When does it become ethical to overthrow your government?
- Thread starter mountainhare
- Start date
all regimes twixt then and now.
I think it was more than tea taxes that caused the founding fathers to rebel. I think they rebelled for two reasons. One, they did not like regulation coming from Britian and they had no representation in parliment...no way to change the law. In my opinion violent revolution is never justified. Violent revolution benefits no one! I think we can learn a lot from the example of Ghandi Gee. Ghandi was the worlds greatest revolutionary and he never took up arms. yet he overthrew the greatest empire in the world and succeeded where violence had failed.
Draqon said:
True 'nuff. But we also must bear in mind that it's the communist regimes that have tried to associate themselves to his name. For comparison, consider organized religion. While organized religion tends to be problematic, the question of what Jesus would do or say or think is most relevant to those faiths that associate themselves to his name, e.g. Christians.
The Revolution Will Find You
I suppose I was considering chaos in the more deliberate sense. I still can't speak to the Vendetta comparison. Maybe by the end of the week I'll have actually watched the film.
But, to work with generalizations, the chaos that results from revolution can be either deliberate or accidental. The cynic in me reminds that people will often denigrate themselves in general if only to prove a point against something they resent. In this case, there is the idea put forward by Freud and others that it is not necessarily the law, or fear of punishment, that keeps us in line. In a society such as the United States, the laws are generally held to reflect our moral outlook; e.g. if, somehow, the government accidentally or intentionally struck the laws against murder, we wouldn't all just start randomly killing one another. ("What? It's legal. Might as well, eh?") To the other, and perhaps more rationally, laws against drug use, prostitution, and organized gambling don't actually do anything to stop people from committing those crimes. Of course, neither do laws against murder.
At some level, then, it seems to me that it is, indeed, possible to hold a revolution in good faith and see an orderly outcome. This, of course, is about as likely as waking up tomorrow to find that the majority of Americans have signed on to a petition that enumerates our offenses against Muslims and Arabs, apologizes profusely, and asks the radicals to please stop so we can figure a solution. It just ain't going to happen right now.
But the Communist Revolution, for instance, has this good-faith potential. Right now, what screws up communism is that people don't seem to understand what it means. An old argument against the reds is that there is no reason for a worker to do a good job if the half-assed performance next to him earns the same reward. This is a bit of a simplification, as I see it, and, furthermore, admits that the "good" worker is only in it for himself, and either does not understand or rejects outright the relationship between individual and society. We saw the same with the trickle-down theory; while the benefits were supposed to trickle down broadly to the people, the rich scrambled to consolidate the wealth all over again. Or the L.A. riots after the Rodney King verdict: I well understand that people were angry enough to tear shit up, but shouldn't they have marched over to the more affluent neighborhoods and gone bananas? What was the point of tearing up the home turf? I haven't yet been able to figure that one out.
In theory, the Communist Revolution that succeeds will be silent, and come about naturally. We see it beginning in employer-funded healthcare, education, and retirement. But this isn't really the kind of revolution we're considering.
To the other, I think the Fight Club space-monkey revolution is also a bit extreme.
For meaningful revolution that comes at the price of chaos and destruction, the justification seems to be a consideration of what recourse the people have. And that's meaningful recourse. To wit, many people think their vote doesn't count anymore.
The people will lose any meaningful vote; after all, even the Iraqis had a vote under Saddam from time to time. It's a common ruse for dictators. The people will lose their right to meaningful demonstration. This is already happening; the idea of "legal protest zones" removed from the object of protest is repugnant, and is part of what raised tensions around the WTO riot in Seattle. Speech will be suppressed, and any but the most "patriotic" propaganda will be on the hit list. Desperate labor strikes will be met with government brutality. At some point, there will be no means left for the people to enforce the social contract. When that day comes, prime up the guns, top off the Molotovs, fill the streets, and tear the place to pieces.
Elton John recently criticized the internet, and though his suggestion was outrageous, the foundation of his complaint was not. It was, perhaps, myopic and misguided, but he was at least sincere. Part of his complaint was that people should be filling the streets in protest instead of sitting at home blogging. To a degree, that's fair. But in the United States, the people at large have lost their taste for direct action and civil disobedience, in part because the government doesn't really care, and there are plenty of allegedly respectable neighbors willing to decry such tactics. Protest is more comedic fodder these days, an object for scorn. The people will, hopefully, get it back. And when they do, if the government is willing to take its arms to the streets and fight its own people, the revolution will officially be afoot.
We take to bloody revolt only when our grievances are just, and rebellion is the only remaining means of expression. For some reason, people deify, or "heroify" folks like Randy Weaver and David Koresh. Mostly, I think, it's simply a means of demonizing the government. Seriously, I just don't believe that many people looked at Koresh and said, "Polygamy with child brides? Where do I sign up?"
When the time comes, the revolution will find us.
Mountainhare said:
I suppose I was considering chaos in the more deliberate sense. I still can't speak to the Vendetta comparison. Maybe by the end of the week I'll have actually watched the film.
But, to work with generalizations, the chaos that results from revolution can be either deliberate or accidental. The cynic in me reminds that people will often denigrate themselves in general if only to prove a point against something they resent. In this case, there is the idea put forward by Freud and others that it is not necessarily the law, or fear of punishment, that keeps us in line. In a society such as the United States, the laws are generally held to reflect our moral outlook; e.g. if, somehow, the government accidentally or intentionally struck the laws against murder, we wouldn't all just start randomly killing one another. ("What? It's legal. Might as well, eh?") To the other, and perhaps more rationally, laws against drug use, prostitution, and organized gambling don't actually do anything to stop people from committing those crimes. Of course, neither do laws against murder.
At some level, then, it seems to me that it is, indeed, possible to hold a revolution in good faith and see an orderly outcome. This, of course, is about as likely as waking up tomorrow to find that the majority of Americans have signed on to a petition that enumerates our offenses against Muslims and Arabs, apologizes profusely, and asks the radicals to please stop so we can figure a solution. It just ain't going to happen right now.
But the Communist Revolution, for instance, has this good-faith potential. Right now, what screws up communism is that people don't seem to understand what it means. An old argument against the reds is that there is no reason for a worker to do a good job if the half-assed performance next to him earns the same reward. This is a bit of a simplification, as I see it, and, furthermore, admits that the "good" worker is only in it for himself, and either does not understand or rejects outright the relationship between individual and society. We saw the same with the trickle-down theory; while the benefits were supposed to trickle down broadly to the people, the rich scrambled to consolidate the wealth all over again. Or the L.A. riots after the Rodney King verdict: I well understand that people were angry enough to tear shit up, but shouldn't they have marched over to the more affluent neighborhoods and gone bananas? What was the point of tearing up the home turf? I haven't yet been able to figure that one out.
In theory, the Communist Revolution that succeeds will be silent, and come about naturally. We see it beginning in employer-funded healthcare, education, and retirement. But this isn't really the kind of revolution we're considering.
To the other, I think the Fight Club space-monkey revolution is also a bit extreme.
For meaningful revolution that comes at the price of chaos and destruction, the justification seems to be a consideration of what recourse the people have. And that's meaningful recourse. To wit, many people think their vote doesn't count anymore.
The people will lose any meaningful vote; after all, even the Iraqis had a vote under Saddam from time to time. It's a common ruse for dictators. The people will lose their right to meaningful demonstration. This is already happening; the idea of "legal protest zones" removed from the object of protest is repugnant, and is part of what raised tensions around the WTO riot in Seattle. Speech will be suppressed, and any but the most "patriotic" propaganda will be on the hit list. Desperate labor strikes will be met with government brutality. At some point, there will be no means left for the people to enforce the social contract. When that day comes, prime up the guns, top off the Molotovs, fill the streets, and tear the place to pieces.
Elton John recently criticized the internet, and though his suggestion was outrageous, the foundation of his complaint was not. It was, perhaps, myopic and misguided, but he was at least sincere. Part of his complaint was that people should be filling the streets in protest instead of sitting at home blogging. To a degree, that's fair. But in the United States, the people at large have lost their taste for direct action and civil disobedience, in part because the government doesn't really care, and there are plenty of allegedly respectable neighbors willing to decry such tactics. Protest is more comedic fodder these days, an object for scorn. The people will, hopefully, get it back. And when they do, if the government is willing to take its arms to the streets and fight its own people, the revolution will officially be afoot.
We take to bloody revolt only when our grievances are just, and rebellion is the only remaining means of expression. For some reason, people deify, or "heroify" folks like Randy Weaver and David Koresh. Mostly, I think, it's simply a means of demonizing the government. Seriously, I just don't believe that many people looked at Koresh and said, "Polygamy with child brides? Where do I sign up?"
When the time comes, the revolution will find us.
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I disagree. Though we, as a people, generally relay a spark of respect and tolerance to those whom we encounter on a regular basis, we often show little to no respect regarding those whom we don't know. Take for example the Nazi party's rise. Of course we usually wish no ill will upon a friend or close neighbor. However, disassociation (often nurtured or even birthed by misinformation) and desensitization will, as shown historically countless times, lead to one person's aspirations of another person's demise.
Many past societies, often without any form of communication betwixt them, had laws for the legal exacting of revenge--death as the applicant saw fit. This was often (as I've read elsewhere but probably also mentioned "books.google.com/books?id=txktAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA477&lpg=PA477&dq=japan+%22legal+revenge%22&source=web&ots=JOqBNUAS3t&sig=OkFgSXTOIGkXaHie1MgWpixP898"here. sorry I can't post links) abusively overused.
Hopefully. However, with the exponential growth of technology; who really knows? There may come a time when the government's abundance of technology funded/purchased by the people's money so greatly dwarfs us that we will be unable to successfully rebel. Though the fight may have come to us before, perhaps this time we may miss the fight entirely.
If worse came to worst the government wouldn't kill it's own people, at the very least in large numbers, to protect itself and its secrets would it?
The answer? Stalin, Castro, Hitler, etc. Though these men are looked back upon as evil, wasn't there a time where they were the people's heroes? Our government, as well as all government is the same.
Though the USA doesn't currently run the risk of being controlled by a dictator thanks to our limited-term elections, we may have doomed ourselves to an even worse fate. As previous generations die off and new elect make their way into office their points of view about everything changes. Their loyalties no longer lie where they were supposed to have been so carefully placed. Think of it this way: A farmer and his family is to give his kingship a percentage of his crop and all crops grown thereafter to the court in return for the land they grow it on. The farmers children may hold the kingship in rather high esteem, but more than likely the grandchildren and especially those that come after will begin to loathe the king for this "preposterous" tax.
As to the fate we may have doomed ourselves to: Instead of being controlled by a single dictator and his regime we may be controlled by an "electoral dictatorship"--a little term I'm coining on the spot to represent how the electoral college system can be expanded upon and ultimately rigged (similar to Castro's elections) to ensure a stable, corrupt government. This, sadly, is not at all unreal. Not unreal and rather 1984-esque. Please, if you have time look into "yannone.blogspot.com/2007/08/what-does-government-that-needs-to-be.html"this (once again, sorry, can't post links) and follow that up to the .info page.
I've probably left a lot of loose ends here and there, but give me a break I've got a case of unmedicated A
H and feel strikingly compelled to go run. In nature.