Millennial generation
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@art_of_shred said:
What the heck is "one person in charge, with some oversight"? Either the dude's in charge, or he's not. If he has oversight, he's not really in charge.
Well in that sense, the populace is always in charge, because they always have the oversight of revolution.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@art_of_shred said:
What the heck is "one person in charge, with some oversight"? Either the dude's in charge, or he's not. If he has oversight, he's not really in charge.
Well in that sense, the populace is always in charge, because they always have the oversight of revolution.
To some degree, at least. How would a revolution work in the US today? Who has what weapons? Does the military split, and where do the armaments go? Either the military does it's sworn duty, and the populace is squashed very quickly, or all hell breaks loose and it's a complete bloodbath. If so, it's not a "now under new management" scenario, it's a burn down the old one and start from scratch. That's scary. Unless things got way worse than they are even today, is it worth the cost? You can throw the "revolution" word around, but that has to be a very calculated risk, not an "oversight".
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The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. -- Thomas Jefferson
It is up to the patriots to decide when that time has come, and as @art_of_shred mentioned, it must be a calculated risk. Even if, as a true patriot, we shed our blood and die, yet the revolution is quickly and truly crushed, then those we left behind must not fear anything but a cage. A cage...staying behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.
I think that America is awful close to that point. God be with us all when it it becomes a breaking point.
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@art_of_shred said:
Either the military does it's sworn duty, and the populace is squashed very quickly, or all hell breaks loose and it's a complete bloodbath.
That's a tough one. The military swears both to the government and to the nation. When the two are at odds, those oaths are moot.
Which is another discussion entirely - can there be an ethical military when they swear allegiance to many powers?
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@dafyre said:
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. -- Thomas Jefferson
While I sometimes agree with him, that man was an idiot and that he's the one who said this makes me doubt my own logic that tells me to agree with him. He's possibly the worst political (or personal) role model of his era.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@art_of_shred said:
Either the military does it's sworn duty, and the populace is squashed very quickly, or all hell breaks loose and it's a complete bloodbath.
That's a tough one. The military swears both to the government and to the nation. When the two are at odds, those oaths are moot.
Which is another discussion entirely - can there be an ethical military when they swear allegiance to many powers?
Just like anything else, there will be those that choose both sides.
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@art_of_shred said:
You can throw the "revolution" word around, but that has to be a very calculated risk, not an "oversight".
All oversight is a risk to some degree. We are talking about a balance of power here.
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Although I think that blood letting revolutions are mostly a thing of the past. But that's hard to say, really. Yes, we are at a time of record peace and the western world can't even comprehend going to war again. But it hasn't been even a hundred years since the revolutions that made modern Europe.
There have been far longer periods of peace in the past. Followed by horrific revolutions. But, mostly, revolutions in modern times have been far more peaceful. The media would make them out to be very different, and in tiny places bad things happen, but on the large scales of the Europes, Americas, Russias, Chinas, Indias, etc. the way that change happens might be sudden, but rarely violent, at least not in historic terms.
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@dafyre said:
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. -- Thomas Jefferson
It is up to the patriots to decide when that time has come, and as @art_of_shred mentioned, it must be a calculated risk. Even if, as a true patriot, we shed our blood and die, yet the revolution is quickly and truly crushed, then those we left behind must not fear anything but a cage. A cage...staying behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.
I think that America is awful close to that point. God be with us all when it it becomes a breaking point.
Wow, TJ and LOTR in one post!
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The collapse of the USSR is more or less an example of what you are talking about.
I don't recall hearing about a huge war when that happened.
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@Dashrender said:
The collapse of the USSR is more or less an example of what you are talking about.
I don't recall hearing about a huge war when that happened.
Exactly. USSR collapsed, China moved to capitalism, Europe formed a confederation.... all generally without bloodshed.
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Even a relatively small monarchy like Morocco changed not its government but nearly everything else about itself in a few years, without any bloodshed or revolution.
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@Dashrender said:
The collapse of the USSR is more or less an example of what you are talking about.
I don't recall hearing about a huge war when that happened.
In more ways than one. I think this example, like a lot of other "modern revolutions" has been more of a facelift than a true revolution.
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@art_of_shred said:
@Dashrender said:
The collapse of the USSR is more or less an example of what you are talking about.
I don't recall hearing about a huge war when that happened.
In more ways than one. I think this example, like a lot of other "modern revolutions" has been more of a facelift than a true revolution.
One could say that about the American Revolution or the French too. At the end, France just changed monarchs. America just separated and followed much of the same tracks that England was following already.
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But in the modern sense, it's often new faces for public consumption, but the same hands are steering in the background. When you get a new king, he does things his way. That's not a continuation of the old. The "new" Russian leadership is the old, but with new hats. We put fresh paint on the front and throw up a new name on the sign, but the same chef is still in the kitchen. And the public flocks in to the check out the "new" restaurant.
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@art_of_shred said:
@dafyre said:
A cage...staying behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.
Wow, TJ and LOTR in one post!Thanks for that... I couldn't remember where, but it seemed to fit. And just remember... cages come in all shapes and sizes... and some, often don't look like a cage.
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@dafyre said:
@art_of_shred said:
@dafyre said:
A cage...staying behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.
Wow, TJ and LOTR in one post!Thanks for that... I couldn't remember where, but it seemed to fit. And just remember... cages come in all shapes and sizes... and some, often don't look like a cage.
Aowen, speaking to Aragorn about what she feared.
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Change won't always be bloody, and as much as we'd like to think the world is beyond such capacity.... we are constantly bombarded with things that remind us that human nature is still good at doing things violently.
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@art_of_shred said:
@dafyre said:
@art_of_shred said:
@dafyre said:
A cage...staying behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.
Wow, TJ and LOTR in one post!Thanks for that... I couldn't remember where, but it seemed to fit. And just remember... cages come in all shapes and sizes... and some, often don't look like a cage.
Aowen, speaking to Aragorn about what she feared.
Thanks. Guess I'd better go read the books again, lol.
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They made a book out of that?!?
