> Were Gandhi/MLK/Rosa Parks wrong when they made a point of breaking unjust laws and encouraging others to follow along?

The difference between their civil disobedience and Assange's actions is that they took their punishment.

>In the case of civil disobedience, those involved do NOT attempt to flee from justice. Being arrested and facing the legal system is an integral part.

You think Oskar Schindler was wrong not to hand himself in?

Assange as Ghandhi. Wow.

Remind me about how Rosa Parks ran and hid?

Judging if any given law is or isn’t just is too far outside my skills to have strong feeling about what Assange did one way or the other.

I do know that rule of law doesn’t function if everyone gets to decide for themselves what is and isn’t an unjust law, even though I can say with the benefit of hindsight that Rosa Parks deserved her Congressional Gold Medal, and that I hope I would’ve recognised the law as unjust at the time.

The reference that comes to mind is the four boxes of liberty: soap, ballot, jury and cartridge, which should be used in this order. Breaking unjust laws counts as #3, normal journalism is #1, Assange didn’t have the option of #2 with regard to the USA.

>I hope I would’ve recognised the law as unjust at the time.

I'd have hoped so too, but from what you've written it sounds like you would have slotted in with the liberal whites who declared support-for-ending-segregation-in-theory but would also say that "this isn't the right way" or "this isn't the right time".

They made rather similar arguments to yours about the primacy of the rule of law as a principle.

I hope I am the sort of person would have supported Rosa Parks — if I’d been on a jury, I want to be the sort of person who would have voted “not guilty” by way of jury annulment.

Four boxes is a reason to take things slow, not a reason to say “no not like that” when the first steps have failed. And when the law bites someone for breaking it, if you think the law is wrong you should support the victim of the law; but that’s not the same as saying the law should not bite at all. A court case is by itself a powerful bite for most people, even without conviction.

I can also see that someone who is constantly being ground down and dehumanised by the law isn’t going to care about an end to the rule of law. I can’t expect someone in that situation to care if rule of law is damaged, because it never protected them in the first place. I suspect the feeling the law is a bludgeon rather than a shield is the cause of the current “ACAB” and “defund the police” slogans.

But is Assange even in that category? I don’t think so, so I do not feel confident predicting how I would vote if I was hypothetically on a jury. I do think the Guardian newspaper in the UK was in the “law is wrong” category, and that it was wrong for the UK government to destroy their copy of what Snowden gave them.

Like I said, complicated.

>Four boxes is a reason to take things slow

Yeah, that's what I was referring to. MLK had a specific, rather famous riposte to this attitude because of how common it was:

"I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

Emphasis mine.

I think you’ve misunderstood me: I’m agreeing with MLK — It’s not my call to make to say when someone moves from one to the next, and I will only go so far as to place those four boxes in that sequence.

But let me turn this around to demonstrate why such an ordering is desirable: lynchings in the USA disproportionately targeted African Americans. Those mobs were full of people who often claimed to be enforcing justice, but they were reaching straight for the 4th box.

And again, this is only even a consideration for people who care about rule of law. I can easily believe that many rights activists — women’s equality, race equality, Stonewall, independence movements in then-European colonies — had no possible reason to care about rule of law, because the law was never on their side. Anyone in that situation, I’d expect to reach for #4 first because it’s the only tool even available.