05-01-2018, 12:32 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-01-2018, 12:36 PM by Eric the Green.)
(05-01-2018, 11:33 AM)David Horn Wrote:(05-01-2018, 01:54 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(04-30-2018, 06:57 PM)David Horn Wrote: You are coming close to advocating insurrection here ... or reporting on it at the very least. Nowhere is there a right to rebel, as every attempt in the past has demonstrated. It's odd that the ones so focused on draining the swamp are the ones least likely to use the ballot box to accomplish it. Instead, they prefer a friendly tyrant who will do it for them, or, barring that, to take up arms.
In fiction, I think the hero in Shogun advocated one thing that justifies rebellion against your overlord. You have to succeed. In real life, the founding fathers are among those that successfully rebelled. I will go with Thomas Jefferson's justification for rebellion in the Declaration of Independence. I deny your claim that every rebellion has failed, that every tyrant is morally correct.
Save that one rebellion against an absent overlord (and one separated from the American colonies by time as much as distance), no other attempt has succeeded. Now we have to ask, is anything so vile today that this option should be considered? I don't think so.
The opposition we need to address today is the same opponent we faced in the First Gilded Age: unbridled wealth. Solving it then took courage, a leader with vision and integrity, and a lot of votes at the ballot box ... twice, if you consider both Roosevelts to be part of the same solution. I think that's fully viable again, though the power of technology enhanced propaganda is making it harder than it should be.
If that solution fails, and we fall into something reminiscent of Fascism, then you might have a point, but some nascent uprising of hoi polloi would still be likely to fail. When we elected to go with a professional military, we stacked the cards in favor of a tyrant should one arise. The military is the most hide-bound traditional institution in the country.
Yes I agree. I wouldn't say an armed rebellion never succeeds, but it's rare. As a student of the history of revolution and its cycles, I can think of a number of successes. There are some conditions that may apply. One that frequently comes up, is that the military defects from the overlord and sides with the people. If the USA military is too hide-bound, that's unlikely in the USA. And sometimes a new rulership is installed that is supposed to be better, but in fact he turns out to be little better, if any, than the old boss. I think there's a song about that
Foreign intervention on the side of the rebels happens on a few occasions, as was also true of the American Revolution. But sometimes there's progress. More than likely, this happens when there is great agreement among the people that change is needed. That's very unlikely in our divided society today. 40% of the American people are brainwashed to support the oligarchy, and even in the name of "freedom" (doublespeak). And if such agreement happened here, what happens after the old fascist boss is removed by the hoi polloi after the ballot box fails? Very likely, as indicated by the ballot box, the same divisions will apply, and thus the same oligarchy would continue.