Is a second American Revolution impossible?

[ArfinGreebly]

mordechaianiliewicz

We are not in any way in danger of becoming a Muslim country!

On the one hand, I am inclined to agree, as a matter of probability and based on the dynamics involved.

On the other hand, I must say that it won't be for lack of trying.

I concur on your expression of the other possibilities.

 

[Sharps-shooter]

A second american revolution is far from impossible. No government anywhere ever is revolution-proof. They all come down sooner or later, just like all people die sooner or later. Some last a long time. Of course, all governments want their citizens to feel like the govt is unstoppable. Remember that Iraqi propaganda guy, denying the Americans were taking over, right up to the end? Could happen anywhere.

Just look at the former USSR. It was once in a place of comfort and prosperity. 1950's Russia was, I hear, a lot like 1950's America. But the people were unable to criticize their government, and their was no competition, and so they used up their available resources too fast.

If people get hungry, they will fight. All people. Hungry mob is a angry mob, as the old man said. If the Govt goes bankrupt, people will get hungry, and they will fight their bankrupt government. Just like when the romans rioted in the streets because they wanted bread and circus. Whatever our goverment may be, it is not real good about managing its debts.

As for future religious/linguistic/racial makeup of USA, I think it matters but little. There was a higher immigrant population in the early 1900's than there is now. It's a part of capitalism. We have the supply of land and jobs, they have the demand that will make them risk their lives to get it. We can limit the supply, maybe, by tougher borders, but it will only increase the demand. Not a long-term solution. Just a side effect of prosperity.

 

[lamazza]

"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand is not just a good piece of literature its a guide book and I'm shocked an amazed as I sit back watch it all coming to pass daily.

 

[cloudcroft]

Joshua C,

That's why you are part of the problem and people like you. Besides, we have plenty of shallow "thinkers" of your ilk in this country already.

"Civil War" means citizen against citizen...i.e., people like me against people like you. Yeah, real Americans against posers.

So here's a news flash for you: "Citizenship papers" aren't worth the paper they're written on nowadays. Hopefully someday, those papers will get people deported faster then they can say Jimminy Cricket.

"Diversity" is a weakness...it always HAS been. Check out the fall of the Roman Empire.

But enough for me on this issue...

Merry Christmas,

-- John D.

 

[Joshua C]

What citizenship papers? Natural born, buddy. Just that the second amendment isn't the only part of the constitution that I support being strictly interpreted.

 

[-terry]

Boy...does Cloudcroft ever not get it. These threads are great though...real thought interspersed with racism, hate, mongering, then more thoughtful entries. Kinda get educated and entertained at the same time.

 

[antarti]

Likelihood decreases down the list with the last being almost impossible. It was a near miracle that 1776 both succeeded and made things better.

Was it better? How can one calculate the lost opportunity cost of the Confederation lasting 200+ years? It may well have worked out better.

Revolution impossible? I don't think so.

Almost everywhere one turns now developers are quoting Kelo and taking property. Even the guy with his pants halfway down his butt understands the threat losing their home poses, especially since condemnation of homes for those that "won't play nice" with prices is the norm.

AMT taxes are going to bite more and more of the middle class every year.

As property values inflated wildly, estate taxes will increasingly affect the middle class.

People are spending so much more on food, energy, insurance, etc, yet the government tells them there is no inflation, and costs only increased 2.5% for the year.

​

Summary: Everywhere middle-class America turns, things are rougher... keep hitting them in the wallet, where it hurts, and you will get violence. The middle class won't go silently into the long night.

Chances of making current government go away? Quite good.

If 2 idiots with 1 rifle loaded with Walmart ammo, who kept calling police in an attempt to turn themselves in, and who were interrogated at no less than 10 police checkpoints could cause panic and bedlam around the nations capital city... well.. imagine what any random assemblage of 10 folks from this board could do to 1-5 cities, or a state. What if they started 30-days before April 15th and targeted tax preparers?​

Chances of replacing it with something that won't turn back into the same (or worse) mess? Very low.

Too many competing interests. You'd have the skinheads, panthers, no end of wackos/hatemongers out there trying to co-opt, take credit, or do something and discredit good folk.

The only way to be sure of good results is another secession or going back to the Articles of Confederation. Any other outcome will likely be far worse.​

Now understand the first time around, things broke out roughly this way demographically:

1/3rd for Revolution
1/3rd for Loyalty to King
1/3rd could care less

Next time? Since governments always get what they subsidize (government workers and unemployed welfare collectors), it will be:

10% for "something else"
40% scared crapless
40% scared the checks won't be in the mail, ratting out the 10% whenever possible

The only possible advantage the 10% have is 5GW, and the fact they will be 10x more pissed off than the founders ever were, because that is what it will take to get them off the couch.

 

[kengrubb]

America was supposed to be a 50/50 nation after the 2000 Presidential race. Not a lot has changed in that regard over the past 6 years, and I don't expect much change on this front in the next 2 years. That said, Americans have enjoyed peace and tranquility for a long time--compared to the rest of the world. Without question, enemies of the United States, and the West in general, killed 3 thousand Americans on 9-11, but I'd still rather be here than anywhere else. I think most Americans share that sentiment, even when they are protesting and expressing their hatred of America.

So what does it all mean?

Well, much like in Iraq, America is divided into at least 2 camps. Iraq may or may not divide up into 3 nations, but a handful of Iraqis and foreigners will continue to kill Iraqis who mostly want to be left alone to rebuild their lives and make a better future for themselves and their children. Americans, on the other hand, aren't wantonly slaughtering one another in the streets over cultural, racial, religious and other differences. If America divides, and I think we're getting closer to it, I suspect it will be peaceful.

 

[Jerry Morris]

Most of the posters here overlook the obvious. The pitcher that feeds the gravy-train is running out. Every well has a finite amount of contained volume. It is not an if, it is a certainty.

The few are supporting many. When the few become fewer, things will happen. Nasty things will happen.

When the productive are bankrupted where will the system go? It will be the a case of the German Mark all over again.

Many of us here are concentrated on too many trivial things, like getting another gun, we truly do not need, when we should be clearing debt load and getting ready for Hard Times.

It will be bad enough when the Hard Times come. Why have to worry about your Word of Honor, related to debt? If you fail there, why complain when the tax man increases your burden?

If only 2 percent of the actives in a rebellion are in combat, but the remainder are withholding productiveness from the system, the effects will be magnified.

Imagine a population so disgruntled that they stay home from work one, or two days a week? Imagine a complete shutdown for one week? With even a small active combat directed force, this would bring the system into dire straights.

It ain't gonna happen when the banks own your properties. It is best to be clearing the plastic, getting a fund to cover the next six months of anticipated bills and getting the mortgage paid off. This is the bare minimum. All of the commonsense preparations for Hard Times need to be priority!

Then and only then, will you be proper in saying Molon Labe! And you won't be talking mainly of actual weapons, but Property!

Jerry

 

[Travis McGee]

Our stability depends on a continuing strong economy. If and when the economy goes into a new Great Depression, all bets are off. For starters, when the grocery stores, ATMs and gas stations are empty, when the dollar is worthless and we have massive unemployment, our cites will explode. At that point, the federal govt will be hard pressed to keep the nation from splitting into Balkanized regions, they will be too busy trying to keep order in the largest cities, which contain our nations' critical infrastructure.

At that point, I can see several parts of the USA saying, "the hell with Washington, they can do nothing for us but pass unenforceable edicts."

All of this and more will come to pass if the economy ever crumbles, and we enter a new "Greater Depression." Our population, now with a one-hour attention span, demanding all problems be solved overnight, will not stand quietly in soup lines, or sell apples on street corners as in the 1930s. The cities will erupt in fury if the food and gas deliveries stop due to a crashed economy and a worthless (or unattainable, ie deflation vs. inflation) dollar.

That's when we'll see "revolution" or at least mob anarchy on a massive scale, that makes the nation virtually un-governable: when the economy tanks.

And when the fedgov is 100% occupied with trying to placate the urban areas, other regions may say, "who needs the fedgov anyway?" But this next step of regional "virtual seccession" is not a certainty. That the cities will explode and burn during an economic collapse is a sure thing.

 

[Wes Janson]

All of this and more will come to pass if the economy ever crumbles, and we enter a new "Greater Depression." Our population, now with a one-hour attention span, demanding all problems be solved overnight, will not stand quietly in soup lines, or sell apples on street corners as in the 1930s. The cities will erupt in fury if the food and gas deliveries stop due to a crashed economy and a worthless (or unattainable, ie deflation vs. inflation) dollar.

That's when we'll see "revolution" or at least mob anarchy on a massive scale, that makes the nation virtually un-governable: when the economy tanks.

And when the fedgov is 100% occupied with trying to placate the urban areas, other regions may say, "who needs the fedgov anyway?" But this next step of regional "virtual seccession" is not a certainty. That the cities will explode and burn during an economic collapse is a sure thing.

What happens to the military? Ignoring the civilian population for a moment, ask yourself what a total societal/economic breakdown would mean for the world's (former) primary superpower? Ten thousand nuclear warheads...trillions of dollars worth of equipment...what's going to happen to all of it? And what's going to happen to the rest of the world when everyone else wakes up the fact that they can invade their neighbor and no one's going to pay any attention to them? Global chaos? Ascendency of China to the global position we currently occupy? Would the rest of the world (read: Europe/China/Japan/India) step in much sooner just for the sake of maintaining that balance of power?

 

[telomerase]

Well, if we do have another revolution, let's see if we can avoid following a dork on a white horse into a government that imposes higher taxes than the !@$% king. (One important rule: never follow a general who gets to sleep with General Greene's wife as long as he keeps the war going, but has to go home to Martha Custis).

The unorganized American colonists won at Concord, and they were winning at Boston before Dorkington ran off all the frontier riflemen and "organized" the Continental Army into a S&M society. Then they lost, and lost, and lost (Benedict Arnold won at Saratoga because they didn't have radio for GW to interfere; ditto for the victories in the South by Morgan, Marion, etc.) until the French decided to send in a force to check on their investment and won Yorktown for us.

The War Against the Tariff could be considered another revolution, and all it did was bring socialism to North and South.

Moral: wars suck. Civil wars are a hundred times worse, since there's nothing more dangerous than fighting Americans. Our problems are caused by bad memes, not by masses of people. Killing millions of people will only strengthen the bad memes.

There's a place for physical fighting, but mostly the real world is controlled by memes. If you want to make a positive "revolution", you need to produce better memes.

 

[Jerry Morris]

Wes Janson wrote:

What happens to the military?

The military will likely be quite engaged in the World Chess Game. Are we not already talking of a nearly broken, if not broken U.S. military?

As you noted, there are many major threats out there and China is the biggie. A major conflagration with China, or any combination of foreign alliance would render rebellion a moot issue. Americans, during wartime have been quite willing to bear oppression, in order to defeat active enemies. This is the quicksand we must avoid at all costs.

As for our military assets? The nukes are a 60+ year old weapons revolution. The next development will render them ineffective, if it has not already happened. Hypersonic and light speed interception and delivery systems will render them obsolete. Single Stage To Orbit is now the "Holy Grail". I suspect the next major world war will be mainly fought off planet, to prevent self destruction. And winner will take all.

There is evidence we have, or will have hypersonic in the inventory. Lightspeed is a close thing. SSTO is the biggie. Off world mining and production systems are what will really change the human race. How it is done is the key to whether it is desirable.

Jerry

 

[coyote_jr]

Have I stumbled upon some kind of Star Trek forum?

 

[Jerry Morris]

coyote_jr wrote:

Have I stumbled upon some kind of Star Trek forum?

Why would you ask that?


Jerry

 

[ojibweindian]

Jerry

A bit off-topic, but these new-fangled boost-phase kill systems won't work as they're currently conceptualized.

Space-based boost phase defense systems, on the other hand, would.

 

[Jerry Morris]

ojibweindian wrote:

A bit off-topic, but these new-fangled boost-phase kill systems won't work as they're currently conceptualized.

Space-based boost phase defense systems, on the other hand, would.[

One might tend to think so. I am not going to say my conception is what is put out for PR, or that the PR release is the actual conception. Disinfo is a weapon. These things seem to pop out of the woodwork when they finally come out of the closet.

Hypersonic and Lightspeed is a generic term. They are not be necessity a solid projectile. Either method will render most air defense systems ineffective. We wander astray from the topic, tho.

Just suffice to say, the issue tends to complicate rebellion? It does not prevent it, it just needs consideration.

Jerry

 

[Tokugawa]

Revolution? The absolute worst thing that could happen. May God help us if it ever happens.

 

[MikePGS]

Revolution? The absolute worst thing that could happen. May God help us if it ever happens.
__________________
tokugawa

You might be right, in the sense that in my opinion, any revolution would result in less rights for people, as opposed to more freedoms.

 

[SamTuckerMTNMAN]

hooray

Many of us here are concentrated on too many trivial things, like getting another gun, we truly do not need, when we should be clearing debt load and getting ready for Hard Times.

I vote for this post. . .
Be examples of stability and you will bring others into your fold. Make your fold a High Road.

st

 

[bromdenlong]

News Bulletin for Stars-and-Bars lovers..

You lost, and you d****d well deserved to.

I am amazed and disgusted that this has gone on for 145 posts, and no one has yet criticised all the "pro-Confederacy/South will rise again/Union were the bad guys" horse***t.

Get a clue, guys - Armstrong and Aldrin really did walk on the moon, and the Civil War really was about slavery. Not everything in high-school history books is a lie.

I've heard and read the arguments that the North was trying to dominate the South economically. I don't buy it. Why would they bother? They were doing just fine economically already. The economic disputes were trivial compared to the cost of waging war.

Portraying the slave states as innocent victims of the North is a total whitewash. Chattel slavery is an abomination of the first order, and the South was primarily fighting to maintain that foul institution. A government that supports slavery cannot have any moral justification for its existence, and hence cannot deserve anything but destruction.

The slave states' position was that they had a right to do what they wanted within their own borders, and it was none of the free states' business. By the letter of the Constitution at that time, that was *legally* true. The North had no Constitutional mandate to keep the slave states from seceding. I grant all of that, and I don't care. The North's prosecution of the war was unconstitutional, but the sheer moral hideousness of slavery justified it.

If human life and human freedom are worth anything - if the Bill of Rights is worth the paper it is printed on - if you believe in the 2nd amendment, and that non-whites are human and not animals - then logically and morally speaking, the slave state governments cannot have had any right to secede, because they had morally forsaken any right TO EXIST AT ALL.

I've spent a little time in the South, and by and large I liked it. I understand that for some people, the Stars-and-Bars doesn't stand for racism, but for love of the South, or a generally independent, un-PC outlook on life.

But to me, it's just the American Swastika. I hate the d****d thing.

Slavery was evil. The South deserved to lose. The slaves weren't subhuman - the slaveowners were. The real tragedy of the Confederate army was that most of the poor SOBs that died fighting for it weren't even slaveowners. They were just poor whites who were conned into hating blacks so they'd have someone to feel superior to, and so they would support the slaveowners in their foul parasitic lifestyle.

 

[emitt1]

"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

Thomas Jefferson

 

[Kaylee]

Kindly leave the Civil War politics out of this thread, except as they specifically apply to the topic at hand.

If you wish to go over the "it was all about slavery/no it wasn't" debate again, Armed Polite Society is open 24/7 for your convenience.

 

[Caimlas]

There are only a few Us vs Them situations I can identify:
1. Whites vs Mexican vs Blacks; the asians seem to be able to stay out of the fight.

The vast majority of whites dont even want to appear racially biased, let alone be labeled a racist, they/we are particularly sensitive to White-Black relations. (But maybe I'm projecting )

Well, I'd say you're projecting. I'd say the majority of white Americans are not inherrently "race sensitive" and, if they are, it's only to specific people amongst that race. I think that the coming conflict will take the form of urban ghetto warfare, initially, between unified urban black gangs and their suburban and rural franchises, against the incoming morass of Mexican gangs. The Crips and Bloods, for the most part, have already unified today in this manner.

I then see it escelating substantially, with the cultural differences between "white" and "black" culture all but disappearing as more and more whites enter the battle. If, for any reason, protection of mutual interests and culture - there's enough of both to make it a strong union, once the perception of the race baiting minority is thoroughly forgotten through the comradere found in intense conflict.

This is all in the event that we have an accelerated decline at some time in the near future; an event which, to me, appears to be inevitable without a substantial cultural reversal. There are other potentialities, but this seems the most likely; the same is probably going to be mostly true in the event of a large domestic terrorist attack, I imagine (provided we're not talking about black Muslims).

How long until we see open, armed conflict along the border, in border cities, between black gangs and Mexican gangs? I can't put it much beyond 5 years, myself. The coming national conflict is likely to be a bit after that, within 5 years.

 

[Kaylee]

I have to admit, I never really got the whole "race war" thing. Just doesn't make any sense to me to go shooting folk for their skin color or whatnot. I think it might be a generational thing - those of us born after the whole civil rights era just don't pay as much attention to it I think.

I can see the border unpleasantness rapidly degenerating into small-scale skirmishes though. Heck, we've already had a couple. Unless the feds actually get serious about the border, it's going to escalate in a nasty way. We can only lock up our own people for shooting back for so long.

To the essay in the original post - classicly sophmoric. John Ross's book - for all its shortcomings - illustrates the path a violent revolt could take quite well. "Enemies Foreign and Domestic" is even better in that regard, though with less neat historical interludes. I don't see anything approaching the "happy ending" of UI coming out of it all though. I don't think the Feds would really back down like that. That said, it shows exactly who our hypothetical disgruntled man from Boise would go after.. the politicians making and the beareaucrats implementing the policies he sees as destructive to his way of life and freedoms.

All that said, we have big enough problems in the world today without contemplating turning our rifles on each other I think.