At 04:38 PM 12/31/2013, James A. Donald 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, and that in particular Swartz believed he was above the law, and was shocked to find that he was not.
You seem to be laboring under a pernicious misapprehension: that there is a legitimate mandate to obey laws that are unconstitutional and/or unjust. There is a mandate, but it is just as illegitimate as the unconstitutional or the unjust law.
There might be some sincere practitioners of civil disobedience, but Swartz was not, and the big heroes of the civil disobedience brigade, Ghandi and Thoreau, were not.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that, but if you mean what I think you mean, then my money says you are wrong about it as well. --ue