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Armed insurrection
electricitylikesme
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Registered User regular
Where do you stand on this matter?
Some of the more notable American conservative commentators like to refer to it as an option - frequently - but the second American Civil War hasn't happened yet so presumably most people aren't that dissatisfied with the government.
So my question is this: for you, personally, where does the line lie?
A difficult question to answer, since obviously the topic is very much bound up in emotion, but thanks to the modern media some of us must've given the question some thought and the topical issues of Iraq and Afghanistan really call it to the forefront since they're characterized by an ongoing insurgency with us in the role of the "oppressors" (deliberately speech marked).
So D&D - where does the line lie for you? At what point do you imagine you would - seriously - be considering abandoning a pretense of civilization and deciding that the government and those who support it need to be fixed by force. Remembering that this is a potentially lonely path - you might be the instigators, you're not getting paid and equipment is whatever you can steal. Basically - you don't get to make the assumption that "the populace is with you" or that their's an ongoing rebellion you join.
What is that line for you?
Some of the more notable American conservative commentators like to refer to it as an option - frequently - but the second American Civil War hasn't happened yet so presumably most people aren't that dissatisfied with the government.
So my question is this: for you, personally, where does the line lie?
A difficult question to answer, since obviously the topic is very much bound up in emotion, but thanks to the modern media some of us must've given the question some thought and the topical issues of Iraq and Afghanistan really call it to the forefront since they're characterized by an ongoing insurgency with us in the role of the "oppressors" (deliberately speech marked).
So D&D - where does the line lie for you? At what point do you imagine you would - seriously - be considering abandoning a pretense of civilization and deciding that the government and those who support it need to be fixed by force. Remembering that this is a potentially lonely path - you might be the instigators, you're not getting paid and equipment is whatever you can steal. Basically - you don't get to make the assumption that "the populace is with you" or that their's an ongoing rebellion you join.
What is that line for you?
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The question seems almost ridiculous on face; basically, we'd have to get really close to the government of North Korea or to the state of anarchy before I'd consider anything that drastic.
Otherwise: Why the hell aren't you working within the democratic system to affect change and making yourself a vigilante that can only hurt your cause in the eyes of others?
*This is, you know, the major important qualification. Violent means of effecting governmental change should only be reserved as a last resort.
It comes up so often in American media because we idolize the American Revolution and all things associated with it.
Everyone talks about doing it, but most of the people who are, wouldn't get involved because it would mess up their lifestyle/money. The only reason they are talking about it is for ratings.
I'm lookin at you Glenn Beck.
change happens fairly slowly in them, and everyone has their own point of 'fuck this shit im shooting someone' that seems crazy to everyone who hasn't reached that point, so the shooty ones are always on the fringe unless you have something like a gigantic economic collapse
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If we noticed that tomorrow our government suddenly switched to a dictatorship, we probably wouldn't have a revolution in the strictest sense; we'd probably just arrest the despot for treason or something, possible with no bloodshed (and then wait 3 turns of anarchy).
The first American Civil War ended with almost three quarter of a million casualties over the course of five years.
The second American Civil War will end with a few dozen canisters of tear gas over the course of about twenty minutes.
The people of North Korea are so shut off from the rest of the world that it's likely that there are very few of them who understand how the majority of the world operates.
It's looking like more and more of the populace have stopped drinking the kool-ade, but for the most part these people are drilled from birth that their Dear Leader is a magical being who had a virgin birth, created new stars, can read your thoughts, and controls the weather with his mind.
Ballot box
Jury box
Ammo box
To be used in that order.
Suspension of elections
Breakdown of basic services
I wouldn't turn right to guns, but those things would lead me to the end to actual arms. Of course starting off with political organizing, strikes, demonstrations, riots, sabotage, etc. It would take a lot for me to actually be willing to kill someone for my political beliefs, I'd be more likely to just flee to the hills if things got that bad.
Massive Epic History Fail
There were all of those things in mid nineteenth century America. The reason the Civil War lasted as long as it did was because huge elements of the military and political structure defected to the south en masse, not because those institutions were absent. In fact one of the main problems the north had in the early stages of the war is that they essentially had to build a command and control structure from scratch as the majority of the officers in the US army defected. It was only after they found competent people like Grant to take charge that the north was able to use its advantages in production and manpower to overwhelm the southern armies.
The choice of Josef Stalin is a exception, rather than a rule--it's a reflection of the fact that the Russian people undergo and retain more of their history education--even on a domestic level--than, say, Americans, because it's a reflection of the education system. Stalin is remembered, primarily though not entirely, in the context of a war where Germans killed +25 million people, and the industrialization and electrification of the country on an unprecedented scale. When we look at Stalin, we very rarely examine him in the same context--we know Stalin (or more accurately, his policies) resulted in suffering and death, but you'd probably get less than half of high-school educated population that could correctly point how who the Soviet Union fought largely in World War II (hint: Germany), and whom they were allied with for a majority of the war. We know Stalin is bad, but we, overall, have very little idea how much suffering was visited on the USSR from outside (don't believe me? Try finding an American school textbook that mentions the Allied Intervention into the Russian Revolution in a single sentence. You'll be lucky if you find more than one in ten.) By contrast, he is examined in a very, very different historical context--putting aside different cultural values--by Russians. Is it more accurate? Not necessarily. But a cataclysm of that proportion is going to define a population--imagine if about 20% of the United States population died in a 4-year-war (as in Russia within the Soviet Union), and see if that doesn't factor into the thought process of evaluating any leader in that decade.
By no means a perfect analogy, but if we limit it to perception--Ronald Reagan is viewed closely among a great many Americans as something close to a canonized saint. He is not viewed the same way in South America.
[/tangent]
Hardly a US only fail. I'd doubt most people in the West (excluding former Eastern Bloc states) would know or frankly care much about the scale of the Soviet sacrifice in WW2 (or the Russian Empire in WW1), just as they don't care about most wars outside of the recent past. It isn't like it is hard to find this stuff out though, there have been heaps of English language works on the War in recent decades that have given the Soviets their due.
When I was in Russia recently I spent a bit of time wandering about their war memorial museums, which are still almost entirely Soviet in design and I certainly got a large dose of how they see the war. They also do a mean diorama of a battlefield
I believe that democratic elections are key. Without them, a government is illegitimate and should be replaced. However, I'm not sold that that's the only precondition for insurrection.
Even if slaves are given an equal vote, they are still slaves. A government must respect certain individual liberties, whether those liberties have the support of the majority or not.
I came here to say this. Glenn Beck types should be arrested for telling people that they should shoot the D candidate if their R candidate doesn't get elected.
At the same time, I don't expect the average Russian person with a high-school education to know the long-standing ramifications of, say, the US Civil War on the dichotomy of North and South. It's not necessarily reasonable. The problem is (putting aside the language barrier) if we had an American historian (say, from South Carolina or Georgia) and a Russian expert on 19th century America, we'd be more likely to listen to the former on that subject. That's not unreasonable necessarily. But if we had a Russian historian and an American expert on the Soviet Union of the 1930s and 1940s--even one that did not speak or read any Russian--we'd be far more likely to listen to the American. That is, as far as our academia is concerned--and in turn, our academia (not Russia's) trickles down to common knowledge.
Then again, there's a chance that, if we performed the same test in Russia, Russians would prefer the Russian historian on the US Civil War before the American one, and possibly for a shared reason we'd choose the American for the 1930s and 1940s: they'd think he'd have a far more even-handed view as an outside observer.
As oppose to the notion of genocide (for Americans, "genocide" in the Second World War means the Holocaust--while absolutely a noteworthy event, it also means the vast majority of Americans who know about the German intent to annihilate the Jews do not know about the German intent to annihilate Slavs and Asiatics). While that is naturally a component of it, we choose that view because it doesn't conflict with our greater world view. We don't want to think that the Germans killed 15 to 20 million noncombatants, not because of poor planning on the part of the enemy, but because it was in line with their objectives in the war, and a reflection of their commitment. It might be a reflection that the Germans are civilized and like us, whereas Soviet nationalities were not, in our view.
Which is not to say the Russian historical education is entirely accurate--just as we have a romanticized version of World War, so do they frequently of the Great Patriotic War. It becomes very difficult to separate the two because of the societal investment in war. At the same time, speaking just from my perspective as an academic in a state-funded US University, our history academia--while quite strong in many areas--is severely lacking in this specific area by comparison. And maybe that's normal--after all, the US Civil War is more important to Virginians than the Soviet Union's Great Patriotic War is to Virginians.
The Bombing Campaign is another--in the US, we have kind of a romantic image of technology triumphing over an technologically-inferior enemy, whereas in reality, it was basically a Zap Brannigan-style meat grinder, in the sky--churn out as many bombers and pilots as you can, because it takes on average $1 million in aircraft hardware and bombs to destroy $1 million in enemy infrastructure (The Best War Ever by Michael Adams--not the same guy as the President of UGA--has a few good meatgrinder examples that have been lost to romanticism).
[/even greater tangent]
I'm much more supportive of a secessionist revolution, Civil War style. Claim the land that you're living on and start your own country, sure, go for it. Even if your idea of an independent nation is one in which it's legal to marry 14-yr-old girls (looking at you, FLDS enclaves). Now, I won't support your nation itself at that point, but I'll support your right to be an independent nation. Sort of how I don't support the idea of forcibly annexing Afghanistan solely to curtail human rights abuses, even if it were possible to do so at little/no cost to us.
I do admit that there are some issues with compensation for claiming resources from another country to start your own, but the general idea is all I'm really talking about.
Even if things were really, really corrupt and what the individual had to say had no bearing on the political outcome of a situation, it would be very easy to appease people in general with economic freedom. This is what China is doing - while they aren't politically free, they have many economic and some social freedoms that "make up" for that last part.
The United States' military expenditures make up nearly (and by some measures, more than) half the world's total military expenditures. The status quo has an incredible advantage, assuming people could even reach that point--which brings up the second area. The people frequently flouted by the media as the most likely to make up such an insurrection--those who are fiercely independent, well-armed, etc.--frequently seem the least likely to actually engage in such an insurrection.
Shooting post office workers? Sure. A definitive end to the federation we live in? Not so much. But there are those militia types who pay lip service to such an idea.
Given the definition of democracy, I would argue that if we can no longer change anything then it's no longer a democracy.
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And Anakin Skywalker.
Anakin Skywalker didn't take up arms against the government though. He took up arms for the government and turned it into a fascist empire.