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In general terms, civil disobedience's goal is to free people from all form of government, authority or ideology that limits an individual's liberty. Primarily, in any kind of governments, which emerged by the will of the people, civil disobedience envisions a society in which government is eliminated partially or totally because men have the capacity to be self-regulating and independent, without being subject to any of its absurd laws. "All government in essence," says Emerson, "is tyranny [Gol14].".
According to Emma Goldman, Government, enslaves one's spirit by dictating every phrase of conduct [Gol14]. But who is the government but a serving system to execute people's will? "The keynote of government is injustice," states Goldman. To achieve such an arrangement of life, government, with its unjust, arbitrary, repressive measures, must be done away with [Gol14]. But, how to act against this authoritarian machine? What does Thoreau, and Goldman with their revolutionary ideals of civil disobedience propose in their writings? To undermine states' authority, civil disobedience supporters propose to take a stand, to take action, because inaction does nothing. By ignoring and refusing laws that all kind of governments would impose them, by guiding themselves into the strict individual or collective ethic, the minority would promote a revolution that would cause a change. In a long term effect, this plan would cause the infeasibility of the authoritarian machine, the state, thus, its dissolution. .
Through acts of public collective protests, which are illegal, but morally grounded, people seek to produce a partial or a total change in government's laws, or in its politics. Although it usually uses tactics of nonviolence, it is more than mere passive resistance since it often takes active forms such as illegal street demonstrations or peaceful occupations of places.
