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The fact is, if you read his writings, or those of any other movement that utilized "civil disobedience", you will find that part of the deal is accepting that the government is going to enforce the laws you disagree with.

"Accepting that the government is going to enforce the laws you disagree with" is accepting reality. If that's what's meant by "accepting the consequences of his actions", then it's true but so trivial as to be useless.

The point is that if one mounts a defense -- social, legal, or even physical -- to that enforcement rather than passively "accepting" it, one is still engaged in civil disobedience.

Yes, the guy who deliberately breaks an unjust law and then fights the cops who come to arrest him is still engaged in civil disobedience; the "civil" refers to the "civil authority" one is disobeying, not to behaving "civilly". I'm not, for the moment, saying that such fighting is or is not a wise action; just that "civil disobedience" is a wider concept than nonviolent resistance. Remember that Thoreau praised John Brown, whose attack on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry could fairly be described as terrorism; he was most definitely not a pacifist of the King or Gandhi variety.

Yeah right on man! Feudal warlords rule!

Feudal warlords are a form of government, so the fact that they suck does not invalidate the premise that governments suck.

Thoreau wrote that "'That government is best which governs not at all'; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which the will have." Thornley wrote that "Universal Enlightenment a prerequisite to abolition of the State, after which the State will inevitably vanish. Or - that failing - nobody will give a damn."

But we are not prepared for it, and Universal Enlightenment has not yet occurred. So anarchy remains an unstable proposition at this stage of human development. Take a large enough group of people with no government, and at best they'll restrict their hierarchical primate dominance behavior to some form of democracy; at worst you end up with strongman rule.

We should keep working toward the anarchic ideal (I think it's an asymptotic process and we might never entirely get there), but in the mean time, again with Thoreau, "I ask for, not at one no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it....How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it."

This government of the people by the people and for the people crap that those fucktard founding fathers came up with ... just pure evil.

The Founding Fathers were a bunch of slave owners, bankers, and landlords who wanted to remove the hierarchy above them, but still sit on top of the lower classes. Government "of the people, by the people, for the people" was not one of their memes, but is a quote from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address; he probably lifted it from an abolitionist minister, Theodore Parker, or from Daniel Webster.

But whilst you are using civil disobedience to disregard the laws of the land that you feel are wrong, then you accept the outcome that you may be dealt with according to the law.

Civil disobedience means disobeying the law without violently resisting the government. It does not mean quietly accepting imprisonment.

I thought that was the point of civil disobedience, that you showed the world the injustice by suffering through the situation in a more public way.

The point of civil disobedience, as formulated by Thoreau, is that people ought not resign their consciences to the state, that "we should be men first, and subjects afterward," that "It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right."

The idea of suffering through the situation to get public sympathy seems to have been an addition by Gandhi and MLK.

Is it really that bad to love your country and enjoy the privilege of defending it?...I also spent 4 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, and rather enjoyed that as well.

People who are actually defending their home don't do a lot of joyful marching in ranks. They're busy sneaking about and shooting at the invaders guerrilla-fashion then running away.

You do however see a lot of that sort of marching from aggressive, invading military forces, as they attempt to intimidate the people they've just conquered.

As for "loving your country", no one has said it better then Thoreau:

Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents on injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts--a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniment, though it may be,

"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where out hero was buried."

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others--as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders--serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as the rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few--as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men--serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.

Sure, but don't pretend you aren't using the threat of violence to force people to obey the majority whims.

Well, that's government.

I'm all for the eventual elimination of government, but I'm a Zenarchist - I know that "Universal Enlightenment a prerequisite to abolition of the State, after which the State will inevitably vanish. Or - that failing - nobody will give a damn." Or as Thoreau put it, '"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.'

In the meantime, though, while we're waiting for "Universal Enlightenment", while we're waiting for the the time "when men are prepared for it", government is something that's going to exist where ever humans are; at best some form of constitutional democracy that acts as an expedient, at worst brutal rule by mobs and strong-men.

It's a combination of forcing people to pay for stuff they are by definition not voluntarily willing to buy in a free market.

We can talk about ending this "forcing people to pay for stuff" as soon as we actually have a "free market" - that means no government-charted corporations, no government-transfered inherited wealth, no reserve banking system, no government issued land or resource deeds or copyrights or patents, no government-issued currency. These instances of government force are so ubiquitous that libertarian capitalists take them for granted; but trace any claim of property back and you'll find government force at the root, trace any concentration of wealth and you'll find government force enabling it. To then complain of taxes as government coercion is rather hypocritical.

And so long as we have this government engine that drives the concentration of economic power that we know as "capitalism", we'll need a few safety governors on that engine. Money is a government creation: render onto Caesar what is Caesar's.

That quote may not have been written by Emerson.