Law weigheth equity down.²
We don’t recognize your law,
Jumbled together as it is by the
Nobodies of bygone centuries.³
It is not desirable to cultivate respect
For the law—so much as for the Right.⁴
Injustice makes the rules—Courage breaks them.⁵
Our moral responsibility is to Disobey Unjust laws.⁶
Challenging laws corrects clumsiness and serves Justice—
But of course our Defiance of the laws is clumsy—⁷
Still, we break laws to suit our Poetical Purpose!⁸
We abide by statutes utter and immutable:
Unwritten, original—God-given Laws.⁹
We will not be subject to laws:
The laws will be subject to us!¹⁰
¹ Adrienne Maree Brown, Emergent Strategy
² Major Henry T. Stanton, The Moneyless Man
³ Louis Lingg, Trial Speech
⁴ Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
⁵ Ursula K. Le Guin, Tales from Earthsea
⁶ Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail
⁷ John Berger, From A to X
⁸ Peter Bondanella, Introduction to The Inferno
⁹ Seamus Heaney, The Burial at Thebes
¹⁰ Fidel Castro tr. Tabío & Booth, History Will Absolve Me