A Government of Men, Not of Laws
Which last straw are you waiting for?
Which last straw are you waiting for?
posted by Winston Smith at
9:19 AM
Friday, July 20, 2007
Previous Posts
- CNS and Instapundit Are All Over The Looming Threa...
- Can Petraeus's Assessment of the Surge be Trusted?...
- George Bush is a Failure; Bill Kristol is a Fool; ...
- Cthulhu: The MovieWill it suck?It's virtually obli...
- WaPo: New Intelligence Report Further Undermines B...
- Finally...An Actual [by which I, of course, mean m...
- Mitt Romney Pays $300 for Make-up (From a Company ...
- The Best Nixon Document Ever?At Slate.Oh, man, tha...
- LOLmetalor: ToolmetalFunny. Don't miss the second ...
- Neo-Tribalism (Is) For DummiesOh fer chrissake.Met...
Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]
3 Comments:
One of the things I have always loved about our country is the way in which, whatever other animosity we may feel towards one another, we resolve these differences within the rules of law.
That is, every four years, we have the opportunity for a nonviolent revolution. I find that beautiful, especially when compared to how the exchange of power works in much of the rest of the world.
What really troubles me about this, then, is that it corrodes that which I find beautiful. For the first time in my life, I find myself wondering what it would take to make me take up arms. At what point would I take to the street?
I'm not crazy, of course. I know we're not there yet, but the idea that that time could come does not sound outlandish anymore, and for most of my life, it was unthinkable.
I just watched the HBO series Rome, the first season of which is concerned with the rise and fall of Julius Ceasar. That and this has had me thinking a lot about how we in the US would respond to an Emperor. What would we do if someone declared supreme power and refused to relinquish it?
Who would support this? Who would fight against it? I would hope we would all turn against such a man, but watching this slow slide . . . the loss of civil liberties, the stifling of dissent, the concentration of power in the executive, the theft of the 2000 election . . . it's just discouraged me from this point of view more and more.
I'm glad someone else has been thinking about this. I know I have. Back in the day, it seems, this sort of ruler would've been forcibly removed.
I think that what really keeps people from honestly considering this is that the horrible things that the Bush administration is doing are flying low enough to be under Joe Schmoe's barely functioning political radar.
I think that honestly, if he somehow did something clearly insane like take on a third term and invoke a police state, people would go nuts and take up arms.
Revolt really has to be a tipping point that is severe enough to cause a significant portion of people to group together and be willing to risk life and limb to depose the ruler. No one's going to do that until something that directly impacts the lives of all of them happens - like a third term + police state situation.
If Bush did that, everyone could find common ground and fight back. However, the way he's running the takeover, he's slowly destroying the lives of certain people, working into greater numbers slowly, stifling the uprising.
In order to cause an uprising, I'm convinced he'd have to do something really bad (which he's done plenty of times) that overtly and drastically affects the lives of the majority of American citizens - enough to make a good blip on even the moron's political radar (which he has yet to do - it's the overt and drastic part that's keeping the uprising at bay).
You have to ask yourself what you would do if Rudy Giuliani, who seems to be inheriting the authoritarian Bushist mantle, were to "win" the Presidency next year despite polls and exit polls again showing that he shouldn't have.
(Now accepting visits at my new home.)
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home