Do we have too much civil obedience?

You answered your own question really. I’ll have to agree though. Back when I lived in Florida during the Sex Offender witch hunt years they put a small boy on the registry for kissing a girl on the cheek. Anyway, I found an article. I actually read it too! :)

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/05/01/12594/report-details-lives-ruined-children-put-sex-offender-registries

I think so, we are basically too fragmented and polarized politically to stand up to much.

I hear you. I’ve sorta hit a depressing road block lately realizing how much of what I dislike about social ills is driven by capitalistic behavior. But the fact that I don’t agree with it means fuck all since I still have to live in a society that plays by capitalistic rules. You want to be a part of society you’ve got to play by their rules, even if you don’t agree with their ideology and their consequences.

God it sucks. Your religion is between you and your god, your sexuality between you and your partner(s). But your economic principles? Think what you like but fat chance acting on anything but what The Man puts in place.

The pendulum has swung away from workers since the days of Reagan and now that campaign financing through large corporations and dark money has corrupted the political process, it has become an economic bonanza for the elites.
Even the Tea Party has been bought off although the spirit of revolution was initially a grass roots movement of aggrieved citizens. A lot of their supporters seem to follow Fox News which is essentially rich people paying other rich people to tell middle class people that poor people are the problem.
The elites that we have elected with a few exceptions are now beholden to the big hitters if they want to be re-elected. It’s all about money and influence these days and no matter which candidate you support you’re going to be disappointed, it seems.
For the first time in my life I may vote neither Democrat or Republican in 2014 and if there is no alternate quality candidate, just stay at home:(
The best message we can send to Washington is clean up your act, reform yourselves, and quit catering to the 1 percenters.
Of course, joblessness and low wages are slowing the economic recovery and the powers that be are beginning to wake up to the fact that without a strong middle class their own fortunes are in jeopardy.
Money talks but numbers don’t lie. We have the numbers on our side thankfully.

There are many things we as citizens should not be too obedient about, within reasonable limits of course. Being too obedient can easily at times be classified as another form of irrational irrationality to me. Some people are so anti conspiracy or so ‘rational’ that you could literally destroy such people’s lives right in front of their faces just by being politically correct.

@DWW25921 Thanks for the link. I completely agree that putting small children on sex offenders lists for innocent interactions is absurd and evil. That’s one idea that, if told to support it, I will disobey.

@ARE_you_kidding_me It only takes a common enemy to bring disparate causes together.

@fundevogel Employee owned corporations are one alternative that can be a game changer. We have to look for ways. If we can land men on the moon, send the Voyager craft into interstellar space beyond the Ort Belt, and explore the surface of Mars with the Mars Rovers, we can rationalize how we balance the interests of people and profits.

@Paradox25 There is a world of people out there. But the median isn’t defined by the outliers that are at the very ends of the bell curve.

We have lost sight of the moral value of standing up for what is right and against what is wrong.
Civil disobedience in the right circumstance is the only moral choice.

There is too much civil obedience. It’s not just passivity in the face of growing corruption and injustice—I think such a passivity is understandable in a way.

The worst of it is what I think is the ever increasing anti-intellectualism. I’ve heard and read of testimonies of how the working class used to read classic literature, and would discuss political philosophy and various intellectual topics in public fora. Now it appears we’re in the age of the dumbed down and distracted—more Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty than Noam Chomsky (just dropping his name gets a rise out of many people.)

We’re facing the greatest ecological threat to our civilisation, and hardly anyone wants to begin to understand what it is that’s happening—let alone admit that it’s happening at all.

Political and economic discourse itself is largely framed by the corporate media and the politicians representing those corporate interests. Alternative ideas, or anything that questions the underlying basis of the economic and political system in is ignored, marginalised, or at best—mocked as “nuts”, “extreme” and “anti-American”.

Authoritarianism is rife. The most callous and sociopathic commentary can be found everywhere. The poor are blamed for their poverty. The homeless are urinated on, robbed, and left to die in the gutters. Immigrants are dehumanised and talked of as parasites.

I’m increasingly convinced that we’re entering a new Dark Ages, and to be frank, Fluther—which is probably the intellectual pinnacle of Q&A sites—does not inspire me with much confidence either.