Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience” (1849) inspired Mahatma Ghandi, who liberated India by mobilizing the masses to non-violent resistance against the imperial British colonials. In the 1960s, civil-rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, a student of Thoreau and Ghandi, again demonstrated the insuperable power of passive resistance to oppressive authority.
On the other hand, American colonists cast off British tyranny via a violent revolution over 200 years ago. Now, again, We the People are unfree colonists of an imperial power – our own oppressive federal government whose defiance of the will of the people would make King George III look kindly and benevolent.
May I suggest to your readers that We the People study Thoreau and Ghandi in devising an effective strategy to counter an oppressive and out-of-control leviathan.
John Woods
