Freedom, Responsibility, Civil Disobedience and Pacifism

Some conversations I've had recently have got me thinking about the various topics I've put in the title of this post.

If you've read my blog at all before now, you will know that a consistent refrain of mine is that we cannot have freedom without personal responsibility. We simply cannot have one without the other. Period. Bottom line. To give up one is to lose the other.

This is why when I entered my new employment, I chose the Health Savings Account rather than a more traditional insurance "plan." With a high deductable health savings account, I pay for everything until I have met that high deductible. EVERYTHING. I pay for the entire doctor's visit. I pay for whatever lab tests the doctors may need to run. I pay for whatever prescription medications I may need to get well. I pay for everything. I set aside money each paycheck into the health savings account to cover the medical costs. When I chose this, I was betting on not getting sick for about 9 months, until I had enough in the account to cover the costs of getting healthcare.

I'm not going to lie, it's a huge gamble. The reason I did this, though, was because we cannot have freedom without responsibility. A traditional insurance plan has limitations on what they will pay for, who they will pay it to, and what I can do to get well. With the HSA, I don't have to follow a prescription plan. I can choose any medication I want based on my doctor's recommendation. I don't need to seek approval for lab tests or other procedures. If I want it done, I get it done. I'm paying for it. By increasing my financial responsibility for my healthcare, I have increased my freedom.

Another example of this is the recent situation with our vehicles. The 12 year old hunk of junk minivan I drive around blew up. We needed to get it fixed, and the amount was SIGNIFICANT. The decision was: Do we pay more than the van is actually worth to get it fixed, but not have to get it financed? or Do we go get a "new" vehicle, and take out a loan? We chose to get it fixed. The deciding factor? Getting a vehicle financed would have meant that someone else, most likely the bank, would tell us what minimum insurance coverage we would need. Getting it financed meant that the loan holder would be telling us how much out of every paycheck we need to give away as a payment. Getting a vehicle financed meant that if something were to happen and we could no longer make those payments, they could come and take "my" car away from me. By keeping the responsibility of paying for the vehicle (as opposed to having a bank pay for it), we kept our freedom to decide how much insurance coverage to carry. We get to decide the size of our "payments" back into our savings accounts. We don't have to worry if one of us is out of work whether we lose "our" vehicle or not.

Freedom and Responsibility...two sides of the same coin.

So what does this have to do with Civil Disobedience and Pacifism?

Let me start by saying something that I think everyone, conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Rustafarian, Mediterranean, or whatever other label you like, can agree on: The political, financial, and taxation system in our country is broken. Whether you believe more government intervention is neccessary to fix it, or if you believe government has broken it to begin with so government should get out of the way, we can at least agree that the system as it exists today is broken.

Hendry David Thoreau, the grandfather of Civil Disobedience, believed that the system of his era was broken. Mahatma Ghandi recognized the injustices of the British colonial system, and saw it as broken. Martin Luther King, Jr. saw the racial inequity in the United States and recognized it was broken. The original labor unions saw the unfair and unjust labor system as broken. All of these systems were broken.

Here's the kicker.

These individuals or groups never demanded that others change. They did not attempt to exert control over any other person to force their agenda on them.

What Thoreau, Ghandi, King, and the original labor unions did was to express their freedom and take personal responsibility not to participate in these broken systems anymore. Thoreau purchased a small piece of property on Walden Pond and practiced total self-sufficiency in order to separate himself from what he perceived to be a broken system. He did not do this to change the taxation policies of his era. If that were his purpose, he was wildly unsuccessful. He freely chose not to participate in what he perceived to be a broken system. He also took responsibility for his choices, spending months at a time in jail for not paying his taxes. He exercised freedom to resist what he saw as unjust taxation by not participating in it, and he took responsibility, getting irritated with his friend Longfellow, who would come in, pay Thoreau's back taxes for him so that Thoreau could get out.

Ghandi never demanded that the British change their policies and practices towards governance of their colonies in India and Africa. He simply made a free choice not to participate in an unjust system. He also accepted responsibility for his choice, spending much of his time incarcerated for not carrying the proper documentation, receiving brutal beatings, and eventually giving his life. One of my favorite images of this concept is from the movie Ghandi. The scene shows the pomp and circumstance of celebrations at the partition of India and Pakistan, something with which Ghandi disagreed. Juxtaposed to those images of the divided nations raising their flags in celebration is the image of Ghandi sitting in his home with no flag at all raised on the flagpole. Ghandi did not attempt to enforce his will on others, but he would not participate in what he saw was a broken system.

Rosa Parks did not demand that the bus company change the practice of blacks giving up their seats to whites. She simply decided that day not to participate in that system anymore. By doing this, she sparked a revolution. Of course, she went to jail for it. She knew that was the consequence of her decision. She was willing accept responsibility for her refusal to participate in a broken system.

Martin Luther King, Jr. did so much to bring social justice to the minorities, and particularly blacks in the United States. He never demanded that others subject themselves to his will. He simply chose not to participate in what was a broken system. Martin Luther King, Jr. spent a significant amount of time incarcerated due to his refusal to participate in the institutional racism.

That's what civil disobedience and pacifism have to do with freedom and personal responsibility. One sees that a system in broken. Then this one makes a free choice not to participate in that system anymore. This one is not taking from others their free choice, or forcing others to subject themselves to this one's will. This one is simply stating, "I will not participate in this anymore." This refusal to participate in a broken system becomes an act of Civil Disobedience.

Pacifism, as it was practiced by Ghandi and King, refuses to enforce the pacifist's will on another. To force you to subject yourself to my will is not an act of pacifism, but aggression. I am attempting to wrestle control and power over you. The Pacifist recognizes that the pacifist has no power over another, and does not attempt to gain control over another, even through non-violent means. The pacifist does not demand that others change. The pacifist simply establishes what the pacifist will do and will not do. The pacifist leaves the other free to do whatever he or she chooses to do. Personal responsibility, eschewing control and power over another, and exercising the freedom not to participate in something that I don't believe in is the pacifist's means.

Those means can be perverted. This is what I believe happened to the labor unions, that at one time did so much to advance the dignity of the American worker. When the labor unions realized that strikes were effective means of change, the labor union leaders began using the tools of civil disobedience to impose their will on others. This happened to their own detriment. Hostess had to shut down because they could no longer meet the demands of the labor unions. The car industry in the United States has gone bankrupt only to be bailed out by the government, because they could no longer meet the demands of the labor unions.

I see this as an important key in understanding why the "Occupy" movement is doomed to fail. The "Occupy" movement is made of those who are demanding change from others using the tools of civil disobedience, like picket lines and sit-ins. This never works. Never.

You cannot create change in the world and expect that you will stay the same.

The great men and women who used pacifism and civil disobedience were not out to change the world. They looked within themselves, and changed what they were doing. By changing themselves, they changed the world. They did it by exercising their freedom and by taking responsibility for their exercise of freedom.

We cannot change the world and expect that we will stay the same. If we start by changing ourselves, the world around us begins to change with us.