Is a second American Revolution impossible?

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Revolutions are generally products of escalation.
The discussions have been escalating.

Success is certainly debatable and doubtable.
I believe people are increasingly looking for a fight. There will be one, given the right confluence of events. An awful lot of people are trying to predict, identify and prepare for that confluence.

Historically speaking, it's just a matter of time.
 
You'd have to force people into a corner first, to the point where they'd have nothing to lose. Even poor people in this country are better off than many elsewhere in the world, and there's far fewer here than there are in say Africa or Asia. That, and the massive social inertia which precludes action except (possibly) in the most extreme of circumstances. Ultimately revolution would probably require seriously hostile actions by the government against a sizable percentage of the population, likely in conjunction with and followed by the rise of charismatic public opposition figures. The former isn't too likely to happen, because the government acts somewhat like a living organism: it knows how far it can push, and when it goes beyond the limits of social acceptance it draws back. The catch is, there's no overarching social consciousness and memory that would ever stop and say "This far, and no farther." in recollection of prior events. The reason for it is because society is composed of individuals, and those individuals most capable of or inclined to action have limited knowledge based on their own (comparatively) young age. And thus, as it has been, it will continue to be.
 
Yet if such a nightmare scenario had actually happened, what could the average middle-class resident of Boise, Idaho (or anywhere else), have done?

The Boise-man in the OP would be wrong to shoot local cops, local politicians (unless they were Congressional Reps whose voting record showed that bottling up New Orleans was his/her choice as CongressCritter), or judges.

He would be right, however, to GET OFF HIS @$$ and drive down to Louisiana with his new Walmart Winchester "thuddy-thuddy" and start taking pot-shots at the National Guard, FBI or armed forces who were barricading folks in/out of New Orleans.

It's not outside of his power... it would cost him about $200 in gas and another $25 in food, and 2 days travel (2200 miles / 75 MPH = 29.3 hours driving).

Would he die? Probably. Would other folks do the same thing? Unknown. But he would die watering that "tree of liberty" that we all have so much respect for.

I also suspect a new American Revolution to be remarkably blood-free, with the exception of a string of key assassinations. Enough political assassinations will cause politics to change. There will be repercussions for the folks who start it, certainly, but it won't be a case of hundreds of thousands of armed americans storming DC. John Ross is probably closest to it, but I suspect we would see a sunset of huge amounts of US Code afterwards, rebuilding from a Constitutional framework.
 
How revealing it is that the worst situation the writer can imagine is for government aid to stop.

Bingo. Our society is so dependent on the government's social programs, that we'll never see another violent revolution. Certainly the recipients of welfare/social security/etc WOULD NOT participate in a revolution, because it would be in their best interest for the current establishment to remain in place. If the current government falls, their gravy train grinds to a halt. :banghead:
 
Is a second American Revolution impossible?
We never had a revolution. What the Founders and them were fighting for was self government and independence from a controlling foreign power that had become increasingly intolerable in its dealings with the colonies. They were not fighting to overthrow and replace the English crown. They were actually fighting for the liberty to continue governing themselves the way they had been doing for a century or more prior to the English crown cracking down on their liberties. Had England kept dealing with the colonies the way it had before the French Indian War, we'd still be singing God Save the Queen.
 
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However, there is this . . .

Here in sunny Nevada, a few months back, a guy with serious financial resources was involved in a messy divorce.

The judge in the case had (has) a reputation for "lack of balance" and a tendency to unreasonably favor the wife, even when this was inappropriate. There was much written about his abuses of power and authority. Numerous men openly declared that he'd wrecked their lives. Numerous, meaning well beyond the normal number of such complaints.

Unfortunately, however, there are no checks and balances to speak of in that system. Family court judges pretty much have the final say.

So, this guy with the financial resources, one fine day, just loses it. Kills his wife and shoots the judge (in his office, through a window, from a parking garage). The judge, thanks to some outstanding medical skillz, lived through the incident and is back at work.

They caught the shooter in Mexico (though exactly why he turned himself in still eludes me).

However.

There is now a bill in the works to establish a "peer-review" process, so that family court judges no longer have unfettered, unevaluated, unreigned authority to ruin lives.

No revolution, no rebellion. Just one guy.

The legislative response was, essentially, "uh, ya know, if we don't curb this whole unregulated authority thing, someone else could just lose it and another judge or even a legislator could be the target."

I don't know where that will wind up. I imagine the shooter will spend a whole bunch of time in jail. He will probably avoid the death penalty. He may even walk the streets again some day.

However, even if they hadn't caught him, I think the incident rang a wake-up bell.

So, even though there will likely never be another revolution, there can be those "surgical" moments when someone "just loses it" and taps the appropriate villain.

The arrogant elite must surely be aware of that possibility. And if they aren't, then one day they may find themselves debating, in committee, what must be done to prevent the assassination of another prominent legislator or jurist.

Although it would seem likely that they'd just "go after everybody's guns" it should be noted that the politicians don't seem to have much of a stomach for violence. They get threatened by Muslims, they give ground. They get threatened by Mexicans, they give ground.

I imagine that if such a "surgical hit" ever happened, and met with any degree of public approval, the government would do what it has done in the past: give ground.

I could be wrong. Seems to be working for foreign bodies, though.

(Interestingly, a review of the politicos most likely to have a shiny bullet of their very own, would probably highlight those perceived as most fearing an armed populace. It would be they, one imagines, who would most probably do something to prompt the "just losing it" response from someone at the edge.)
 
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Wouldn't the Civil War count as the 2nd (failed) American Revolution?
No, the so called Civil War was America's Second War for Independence, i.e., self government. When the forces of self government were defeated in that war, self government itself began to die in America. When that war ended, so also ended government by the consent of the governed.
 
The country is too large, its social systems are too complex, and its people are too complacent, too reasonable, and too confused. I've decided that the U. S. government is (for lack of a better, preexisting term) "unoverthrowable."
The US is not only too large for a revolution, it is too large for free government, so even if the people rose up and took over, they would only be destroying our frame of government and any hope for liberty. The people of the US have no right to rise up and take over the US because the US is a not a Nation/State/Country. The US is a compact between the States. The check on the US is secession, not nationwide revolution.
 
I was recently discussing this with a colleague of mine over lunch; we were trying to come up with conditions that could ignite a people's uprising we'd actively involve ourselves with. These possibilities ranged from "massive water shortage" (which could happen in India in the coming decade) to "political infiltration by flesh-eating panda zombies" (which happened in Nepal in 2005). My associate offered this scenario: "Suppose we had evidence that the federal government engineered 9/11," he said. "Suppose we had indisputable proof that we paid the Saudis to blow up the World Trade Center, and members from both political parties had signed off on it. And the day after this proof emerged, George W. Bush announced that he would give a speech at ground zero explaining why this decision was made. If this happened, I assume there would be a protest rally during his speech. And perhaps some people would start throwing rocks, and perhaps I'd be caught up in the frenzy, and perhaps I would start throwing rocks, too."

"So you would take part in the revolution's inception," I responded. "You would throw rocks at a corrupt president."

"Yes," he said. "Maybe. Or maybe not. Probably not. Who knows? I'm not really a rock-throwing kind of guy."
Well first off, that makes his friend kind of a pussy. Second, that isn't cause for rebellion; there are rules and procedures in place, checks and balances as have been mentioned, that address such clear misconduct. The implicated members of Congress would be recalled or impeached; the states would supply replacements, the new Congress would impeach the President, and remove him. Legitimate government would continue.

Now if say, the recalled/impeached Congresspeople refused to vacate their offices or even respond to the charges, AND the Congressional Sergeants at Arms had somehow been coopted and refused to remove them, AND Federal law enforcement (FBI, Secret Service, Park Service Police, etc) backed then. What then?

If Virginia sends a squad of troopers or Guardsmen to go install it's representatives and bring the impeached ones back for trial, isn't that the beginning of a revolution?

Not that that's a likely scenerio, but if you want a setup for instantly starting a revolution, there you go.
 
The revolution will not be podcast.

I am afraid that when the time comes, it will be a very lonely time.
There is likely to be no cavalry, and no 'rebel alliance'.

There is a term, what they call "fifth generation warfare". Leaderless
resistence, cells of one.

I think we will see a lot of that up until things completely fall apart.

Remember,

"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave,
hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid
join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."

-Mark Twain
 
The US is not only too large for a revolution, it is too large for free government, so even if the people rose up and took over, they would only be destroying our frame of government and any hope for liberty. The people of the US have no right to rise up and take over the US because the US is a not a Nation/State/Country. The US is a compact between the States. The check on the US is secession, not nationwide revolution.
+1 to that.
 
Couldn't the civil war be considered a revolution? They didn't like their government, so they left. But unlike other civil wars (Spain, Russia, etc) they weren't fighting to take control of the entire country from others.
 
Couldn't the civil war be considered a revolution? They didn't like their government, so they left. But unlike other civil wars (Spain, Russia, etc) they weren't fighting to take control of the entire country from others.
Their government was primarily that of the States in which they lived. The central government was a creation of the union of the States. No one felt particularly loyal to that. Patriotism was for one's State first, nation second, and central government hardly at all. So, no, this was a war for independence, not a revolution. The South had no interest in taking over territories that didn't want to voluntarily join them in the Confederacy of Southern States. It was a secession war. Half the States decided to withdraw from a voluntary union they had with the other States. It was like the Anglicans and the Episcopalians deciding to withdraw from the World Council of Churches to form their own organization. How is that a revolution?
 
The implicated members of Congress would be recalled or impeached; the states would supply replacements, the new Congress would impeach the President, and remove him. Legitimate government would continue.

Now if say, the recalled/impeached Congresspeople refused to vacate their offices or even respond to the charges, AND the Congressional Sergeants at Arms had somehow been coopted and refused to remove them, AND Federal law enforcement (FBI, Secret Service, Park Service Police, etc) backed then. What then?

If Virginia sends a squad of troopers or Guardsmen to go install it's representatives and bring the impeached ones back for trial, isn't that the beginning of a revolution?

But that's just it: Virginia wouldn't do such a thing. Where is the line these days between state and federal government? According to the textbooks, states used to be far more autonomous than they are today. Or to put it this way: what difference would there be between politicians such that all of Washington would stand by idly, while Virginia's government would react so strongly as to (attempt) to use military force? It will never happen, because as far as I can see there's ultimately little difference between the two.
 
the south will rise again

:neener: I do not know about yall, but my high school history class tought me the South only wanted to govern the South and run thier state as they saw fit.. Those Billy yanks thought otherwise and sent an army, The South was not the aggressor but was forced only to fight for the right to govern themselves.
 
Even poor people in this country are better off than many elsewhere in the world

Damn it some on beat me to it. If you start get a large division between the haves and the have nots you will get revolution. The American Government learned from the Romans, keep the plebs happy.

The only other way for a revolution could occur is an over population or a revolt by a large group of immigrants not loyal to the american way of life. If the USA was overpopulated with let us say immigrants loyal to Mexico, Islam or China to the point where that can take over America thru either revolution or simply by out voting us and completely changing the government to suit their needs. Changing the US government to Communism or to Islamic Law should push most Americans to revolution. I often wondered if ICE kept tabs, and curtailed sudden influxes of immigrants applying for citizenship.
 
There Is Nothing Wrong With Our Government...

...that couldn't be fixed by a massive expulsion of legislators, judges, Justices, and bureaucrats who will not abide the Constitution or the oath they took to support and defend it.

Honorable replacements - honorable meaning they would abide the Constitution - could turn every incursion into our rights away. Honorable replacements could cut down the size of the government, and return the government back to its righteous and limited purposes. Honorable replacements could cause this economy to burst to levels unimaginable - simply by getting and staying out of the way.

That wouldn't require a revolution or insurgent uprising. All it would take is three elections over the next six year election cycle - six years is required to cover all the elections effecting senators.

Those in power now could accelerate it by trying to disarm us, or stifle our speech, or tax us into poverty and dependence upon the government for our every essential need for survival. This would necessitate a purging insurgence and seal their fate in a blood bath. I prefer the election process. But, they've got to know that blood brought freedom to this land, and the Constitution and the rights protected by it are meant to preserve that freedom. We the People retain the arms to draw that blood if necessary. We the People retain the right to those arms and the power to use them.

If ethics and good moral standards are not present in our elected officials, then they should at least fear for their lives if they design to take our government and freedom out of our hands. One clue they intend harm is the taking or attempted taking of the arms - any arms - that we hold. Another clue they intend harm is the stifling or attempted stifling of our right to speak out against them. Some incursions into our rights have been made by those in government over time. Our RKBA is currently under much infringement. Some of our speech has been hobbled and even prohibited at certain times - the times when it is the most effective, of course, right before an election.

If confiscation should come to pass, it'll most likely be minimalized into tiny increments so as not to appear as though those in government wish to totally disarm us. But, that'll be the clue that resistance is in order. It's one of those things that needs to be nipped in the bud.

Have you ever noticed that no machine guns or sawed off shotguns were confiscated by the NFA of '39, or the GCA of '68, or the '86 halt of sales of new machine guns to the public? Why no confiscations? Because those in government know that would incur resistance. Probably organized, armed, and righteous resistance. So, these unconstitutional acts turned the table on everyone.

Instead of those in government taking your arms, if you attempt to obtain one of these arms without jumping through the hoops, paying the "tax", or in defiance of the limitation on the manufacture date of the arm, you are prosecuted according to the unconstitutional law. You are - in the eyes of the law at that point - initiating the "illegal" act. In a confiscation, the government must take the first step. Those in government don't want to appear to be the bad guys, they want you to look bad instead. What we end up with is confiscation by the proxy of prohibition of purchase. Instead of taking your arms away, they make it impossible or "illegal" for you to get them in the first place. By either process, you - or your progeny - eventually end up disarmed and at the mercy of those in government.

Carrying the foregoing to its logical conclusion, We the People will no longer be in charge of our governance. By the time the sheeple figure out something is wrong, they are hobbled, surrounded by barbed wire - to keep them in - and sheared of all the wool they need to keep themselves warm. Now the wolf is well fed, warmly clothed, and all he need do is keep the barbed wire well maintained. At that point, there isn't a whole lot you can bleat about your situation, either... Without becoming the wolf's next meal.

All I can tell you is to be damn careful how you vote. But in the mean time, be aware that confiscation is not unforeseeable.

Woody

How many times must people get bit in the (insert appropriate anatomical region) before they figure out that infringing upon rights sets the stage for the detrimental acts those rights were there to deter? B.E.Wood
 
Real Hawkeye said:
Their government was primarily that of the States in which they lived. The central government was a creation of the union of the States. No one felt particularly loyal to that. Patriotism was for one's State first, nation second, and central government hardly at all. So, no, this was a war for independence, not a revolution. The South had no interest in taking over territories that didn't want to voluntarily join them in the Confederacy of Southern States. It was a secession war. Half the States decided to withdraw from a voluntary union they had with the other States. It was like the Anglicans and the Episcopalians deciding to withdraw from the World Council of Churches to form their own organization. How is that a revolution?

Revolution is synonymous with Rebellion. That's how secession is a revolution.

Neither implies a coup.

So a revolution could simply be a revolt, a state refusing to go along any more, asserting independence.
 
the so called Civil War was America's Second War for Independence, i.e., self government. When the forces of self government were defeated in that war, self government itself began to die in America. When that war ended, so also ended government by the consent of the governed.

so true
 
Property rights

The Kelo ruling is the kind of thing that will bring about armed revolt. Go around taking Americans property for too long and you'll get a face full of bullets.
 
Whom, exactly, is this man supposed to shoot?

I dislike tongue and cheek buffoonery.
Sophomoric statements like
and its people are too complacent, too reasonable, and too confused
Really reflect his own thought process when it comes to
the possibility of defending his own life and freedom.
He is the type that dismisses all gun owners as rednecks, thus minimizing
the power of their arguments and preparedness.

He is so overwhelmed by what he sees on TV's "24" that he really thinks the gov't would be impossible to overthrow.

When the truth of the matter is the gov't is mostly bed wetting DMV bureaucrats with no imagination & skills outside of a bureaucracy.
(would office politics and backstabbing put meat on the table?)

He shows his disdain for freedom with the imaginary quip about how Madison might have said we need muskets, ignoring many real quotes from the founding fathers. Quotes that prove they new we needed the same arms as the whom ever our enemy is to be.

He clearly thinks the 2nd Amendment is about hunting,fending off bears and Indians and a well regulated musket .

But it's hard to imagine these weapons employed in any kind of popular uprising

I should get a job as a writer, I have a superior imagination and know better then to begin a sentence with "But".

There must be more room at the trough!

Whom would they presumably shoot? Probably no one, and possibly one another.

No sir, we would have better finger/trigger control then you.
He is clearly worried that he would be a target (typical projection psychosis)

Maybe he just rented The Bourne Supremacy
Liberals really do get all firearm and fighting info and theories about the power of the gov't from films.

Maybe Neil Young's "Revolution Blues" comes on his iTunes, so he loads the .30-30 he just bought at Wal-Mart

No sir, wrong again.
Its Metallica on the CD player of a pick up truck and the song is "Don't Tread On Me"
The 30-30 is a lever action deer gun, the gun of choice would be an AR10 or 15 neither of which could be found at wal-mart.

Whom, exactly, is this man supposed to shoot?
I am sure lots of us have considered that question, but we know better then to tip them off on the internet:evil:

It's not like we could do anything about it, except maybe die.
Speak for yourself :barf:
 
I think this quote from a Pro 2A Attorney in responce to an Anti-2A newspaper Article fits this well.

Do you think the July 4, 1776 revolution started on July 4, 1776? No. It started years before. The signing of the Declaration was just a manifestation of the revolution in colonials' hearts and minds. Similarly, I assure you of this fact: many American citizens have already made the firm decision to revolt, and to use lethal force, if necessary, to restore constitutionalism and to enforce their rights.

To be told by misleaders that we must circulate in public, unarmed, set up for slaughter by the criminal element, dependent on blue suits and a DIAL 911 for our mortal salvation, is insufferable crap, which is soundly rejected. That concept is a total perversion of the instinct for self-preservation and the law of lawful self-defense a pragmatic repeal of the Second Amendment. It is the height of utter insanity and a manifestation of callous criminal indifference for the lives of good citizens, all in the name of promoting the indefensible victim disarmament agenda offered by many political whores and unconstitutional law makers.

Many American citizens now have a callous heart against other American citizens and misleaders and opinion elites, like yourself. They have grown weary and feed up with and intolerant of misleaders and opinion elites who spew unconstitutional BS that threatens their vital interests and rights. I, for example, more than once, publicly told the Sebastopol City Council, with the Police Chief in attendance, if a large criminal gang or a foreign army came to town, intent on putting those folks up against the wall, I would not lift a finger to stop that from happening because they have refused to take my rights seriously, they have manifested a callous disregard for my life or my rights, they would continue to do so if they survived that threat, and our mutual enemy would function as my temporary defacto, unsolicited, ally. Only after that threat killed off those domestic enemies of the United States Constitution would I grab my demonized firearm and start to kill that threat. Even the Sebastopol City Manager admitted to me that local government has not given me a single good reason why I should risk my life to save the life of any member of local government! United We Stand! Bull. We were never united before 9-11 and we are less united now, thanks, in part, to you and those who think like you do. The Bill of Rights, instead of being revered and upheld as a seamless whole cloth, is maligned and selectively picked over, unenforced or not enforced at all, by you and others. As a result, that invisible, unifying, vital, precious, national glue, has let go. We are no longer a nation. We are a gaggle. We are a dying nation, looking for a place to fall down and expire. Evidence: I would not fight to save the Press Democrat's printing presses. I would not fight to save any member of local government. And you, and every member of local government, will not lift a finger to enforce my individual right to arms, as codified by the Second Amendment. We do not share a common vision of America. We are not unified by the Bill of Rights. We are a gaggle. We are not countrymen. We are a bastardized un-Americanized version of Sunnis versus Shiites. We are all sitting on a political volcano.

Baker, of the Iraq Study Group, recently publicly stated the United States does not have an additional 100,000 troops to send to Iraq. Think about that, and its implications. The U.S., the world's only superpower, cannot find--or spare--an additional 100,000 combat troops or even a mixture of supply-combat troops, for Iraq. Reformulated, burn this into your psyche, as a matter of pure math, armed American citizens can outgun the U.S. Armed Forces, with or without United Nations troop augmentation, and the pro-Establishment contribution by sworn law enforcement officers will be minimal.

The Establishment, in effect, is hanging onto power by its finger nails as its body weight is suspended in mid-air, with no traction or support by anything, except the scant amount of good will and hope citizens extend to it, hoping against all odds they will not have to do what they know they will probably ultimately have to do--commit homicide to enforce a return to constitutionalism. Governments' agents, including the judiciary, the so called Guardians of Liberty, have grossly mismanaged this conflict. Like an insurance adjuster who tried to drive too hard of a bargain, e.g., cheat the policyholder, which drove the policyholder to go to an attorney, Governments' agents are forcing citizens to look at their guns and see them as tyrant wannabee terminators, realizing that Mao was right: Power comes out of the barrel of a gun. Millions of citizens, armed and unarmed, are thoroughly disgusted with all levels of government and its agents, for meritorious reasons. When a sufficient number of those virulently pissed off citizens realize the pragmatic power they possess in firearms, beyond voting, and that voting does not do much good because it just swaps out one cast of political whores for another, at best, all of whom hide behind unconstitutional immunities invented by the U.S. Supreme Court, bullets will cancel ballots. There is no immunity for well aimed energized lead.

Their is more to where that quote came from but it doesn't apply much to this topic.
 
secession has been mentioned alot recently. IMHO secession isn't possible, because secession is a state issue, and has to be voted on at state level. In 1861 this was possible because South Carolinians were most generally born and bread in S.C., Virginians were Virginians and so on, with all the views and ideals of their respective upbringing. Becaue of the ease of travel brought on by the invention of planes, trains, and automobiles, local and community views have all but disappeared. We now have the possability of tree huggers from Kalifornistan being elected in Georgia, or Mass. natives being in the Tennesee house. Or even (believe it or not) an Arkansas woman elected as a New York senator. There is no sense of state any more. So...even if 50% or more of the American people wanted to secede, nowdays that could mean half of every state, and no state could possibly achieve the votes needed to secede. That's just my opinion though

Josh
 
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