Resistance 101: Do Not Comply
How Authoritarian Regimes Thrive on Everyday Obedience, and How We Can Fight Back
“One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” - Dr. M.L. King, Jr.
From his Birmingham jail cell, MLK affirmed the duty of civil disobedience against unjust authority. This principle (that unjust rules must be met with noncompliance) echoes through resistance movements to this very day.
Why Is This Important?
Authoritarianism doesn’t need to bulldoze its way to power. It thrives on something more insidious: compliance. In this article, we’re going to examine compliance that advances a repressive agenda: the act of going along with unjust laws, policies, or social pressures without questioning or resisting.
Compliance allows regimes to extend their reach, consolidate their power, and suppress dissent. But noncompliance, even in small doses, can break that cycle.
This article isn’t just about the dangers of compliance; it’s about the power of noncompliance. It's about standing up, making “good trouble,” and refusing to be part of the problem.
The Subtle Power of Compliance
Compliance is more than simply following orders. It’s about cooperation. It’s about allowing a broken system to continue running smoothly.
In authoritarian regimes, compliance is essential for the system to function. It keeps the gears of repression in motion without needing the explicit backing of every citizen. This compliance is a form of consent. And it happens every day, in ways you may not even realize.
Why People Comply
People comply with the demands of would-be autocrats for a variety of reasons. One of the most unsettling? There will always be a subset of the population which directly supports the regime’s agenda. Barring that, here are a few more common reasons:
Fear: “If I don’t follow orders, I could lose my job.”
Convenience: “It’s easier to stay silent than to speak up.”
Normalization: “Everyone else is doing it, so it must be okay.”
Lack of Awareness: “What’s happening around me doesn’t seem like a big deal.”
Rationalization: “I’m just doing my job—it’s not my place to judge.”
But here’s the catch: compliance fuels authoritarianism. The more we comply, the more the regime grows, tightening its grip on society along the way. With all of the gears turning in synchrony, autocracy will advance at an alarming speed.
Three Excellent Perspectives on Obedience and Power
In addition to the Reverend’s quote at the beginning of this article, here are three powerful perspectives to consider:
Hannah Arendt: “Politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and support are the same.” In other words, going along with unjust authority is tantamount to endorsing it. She warned there is “no such thing as obedience in political and moral matters”—only choices to comply or resist.
George Orwell: In 1984, the interrogator O’Brien declares: “Obedience is not enough... Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation.” Authoritarian regimes demand not just outward compliance but the surrender of one’s will – they seek to occupy the individual’s mind, using fear and cruelty to enforce not just obedience but genuine belief (e.g. making dissenters truly “love Big Brother”). O’Brien goes on to paint a picture of the future: “Imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
Vaclav Havel: The Czech dissident emphasized the fragility of repressive systems in the face of honest dissent. He noted that “living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal... everyone who steps out of line threatens it in its entirety.” Even minor daily refusals to consent (what Havel called “living in truth”) expose the regime’s lies and can erode its power.
Examples of Compliance in the United States
Corporate/Tech Collaboration
In the tech sector, we see companies yielding to government pressure in ways that align with authoritarian tendencies. For example, Facebook handed police private user data (messages between a teen and her mother) to help prosecute an alleged illegal abortion under a strict Nebraska law.
Similarly, Big Tech firms have actively aided immigration crackdowns: Amazon’s cloud services and Peter Thiel’s Palantir enable ICE, providing critical data infrastructure for raids and deportations. Palantir’s tools allow ICE to “scan people’s biometrics, look up their family histories, and power its raids,” essentially making these companies partners in expansive surveillance and enforcement.
The Flock is Always Watching
Author's Note: I live in a quiet county with a handful of traffic lights and about 15,000 residents. When I read that someone in my area had been erroneously charged with a felony based on Flock camera data, I thought to myself: “Surely it's only a matter of time before they use this on immigrants.” Turns out,
Such compliance by tech corporations, whether sharing personal data or censoring content at a regime’s behest, helps authoritarian-style policies be carried out under the mantle of legality or “terms of service.”
Law Enforcement & Immigration
Many law enforcement agencies have also conformed to draconian federal policies. Under the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against “sanctuary” jurisdictions, hundreds of county sheriffs and police departments entered into 287(g) agreements that deputized their officers as ICE agents.
These agreements skyrocketed under Trump, meaning local police are now performing federal immigration duties. This is a clear example of institutions complying with a harsh mass-deportation agenda to avoid being labeled as non-cooperative. By early 2025, ICE had 645 such agreements in 40 states, showing how thoroughly local authorities were enlisted to “do ICE’s work” at the expense of immigrant communities.
Judiciary Upholding Repressive Laws
Parts of the legal system have normalized or upheld authoritarian-leaning policies. Notably, courts have permitted sweeping book bans and gag rules. In May 2025, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Texas county’s removal of 17 library books, rejecting First Amendment challenges by characterizing book selection (and de-selection) as government “speech” beyond public challenge.
The court declared that citizens’ right to receive information cannot compel a library to carry certain books – effectively green-lighting local officials to ban books on ideological grounds. Judges in some states have similarly let educational gag orders and anti-protest laws stand, signaling judicial acquiescence to policies that curb dissent or censor ideas. Even when such laws are eventually overturned, the delay and deference allow repressive measures to chill behavior in the meantime.
Education Compliance (Censorship in Schools)
Schools and universities, fearing state sanctions, have also complied with authoritarian-style mandates. For example, Florida’s 2023 education laws prompted teachers to purge or cover classroom libraries until books could be “approved,” since possessing unvetted books could be treated as a felony offense. In early 2023, educators in at least one Florida county were literally packing books in boxes or putting paper over bookshelf displays to avoid prosecution.
Likewise, university officials have silenced or punished faculty to stay in line with ruling politicians. In one high-profile case, the University of Florida barred several professors from testifying in a voting-rights lawsuit against the state, explicitly saying that testimony challenging Governor DeSantis’s policies would be “adverse to the university’s interests” as a state institution. An email from a UF vice-president flatly stated that any faculty activity “dissenting from the [state governor’s] administration” created a conflict for the university.
Across the country, school boards and colleges have often chosen to quietly enforce gag rules (on topics like race, gender, or history) and to remove “controversial” materials, rather than risk funding cuts or political retaliation – a form of preemptive compliance that normalizes censorship.
Military Compliance
The recent deployment of the (federalized) National Guard and Marines in Los Angeles is a stark reminder that compliance is fundamentally built into the way our government operates. “Just following orders” has quickly resulted in:
Predator drones circling the city
Police opening fire on protesters and journalists, unprovoked, with “less lethal” munitions
Marines carrying live rounds and assault rifles, “authorized” to detain American citizens
Acts of Individual Noncompliance
Don’t be discouraged: For every act of compliance, there is a person or group pushing back against repression and control. Here are just a few:
Bus Drivers Refuse to Help NYPD: During 2020 protests, NYC and Minneapolis transit workers (and their unions) refused to transport arrested protesters, standing in solidarity and saying “we do not work for NYPD.” This significantly slowed down mass-arrest operations.
Teachers and Librarians: Oklahoma teacher Summer Boismier resigned rather than enforce book bans. Oklahoma’s top education official even tried to revoke her teaching certificate as punishment. Her courage to uphold intellectual freedom drew national attention.
Election Officials: Georgia’s Secretary of State refused Trump's request to "find" extra votes in 2020. The state was able to uphold lawful election results despite extreme pressure. Former Vice President Mike Pence refused to carry out Trump’s plan to overturn the election results, upholding his oath to protect the constitution. (As a reminder, federal officials pledge to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.")
Government Employees: Employees of the National Park Service began posting via a “Resistance” account as a result of increased government censorship in 2017 and beyond. These individuals are working diligently to inform the public and hold those in power accountable for their actions.
Dissent in Authoritarian States: Around the world, countless people have said “no” in regimes that demand total compliance:
Since late 2022, Iranian women have been discarding the mandatory hijab, going unveiled in public as an everyday act of resistance against the theocracy’s repressive dress code.
In Russia, during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, state TV editor Marina Ovsyannikova staged a stunning on-air protest, bursting onto the live evening news with a poster reading “Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you.”
In late 2022, Chinese citizens across several cities protested harsh “Zero-COVID” policies by holding up blank sheets of paper – a mute criticism of censorship and lockdowns. The blank paper symbolized everything they couldn’t say; as one protester put it, “Are you going to arrest me for holding a sign that says nothing?”
Each of these examples – from a lone individual’s stunt to a broad grassroots campaign – shows how “doing the right thing” often means not doing what one is told. Everyday people can undermine authoritarianism by withholding the one thing it ultimately needs: their consent.
The Takeaway: Withdraw Your Consent
If something feels wrong—but everyone is doing it—pay attention. You’re standing at a potential fault line of history.
Authoritarianism doesn’t ask you to obey—it commands you. And it will cloak its orders in bureaucracy, legality, safety, and tradition.
But those who refuse to comply, even in small ways, can interrupt that machinery. You can:
Refuse to be silent.
Refuse to enforce injustice.
Refuse to enable the machinery of repression.
Noncompliance is not just resistance. It is self-respect. It is the first step toward protecting freedom.
Start with one refusal. Then another. And do not stop.