Better to Betray My Country and Not My Friend

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We as human beings all have choices. Many of the choices we make can affect us for the rest of our lives. Among the more important decisions a person will ever have to face is that of betrayal. Often times we are in a situation in which we must chose sides: “Whom to betray?”, and in this case, the options are friend or country. I agree with E. M. Forster’s view on personal relations and patriotism, believing that “I hope I should have the guts to betray my country” (Forster) over my friend. A person should always – and one might even say has a duty to – place his conscience or the moral laws he has set for himself over any conflicting manmade law. Many examples throughout history have set precedents for this sort of behavior. Antigone’s burial of her brother Polyneices, when Tim DeChistopher outbid many corporations in a land drilling auction to protest global warming, Martin Luther King’s civil disobedience to end segregation, and the Weather Underground’s violent acts of terror to “bring the war home” were all courageous acts (justified or not) of disloyalty to the federal g...

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