When would you consider it appropriate to break an "unjust law"? Use information from "Perils of Obedience" and "Letter from...Jail" to support your reasoning.

I believe it's okay to break an unjust law when it starts to go against your beliefs and self-morals. An unjust law is when you are causing pain mentally of physically to someone else or to yourself. The hardest part about breaking an unjust law, is going against everything you have been taught throughout your life to follow the rules and do what people tell you to do.

In the Perils of Obedience, people knew they were doing the wrong thing, but they continued to go against their own beliefs to obey an adult, who supposedly knew what he was talking about. Why would someone do this? They are scared of the consequences, they are scared of going against their childhood learnings to obey authority, they are scared of taking a stand and putting themselves out of their comfort zone. Humans have a certain level of comfort that they like to stay at, not many people venture out of their comfort zone. For some reason it's very difficult for humans to easily accept change and go against what they have been taught, even if it means doing something they consider wrong. Just like Martin Luther King was observing and writing about in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", the people know that the racial segregation is wrong and that all "people are created equal" but they continue to treat other people of different colors or ethnicity like gum that got stuck to the bottom of their shoe. The people are afraid to do the right thing! They were taught to be racist by their parents and that black people should be slaves, and now they are afraid of going against their teachings to do the moral thing. And the same for the black people, not many of them stood up for themselves. They were taught to respect the white people and not many will disobey that unjust law. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks are two truly loyal people who stood up for what they believed in and what they thought was the right thing. Sure they had consequences, but they weren't afraid they were willing to deal with the consequences rather than let themselves be sucked into the authoritative society like everyone else. Now they are looked up to, remembered and appreciated by millions of people, only because they did the what they thought was right.

That is when it's appropriate to break an unjust law, when you know what you are doing is wrong. And maybe you will be looked down upon at first, but so what as long as it makes you feel better in your soul for knowing you have made an honest decision. People who don't stick up for their beliefs are lying to themselves, they are selfish, unloyal, and dishonest people.