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Blocking roads is turning the public property into private. It is wrong and shouldn’t be seen as “American discourse”
Civil disobedience is is a well worn use of public power in the West. Though I think the French may be the champions at it.
I am not sure it is quite as American as apple pie..but rebelling against authority through acts of civil disobedience were right there at the dawn of the Republic.
Mobs blocking streets and harassing motorists is civil? If they were more civil he'd probably still be alive.
Blocking streets would be almost a textbook example of civil disobedience yes. Harassing motorists less so, but probably still covered, depending on the motorist and the level of harassment, particularly if they were trying to break the blockade. Whether civil disobedience needs to be peaceful is debated. Civil relates to citizens and their relationship with the state, not civil as in polite or peaceful necessarily.
Civil disobedience doesn't mean they are correct of course, it just means publicly breaking laws in service of some goal. Refusing to pay your taxes can be civil disobedience (a la Thoreau) and so can illegal marches and protests (a la Gandhi).
Thoreau, yes. Gandhi and MLK also. All examples of peaceful civil disobedience. Equating their work and the the BLM lawlessness is grotesque.
Blocking roads and harassing motorists is not spinning cotton or mining salt. There's no nexus between the 'demands' and the disobedience.
Much of the effect of civil disobedience is forcing the state to arrest and prosecute you for your violations. The greater the nexus of the violation to your complaint the better. Frequently leading them to appear petty and vindictive, rallying others to your cause.
Thoreau's version was very different. Thoreau was breaking the very law he objected to. Same with Rosa Parks. But in many other cases, the protests were breaking other laws which the protestors had no objection to (except when used against themselves). Blockading streets is not Thoreau's version of civil disobedience.
It hasn't been that for a long time. The state figured out the counter -- just make the penalties very severe, the way it was for the Charlottesville torch-carriers or January 6. Can't run your cause while in solitary in the D.C. jail or incommunicado in a Federal rape camp. And if the media is on the other side, this will all look deserved.
Instead, "civil disobedience" nowadays is theatre. Groups nominally outside the government demand unpopular stuff, and groups inside the government who want that stuff but know it is unpopular pretend their hand is forced.
Thoreau, MLK, Gandhi all went to prison / jail. The demonstrations today are not civil disobedience, I understand the demonstrators of today want to inherit the legacy of civil disobedience, at best they're wearing it as a skin suit.
As you correctly point out the demonstrators are in collusion with factions in the government. Where did historic civil disobedience collude with the nominal opposition to effect change by breaking laws orthogonal to their demands?
Can any crime be newspeak civil disobedience, bank robbery, murder?
As much of a Thoreau fan as I am, being a New England Native you have to be; even knowing he never really "got back to nature" and was eating pies made by loving relatives while living in the woods just 2 miles from town. You can't put him in a catagory with MLK and Gandhi for spending one night in a local jail.
@SSCReader inserted Thoreau, I was agreeing as an example of peaceful civil disobedience. I find him a better example than the mobs blocking traffic. Compared to Gandhi he's a poser, but still a better example of civil disobedience than the BLM rioters / looters / demonstrators.
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