS – ARE THESE ACTIONS JUSTIFIED?
How does this relate to liberalism?