Christians aren’t the only ones saying that it is time for civil disobedience. Here is one libertarian writer introducing a new book:
Charles Murray, already controversial for writing books on how welfare hurts the poor, on ethnic differences in IQ and on (less controversial, but my favorite) happiness and good government, has written a new book that argues that it’s time for civil disobedience. Government has become so oppressive, constantly restricting us with new regulations, that our only hope is for some of us to refuse to cooperate.
Murray’s suggestion — laid out in By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission, will make some people nervous. He argues that citizens and companies should start openly defying all but the most useful regulations, essentially ones that forbid assault, theft and fraud.
He writes, “America is no longer the land of the free. We are still free in the sense that Norwegians, Germans and Italians are free. But that’s not what Americans used to mean by freedom.”
He quotes Thomas Jefferson’s observation that a good government is one “which shall restrain men from injuring one another (and) shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits.”
You can watch a short interview with Charles Murray discussing his book here.
J. Robert Smith over at American Thinker also writes about the book, and adds some good ideas onto the concept in his post, “Make Big Government Fail.”
Here is Joy Pullmann opening her article two days ago:
While Charles Murray has been out promoting measured civil disobedience in an effort to restore individual liberty, thousands of parents and children have been acting upon the same concept. This spring has seen an extraordinary nationwide defiance movement aimed against standardized tests, thanks to Common Core.
Here are the title and subtitle of a post by Clark Neily earlier this week:
What Charles Murray Gets Right About Civil Disobedience
Should Americans subject themselves to unconstitutional rulings and laws merely to preserve a corruption of ‘law and order’? Charles Murray doesn’t think so, and neither do I.
Ben Domenech also weighed in with this article: “Judicial Activism And Charles Murray’s Call For Civil Disobedience.”
Click here, here, here, and here for how some Christians don’t intend to succumb to tyranny either.
Image credit: aei.org.
