> Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
And in a world where the choice is between Biden and Trump. It is increasingly tempting to vote for the Guillotine.
It didn't work so well the last few times it was used - the English revolution, the French revolution, the Russian revolution, all ended up in a bloodbath, next one more gruesome than the last. I urge you to reconsider.
Also I recommend "the revolutions" podcast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Duncan_(podcaster)
This is not necessary the case though, as seen after the Cuban or the Zapatista revolution in Chiapas, Mexico.
At some point revolution becomes necessary, and if democratic means remain unavailable, this revolution will be violent. Horrible people using the political turmoil will become a risk people are willing to take in this growing frustration.
Napoleon III would like a word with you.
Napoleon I, Emperor of the French (1804–1814)
Louis XVIII, King of France (1814–1824)
Charles X, King of France (1824–1830)
Louis Philippe I, King of France (1830–1848)
Napoleon III, Emperor of the French (1852–1870)
They still wanted a lot of changes to allow more freedom, restrictions and more transparency... just not necessarily a formal republic.
Think about this - in CATO's own Human Freedom Index half of the top 16 countries are monarchies.
1 New Zealand - monarchy 2 Switzerland - republic 3 Hong Kong (definitely not going to be in #4 now) 4 Canada - monarchy 5 Australia - monarchy 6 Denmark - monarchy 6 Luxembourg - monarchy 8 Finland - republic 8 Germany - republic 10 Ireland - repulbic 11 Sweden - monarchy 11 Netherlands - monarchy 13 Austria - republic 14 United Kingdom - monarchy 15 Estonia - republic 15 United States - republic
I'm not arguing either were good, just curious about your point of view here.
That said, the revolutionary spirit under Czar Nicolas II were completely rational, and understandable. The use of violence was needed because the ruling class was—unlike at the end of the Soviet Union—unwilling to make the revolution happen peacefully.
Nobody can tell the future. The fact that awful people might use the turmoil to seize power is not something that people are thinking about when they are trying to overthrow their current oppressors.
Or are you saying that you dislike Trump or Biden so much that you'd rather use violence to achieve what you desire?
Let's say you'd use Guillotine so Trump can step down, then should those who dislike democrats also use the same means to have Biden step down? And if someone tends to oppose what you do, you'd rather use Guillotine to resolve the difference?
I think it's pretty clear what kind of person you are.
If this were a real democracy, popular policies would be enacted, or at least be on the ballot. But this is not the case. As evident from the Black Lives Matter protest, riot seems to be the only avenue for change. And as popular policies keep getting put on the back burner while corporate interests keep getting the front seat regardless of who we vote, the illusion of democracy will frustrate more and more people. The more frustrated we get the more likely we will resort to violence.
I’m not saying that violence will lead to good outcome (it probably won’t; as history shows), but an ever angrier and more frustrated population will eventually use it if democratic means remain unavailable. That is more and more people will vote for the Guillotine if the only options on the ballots are: a) business as usual, or b) business as usual + hating minorities.
None of those things are supported by an overwhelming majority unless 3/5ths now constitutes “overwhelming”. Additionally, your view of what the issues are show how biased your approach is to begin with.
- Almost nobody has an issue with reducing police violence, but a bunch of people have issues with getting rid of the police.
- Almost nobody “wants foreign wars” but a bunch of people think military intervention is needed.
- Nobody is against taxing the rich, it’s already right in the tax code and the top 1 percent pays something like a third of all tax revenues already. What a bunch of people are against is arbitrarily raising their taxes further because of tall poppy syndrome.
- Reduce carbon emissions. Yes, but sadly not overwhelming majority still and even then, the “how” is critical and there is even less common ground there.
A functioning legislator discusses these nuances, and comes up with a legislation that enacts the policy such that most people can benefit from it. This is one of the benefits of having a diverse ruling class. No one person needs to know how a popular policy gets enacted, that is the purpose of representative democracy.
You're technically inaccurate because 58-60% is not an "overwhelming majority".
I'm not a US citizen (or resident), and I find it almost unbelievable and absolutely unacceptable that you don't have some form of universal healthcare, for example. I probably agree with you politically way more than I disagree with you, but the other posters points against you still stand.
EDIT: I realise my first paragraph here might sound a bit harsh, that was not my intention - my intention was to make it explicitly known to you such that you might take it to heart and it might possibly be helpful to you to realise.
The same applies to solving global warming. Carbon taxation was actually a feasible solution with conservative support. Now instead, a huge chunk of the liberal position has shifted to the green new deal, which is a jobs program and wealth redistribution scheme only orthogonally related to slowing global warming. Nuclear is another viable solution to global warming that nobody wants to touch because science is scary.
I personally want carbon tax and police abolition, but there is no consensus on either of these, and what I personally want doesn’t matter. I am not a dictator and the USA is not a dictatorship. It is the legislator’s job to gather what the people want, and find a way to deliver it in a way that will benefit the most. However the American ruling class is not even pretending to be interested in what policies the general population supports.
The average person might support all of those end results if the cost to get there were zero, i.e. if we could wave a magic wand.
However each one of those has a cost or tradeoff that a significant number - possibly majority - of people would be unwilling to accept.
This sentiment is a pretty on-the-nose example of the societal problem we're discussing.