--On Wednesday, January 01, 2014 7:38 AM +1000 "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:
In practice, it is pretty obvious that most practitioners of civil disobedience believe they are above the law, that they usually *are* above the law,
The hell do you mean? If by 'the law' you mean natural rights, then the people who think that they are above the law are all governemnt shitbags. Every single member of every government is a criminal who thinks he is 'above the law'. Take a thorough sack of shit like thomas jefferson for instance. The guy babbled about 'god given equal rights' while enslaving his fellows. If that's not being 'above the law', I don't know what it is. As to Swartz he didn't commit any real crime so he never was, or pretended to be, 'above the law'.
and that in particular Swartz believed he was above the law, and was shocked to find that he was not.
There might be some sincere practitioners of civil disobedience,
What is a sincere practitioner of civil disobedience?
but Swartz was not, and the big heroes of the civil disobedience brigade, Ghandi and Thoreau, were not.