Yeah there is a difference. But it’s a difference of courage, not one I’d be proud of.

Edit: I don’t want to trivialize that courage either. Challenging power can be an incredible risk. Most people under most circumstances will choose to limit their risk no matter what the moral question. I’m honest enough to say, even though I’m not proud to, I haven’t taken all of the risks I wish I had.

So in the future when animal rights are actually respected and the abuse is totally banned we'll be allowed to support them? What sort of argument is this?

Things can be right regardless of the law, history is filled with false and immoral legislation.

That's not at all what I'm saying.

Original poster made it seem like there is some unique American culture of anti establishment and celebration of courage and activism. Then goes on to enumerate examples that are now obviously celebrated.

My point is that it's a survivor biased argument. It's very easy _now_ to celebrate past activism that ended up on the good side of history. There's nothing special in American culture about that.

We are talking about a country that started wars on false premises, tortured prisoners, incarcerated whistle-blowers, economically bullies most of its competitors, elected an ultra conservative president, have one of the worst immigration integration policy, etc etc.

> In the US, celebrating activism with illegal techniques is part of the fabric of our culture, institutional and even foundational.

I'm sorry but that just strikes me as plain.. . Maybe that's how Americans see themselves, but get back to earth, 99% of the world would roll on the floor at this.

Most of the activism enumerated in the comment is actually a minority's activism against social problems that only existed in the US in the first place. It requires a very twisted argument to celebrate US activism on issues that the US created for itself.

I didn’t intend to express it as American exceptionalism, but rather to pick examples that were relevant to my own context. I’m quite certain there are examples all over the world where illegal actions have become celebrated. The last point you make is much closer to my intent: when the law is immoral, it is sometimes moral to challenge it by breaking it. And I intentionally added examples which are not as celebrated because, well, they should be.

It’s odd to frame actions by some in the US to right wrongs in our country as “issues that the US created for itself”. I mean yes, as a country slavery is a horrible stain on our history. But the abolitionists who fought it since before the US even existed and continue to this day are not implicated in that. And that’s my point: rejection of immoral laws and power structures is valid, and equating legality with morality is sometimes and even often wrong.