The Ethicist, a column in the New York Times Sunday magazine by Kwame Anthony Appiah, has this to say " There are also cases in which you may violate laws that are reasonable in order to draw attention to political wrongs, as when civil protestors trespass or ignore regulations on peaceable assembly. When the point of doing so is to express your morals ideas, you have to do so in plain sight, which means you must face the legal consequences. ...This is the classic kind of civil disobedience."
Perhaps I should lay out here the moral arguments against nuclear weapons. Others have done so. Most recently Pope Francis has been explicit about the immorality of nuclear weapons. There is a trifecta of urgency around this issue, I think.
1) Who in the United States has the authority to launch these weapons? The answer is terrifying.
2) Who might provoke the commander-in-chief?
3) What kind of money are we spending on this weapons system - and to what end?
Calling attention to these issues, despite the many issues requiring our attention, is worth some civil disobedience.
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