spp@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Stephen P Pope) (01/22/86)
> I don't recall the Rev. Falwell ever advocating anything violent > explicitly. (His pledged support of South Africa might be construed > as an implicit endorsement, however.) But certainly he did not > advocate bombing abortion clinics, did he? > > Dave Kirby ( ...!ihnp4!akgub!cylixd!dave) Let me correct this since my statement was misleading. Suppose Mr. Auto-Dial feels that Falwell's activities amount to a support of violence in various forms. Now, as some have pointed out, classifying something as "civil disobedience" doesn't make it morally right. However, in our society we tend to draw a moral distinction between run-of-othe-mill criminal activities, and civil-diobedience type activities that are also illegal. If your personal morals only allow an absolute, black-and-white sense of right and wrong, you probably can't appreciate the difference, and probably consider Mr. Auto-Dial a criminal threat to freedom. One condition for an action to be regarded as an act of civil disobedience is a perception on the part of the perpetrator that the target of the act is harmful to society. (Obviously, there will be no general agreement on this point.) I merely wanted to point out that our Mad Dialer surely has this perception. steve