While reading the thread How to stop missile defense shield? by curiousgeorgeordeadcat, I got to thinking (which is rare for me)…
[ul]
[li]How would one best overthrow the US Government?[/li]
[li]Jefferson believed that we have a right to revolution but I can not see that being allowed these days. Does this right exist in the Constitution?[/li]
[li]Does it fall under the right to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” in the 1[sup]st[/sup] Amendment?[/li]
[li]How far could the government go to stop such a revolt?[/li][/ul]
I find this interesting considering the ousting of Milosevic was regarded as democratic when I doubt the same would have been allowed in the US, our self-proclaimed “Defender of Democracy.”
Every 4 years we have a perfectly good opportunity to (peacefully) overthrow the government. But as long as half of the people don’t even bother to vote…it will never happen.
Milosevic didn’t give Yugoslavia the same peaceful opportunity, so the people had to take to the streets.
(a) Pissed off voters.
(b) Hell no. We had a little war about that, remember?
© Hell no.
(d) Ask all those dead guys in the gray uniforms.
Let’s alter the situation a bit and ask: How large would the uprising be before the government was afraid to fire upon it’s own citizens?
We know that five people, ten, fifty, one hundred, hell, maybe even five or ten thousand people would be “taken care of” by the government, but how large would it have to be before the government gave an ear to the mass of unsettled people? A million? Two million? Three million? That’s almost ten percent! What if it were only five hundred thousand? That’s only like, 1/6 of 1 percent, but thats FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND upset people!
–Tim
Three million isn’t near ten percent, it’s only a bit above 1 percent. The population of the US is something near 281 million.
Ten percent would be almost 30 million people, which is roughly the population of New York, Virginia and Alabama (some states aren’t available on that page).
Well, our presidents actually leave when they lose elections. I’m not terribly well-informed on Yugoslavia, but did’t Milosevic try to invalidate the results of an election when he found out it wasn’t going his way? Isn’t that one of the reasons they threw him out?
Call me crazy, but I think if that did happen in the US, that president would be thrown out.
I’m wondering if this was an intentional ironic remark.
This pisses me off more than anything else. If all of the people who love to bitch and moan about the government would actually go and vote, then we might see some governmental interest in what the people want.
Why should the politicians care what we think if we don’t show it in the voting booth? All the talking we do and how many people vote? What, something like 30% on a good year, isn’t it?
We’re like the little fluffy lap dog hiding under the chair and yapping at the burglar, when we should be a bulldog ripping off his leg. Politicians should be scared to piss off the voters…how many do you think are scared when only a small percentage cares enough to hold them accountable.
Do you really think the US government in this age of media, where a government official can’t get a hummer without the world knowing it, would simply "take are of 5 or 10 thousand people? Do you have such an utter lack of faith in the profesionalism of our military and police that these folks would go along with this?
It’s a scary world you live in. I’m glad it doesn’t really exist.
Back in the '70s, when I was in college, one of my friends was a computer nerd with far-left tendencies (“computer nerd” in those days meant a guy who watered the turbines on the city-block-sized Univacs…Us normal people were all still using typewriters for our term papers on Chinese poetics and decadent Romantic literature).
He said that there was a way, using proper codes, that one could phone up the computer systems in Washington, DC, from right there up in New England, and just say “Shut down.” And they would. Creating chaos, and allowing us freakos to jump on a Greyhound, ride down, and establish a provisional government, handing out free cheese to the hungry workers in the fields and decriminalizing LSD.
As I said, this was in the 1970s. They may have set up some safeguards against this sort of thing in the meantime.
Ike, you must have gotten some of that good windowpane as well. I remember the 70’s…vaguely.
Depends on what your aims are, I suppose. If you’re thinking whatever mess we’re in is best solved by one man or a select few, commanding the army would be good enough 'cos then you can stage a military coup.
Of course, lefties like me believe that an organized, militant, fighting working class is much more effective 'cos it actually gives people a chance to control their own destiny. Even so, the army needs to be convinced that they shouldn’t fire on the crowds.
Ultimately, the best way to overthrow the US gov’t would be to make sure the army is on your side, either through chain of command or through force of argument.
knocking on door
Hang on, gotta see who’s there…
muffled cries and sounds of struggling
Several Days Later.
Well, it seems that misunderstanding with the FBI is all cleared up. They gave me this nifty anklet to wear too! 
OK, back to your questions.
Anyone who’s firmly convinced that the US gov’t needs to be overthrown is not going to be concerned with what rights are explicitly or implicitly stated in the Constitution. Similarly, they’re not going to say “Oh, OK, sorry” if the gov’t tells them “You’re not allowed to overthrow us.”
No, it would be more like a response to the government’s drastic failure to respond to petitions for redress of grievances.
Insofar as the government is ostensibly there to defend democracy and our way of life, but in reality to maintain an uneasy peace between two mutually hostile classes, and also to defend the social system that one class depends on for continued existence, the government would probably be granted serious free license were some sort of revolutionary threat to arise. If it came from the right in the form of a military coup, however, the government would be rather helpless. A look at Chile in 1973 is example enough of this.
Let’s not forget that, even without elections, there’s a perfectly legitimate way to change the government of the United States.
It’s called a Constitutional Convention. Last I heard, a properly called for CC could do ANYthing to the governmental system under which we live, right?
So I’d advise trying that before you started pulling up the paving stones.
Who defines “legitimate”, anyway?
Hey Booboo, I (a US citizen) won’t be voting in 2002 when it comes time to overthrow the government. Does that piss you off?
Normally I’d agree, but after the shameless hijack of the November 2000 election by the GOP, I’d have to give pause… a political party that’s very willing to burn ballots so the truth can’t be discerned makes me very wary.
I’m sorry to hijack, but I must defend that most beloved of all creatures, the bulldog. Sure they’re tenacious when it comes to say, holding on to a towel. My dad used to pick up our “Little Man” that way. And they may be ugly and slobber a lot. But in fact, they have the sweetest disposition anyone could hope for in a dog. I recommend getting them!
Now you’re getting at the core issue.
How do you overthrow a government? I can think of a few ways:
- stuff the ballot box with absentee ballots.
- Use political pressure to get administrators to manipulate voting rules.
- Send violent mobs to stop vote counting.
- Judicial overthrow. The courts order the count to stop and declare a winner.
Is any of this sounding familiar?
Hmm… I should resurrect one of my old .sigs for this occasion, I’ll just type it in:
“You win some, you lose some, and then there’s that little known third category.”
-Al Gore
BooBoo: Anyone who believes that the government runs this country is out of his head. Corporations run this country, and do a fine job of keeping it that way. (BTW, for anyone who wants to dispute this, ask yourself why the campaign reform died a miserable death with only a whisper appoximately two weeks ago.) Shhhhh…
Soft money rules (the higher levels of) government. It’s not about you and me, because whoever you put there, whether they be dems, repubs, or anyone else, they WILL buckle under corporate pressure. This is why half the people don’t vote… they are realists, not idealists like yourself, BooBoo. “Pie in the sky, anyone?”
Now I’m not saying “F-you corporate America!” You know why? Because I contribute to corporate America! They give me a job. So damn right I’m gonna take what they give me. I don’t like some of the things that go on, but what am I gonna do about it? Vote? Ha.
Warning: exaggeration coming: Just as long as I can afford gasoline, twinkies, Marlboro’s and my Bud Light, I’m a happy camper… that is what the typical American thinks anyway, IMHO.
I firmly believe the only way you’ll ever see an overthrow around here is when porn is made illegal.
In a politician’s mind, pleasing voters is only of poriforial importance. They’ll tell you what you want to hear, then once they are in office, they get the memo from McCorporation, briefing them on their new priority list.
I’m sorry if that sounds negative, but it is largely true.
Also, sorry for the malicious hijack cyberhwk. To get back to the OP, you had better figure out a way to break corporate America before trying to overthrow the gov’t… at least you’ll be on the right track. You think the military is tough? Just try and fuck with corporate profits!
Then the point comes up again that we contribute to, and in fact ARE corporate America. So there you go. The dog chases his tail.
Acco40 makes two very good points. Obtusively, yes, but they’re good points.
The first one is that if you want to peacefully overthrow the government, then you simply need to become a rich, multinational corporation, and team up with other rich, multinational corporations, and spend enough money bribing, err… I mean making enough large political contributions, that you can essentially set the agenda of the government and emplace your cronies, err… I mean candidates in the chief legislative, judicial, and administrative offices.
Yes, it’s already been done. Over and over and over again.
The second very good point is that until the “powers that be” become so arrogant and unthinking as to not provide for adequate bread and circuses (or TV and SUVs) for the masses, then there will be no violent overthrow. I take the example of porn to be a wry attempt at humor. Only when the average Joe Six-figure Income can’t get his cable TV and drive his Beemer will people start getting fed up and consider taking up arms. And even then, they might not do it until they’re going hungry. Until then you might have violent protests, but they won’t have any chance of overthrowing anything but a few police cruisers. But it’ll never happen.
Read the July 8th “Non-sequitur” to see one opinion on this.