The exception for me is when you have serious personal and/or ethical problems following them. E.g. performing compulsory military service. My only requirement for civil disobedience is that you do it in the open. You do it because you must and because you believe it must change. It is e.g. not considered civil disobedience to smuggle goods for personal pleasure or gain just because you oppose the customs laws. Or break the speed limit because you disagree with them. If you try to hide your 'civil disobedience' it is most like not.
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“And our topic is topsy-turvy: civil disobedience. As soon as you say the topic is civil disobedience, you are saying our problem is civil disobedience. That is not our problem.... Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. And our problem is that scene in All Quiet on the Western Front where the schoolboys march off dutifully in a line to war. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world, in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem.”
― Howard Zinn, The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy |
