Monday, November 30, 2009

IT'S TIME TO DEBATE!

We will examine several quotes by Henry David Thoreau and exercise our debating skills. We will examine the topics Preventing GLBT-Motivated Hate Crimes Via Education and/or Improving Educational Equity.

Some of the Quotes:
I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. (Martin Luther King, Jr, Autobiography)


I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto, 'That government is best which governs least' (Thoreau, Civil Disobedience)


But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. (Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience)

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. (Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience)

How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also. (Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience)