Thoureau

You ask me to write a blog about Thoreau, but he would say that you are taxing me unfairly, by taking my time away and punishing me if I do not concede to your will. Thoureau might suggest that I disobey you outright, and in fact refuse to subjugate myself to your will at all, and be thrown into prison for disobeying the laws of the state. There does seem a certain attraction to that idea, but as you are reading this, I must have decided to let your will prevail...at least for now. Thoreau's ideas relate directly to Joe's ideas about war at the end of book 1. Thoreau believes there should be no government, or at least that government should recognize fully that individuals are the absolute power and grant them their deserved influence, and Joe is simply applying that overarching concept to the issue of war. Joe believes that government should give the individual the right to choose, to go to war or not, and should never force a man to give up his life for a concept he cannnot touch or even imagine in many cases. Joe now believes that the government has no right to command men to go to war, to force them to fight, to subjugate them. He agrees with Thoreau that the individual, his rights, his wants, his needs, should come first and above all else.