England was their own country at the time. Nice revisionist history on your part.

Actually, it is your comment: "Lets set them on fire and send them to hell instead of 6 years in prison." that I found disgusting.

Apparently, you find setting nuns on fire exciting, patriotic, and beyond reproach. Please, e-mail the admins now and tell them "I suggested setting nuns on fire and someone called me disgusting." If that gets me censored or banned, I'll gladly leave here forever.

And you don't get that the comments from many on this thread were not directed to this act in general, they were directed to the whole idea of civil disobedience being "not ok" under any circumstances.

This goes back to the protests against the war, where people here were saying that if ANYONE in the protest broke the law, all the protesters were in the wrong.

The right to peaceful protest, freedom of speech, and right to object to the actions of the goverment are hallmarks of a free society. Every day I see more evidence that the conservatives, who used to be the party that respected freedom, who used to be the party that passed the civil rights laws in this country in the 1960's, turn more and more into nun-burning, protestor shooting, rights-revoking fascists. Osama Bin Laden must be proud whereever he is hiding right now, his attacks on 9/11 have successfully put the USA on the route to being a totalitarian religious state just like the one he was trying to create.

I don't often have use for this word, but: poppycock. They were about as a part of England at the time as Kuwait was to Iraq. We were at war with England almost immediately afterwords!

A facetious remark, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Although they should be punished severely to set an example, I would settle for life in prison. As for your being censored, perhaps you should. Read the rules sir, both here and offline.

Those nuns should have gotten the maximum sentence, as far as I'm concerned.

Nice post, sixate.

cool it down boys. this is a political discussion, not a slap-fest.

Your history is terrible, sir. The Boston Tea party was a direct act of civil disobedience against english law. Specifically, the Tea Tax act which took effect on May 10, 1773. If the colonies were not under british control and law, the Tea Tax Act would not have been an issue, would it? The Tea Party was a definitive act of civil disobedience, performed by some of the founding fathers of the country.

It sounds like what they did was entirely unacceptable to you and many other posters on this board. Or, is there one standard for causes you agree with, and another for causes which you do not?

Well, if your nun-burning remark was "facetious", then my remarks were just clever puns. :)

Uhh....they were all British subjects at the time...England was their country.

Against English law, England was an enemy of our way of life at the time, the standard of my political cause is very simple: I like America and don't enjoy people hurting it, the Boston tea party furthers this goal, these nuns do not.

England and the colonies at this point are two seperate powers, there's no way you're going to retain English law whilst commiting acts of war against England, I highly doubt they ever recognized English law as legitamate in the first place.

The people who I disagree with are disobeying their own law, it's not oppressive and it's not foriegn, if they don't like it then there are far more efficient means of going about changing it then trespassing on a nuclear silo (the forefathers sure weren't stupid enough to throw the cannonballs from an english battleship overboard). This ability for change the Boston tea party fellows just didn't have available to them, the motives were different. You have independance on one hand, and on the other you have contempt for your own country. So I say phooey, this is nothing at all like the Boston tea party.

Again, revisionist history on your part. Perhaps this timeline will help:

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedst...n/rev-prel.htm

March 5, 1770 - The Boston Massacre occurs as a mob harasses British soldiers who then fire their muskets pointblank into the crowd, killing three instantly, mortally wounding two others and injuring six. After the incident, the new Royal Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, at the insistence of Sam Adams, withdraws British troops out of Boston to nearby harbor islands. The captain of the British soldiers, Thomas Preston, is then arrested along with eight of his men and charged with murder.

So your story has now changes from "civil disobedience is not ok" to "civil disobedience is ok if I agree with the principle."

That's what I thought your position was in the first place, it's just nice to hear you confirm it. :)

Intresting how the claim is that they did not respect English law at all...which is why they replicated it nearly word for word when they set up their own governments.... Unless you're from louisiana, your legal heritage is pretty much 100% british.

And this is why they petitioned "No taxation with out representation" at the Boston Tea Party. They had no regard for English goverance...that's why they wanted to legally elect representatives to participate in it?? Hunh?

As I've said, I don't look at the Boston tea party as an act of civil disobedience, more of a declaration of war or open rebellion against an oppressive occupier, they called themselves the sons of liberty after all, were they interested in changing Englands laws and having them continue to rule them? No, I don't believe they were, not at all. This act they commited broke 3 years of peace between the colonies and Great Britain, it led to Patrick Henry stating "Give me liberty or give me death!" and it led ultimately to the war against England for the independance of the colonies.

Now, what are you saying. Are you saying that these nuns are freedom fighters who want to take out a foriegn power in their own land by starting a war? They certainly aren't this.

Are you saying they just wanted to stick it to their rulers? This is true, but America is for one not a foriegn occupier, and not oppressing anyone with crazy taxes against being a nun.

These nuns were doing something different then what happened at Boston, the motives and situation were completely different, so I object to your putting words in my mouth. Civil disobedience is not O.K.

As for the Boston massacre, those people weren't the sons of liberty, nor were they politicians. They were however stupid enough to harass armed soldiers, something the previous mentioned sort were clever enough to avoid.

And finally, they totally took a crap all over King Georges tax law by dumping his tea into the ocean. Sounds like they had a hell of a lot of respect for the law, because it totally lawed the hell out of them.

Then why was the Olive Branch Petition extended to the King if they were so keen on separating?

http://www.pro.gov.uk/virtualmuseum/...on/default.htm

So let's see, the Sons of Liberty broke the laws of the land in order to get a policy change that they wanted. Not civil disobedience? Give me a break. It's the very definition of civil disobedience.

I know I've backed you into a defensive position here. I want you to know that it's ok to admit it when you're wrong. I'll still respect you. :)

[size=large]Let's get back on topic.[/size]

Civil Disobedience: (LINK)

When it comes to protecting nuclear weapons, our troops have the authorization to use deadly force. Again, these women are lucky to be alive.

Seretogis, I completely agree with your definition. I think sixate set the nasty tone for this thread when he said in the original post "I'd much rather burn in hell for eternity than be in heaven with these pathetic fucking bitches." Nice way to start a rational discussion, sixate. :) Sorry if I got a bit worked up too.

A couple of points though:
- Obviously these women weren't trying to set off the missiles or do any damage to the actual equipment.
- They were prepared to die for what they believed in.
- They accepted their sentences without argument.

In a sense, they were very successful, in that they raised the awareness of nuclear issues through the publicity surrounding this case.

Also, while I agree that the troops had the authorization to shoot the nuns, the public outcry from the killing of three nuns, armed only with paint buckets, by the american military would have been outrageous and their cause would have been promoted even further.

Pfah! He avoids half my post and claims I'm the one in a defensive position! Clever kitties, I'll admit I'm wrong when you prove the Boston tea party is even remotely close to being anything like what these nuns did. I'll save you some time by saying you'll never be able to do so.

"Rally Mohawks/Bring out your axes!/And tell King George/We'll pay no taxes!" 1773.

I'll quote seretogis' source as evidence.

http://www.creativeresistance.ca/too...-activists.htm

Any time you intentionally break a law, usually flagrantly so the person knows you are breaking the law, you are committing civil disobedience.

The Boston Tea party was an intentional breaking of the law to protest what the protesters thought were unjust Tea Taxes.

The nun incident was an intentional breaking of the law to protest what the nuns thought were unjust proliferation of nuclear weapons.

By definition, what the nuns did was peaceful civil disobedience. You can twist my words all you would like, but the fact that the nuns were intentionally breaking the law in order to actually be arrested and thus put the government in a tight spot and cause public outcry is undeniably true.

You change your argument with each post. First the Boston Tea party, in your opinion, was not civil disobedience. Now, you want me to prove how was the nuns did was anything like the Boston Tea party, which you don't think was civil disobedience in the first place. Are you admitting that civil disobedience shaped our american way of life?

Heh, the colonies were very much part of England.

In fact one third of the population during the Revolutionary War was loyalist, and a third preferred rebellion, and the rest didn't really care.

We're only a country today partly because we had help from France (oh no cries many) or we'd be speaking English.. oh wait we do ...

I'll leave the arguing to HarmlessRabbit though because he's doing great :D

They got exactly what they wanted

What they got was NOTHING compared to what that crime would get if they weren't nuns. They got lucky.

I disagree. I believe I specified my argument earlier and have been consistent since. I am not admitting civil disobedience shaped our way of life, because I have consistently been opposed to the idea that the Boston tea party was this form of civil disobedience. If you have a problem with that, refer to previously stated reasons.

Also, if I wanted to twist your words I'd point out that by associating these nuns with the Boston tea party, and supporting them you're in essence supporting war on the United States. You don't want to declare independance from the United States, do you?

these people are doomed to having to be themselves for the rest of their lives.

that is the worst life sentence they could possibly have - and they gave it to themselves.