I believe that humans are generally assholes (or tend to be), but I don’t believe we’re evil.
Which leads to the question, why could not a few volunteer to lead?
That is exactly what has happened in rebel-held areas of Libya since the civil war started, but nobody intends for government-by-unobjectionable-volunteers to be a permanent system, it’s just that there has been no time for elections or anything.
The advantage of elected officials is that they want their offices and are answerable to the people for performance if they want to keep them – “performance” meaning not only doing their jobs well, but doing what the people demand, which is prettty damned important regardless of whether the people are good or bad or wise or foolish. Volunteers have no such incentive.
rebellions are always justified , for the people /persons who take part are usually pissed off , and see it has a way to make positive changes to their sistuation . rebellion does not have to mean going to war , a teenager running from home is a rebellion . the child is rebeling the authority at home , a workers strike is a formal rebellion .a country like iceland refusing to pay the bailout is a rebellion against the banking cartel .
for an observer , it will be dependent on what side of the fence he is sitting . if in the next comming elections the people rebel and vote in a republican president . If you are a republican you will say the rebellion is justified . alas if you are a democrat , then you may not be to pleased .
so in the near future , when the american people rebel against their government ,
depending if it is a failure or not , and depending if you are better off or not , and depending on if you are part of the government or not , will determinee whether the rebellion is justified or not .
I believe if it brings about a positive change for the majority of people who will be affected by the rebellion , then it is justified in my opinion .I also realise that in the past to much blood has been spilt for a good cause , so many wars , that the question is , was it worth it .
For me , that is the question . do we remain as slaves , or do we fight . do we just accept it and die , without raising our voices, or do we say we will do it the peaceful way , at what point do you realise that the peaceful way , will not yield any result
how do you identify when it is justified to rebel . at what exact point . is it at a logical point of reasoning , or is it emotional . is it at when hope dies , for everyone around you .
it starts when you walk down the street , and people you would never ever have recognised or deem worthy enough to speak to . look straight at you , nod and smile at you and you respond with warmth and understanding . For both of you know the pain you share
,when you become brothers with starngers. , when an entire community becomes one
, no words need to be said . we are in this together . it is a spiritual feeling . when we start feeling the same we grow .and cowards become men. and men become warriors
when no debates are needed to be heard , just one goal , freedom . when people dare to have hope again . when people find strenght again , when the people remember that freedom is what our existence is all about and will take nothing less .
when it is justified to say no more , no more , no more ,I will not live like this , I will be free ,I will die a free man , and you feel you are not alone .
When your heart tells you , I will fight till the end , when you believe .
When there is a fellowship of men , non coerced , just all wanting to contribute , for freedom , all for the good of the community ,that is when it is justified .
knowing that to do nothing is worse than death . knowing that it is better to die , than to live like this .
A rebellion is a cry for change , it does not need to be justified by you nor me
it is natural to rebel ,when people are fed up they rebel and trust me , if you where in their shoes you will do the same , enough is enough, I will no longer be pushed .
unfortunately , history shows that major rebellions always seems to get inflitrated , by the same people who caused the problems in the first place . that is why we humans have been rebelling for centuries , but always seem to fall short in the end , i hope one day we will get there
freedom for allObviously, but how do you know in advance?
As Davy Crockett said, "First be sure you’re right, then go ahead."
To put it in more mundane terms humans are generally selfish. In addition its not an only-Christian view, even the Chinese Legalists (for example) was of that view.
Selfish != evil. Come on, we have two centuries and more of post-Enlightenment civilization, “enlightened self-interest” is not a radical idea.
Well, damn then, it must be true!
And – as their name sorta kinda indicates – even a Chinese philosopher working in that context was perfectly capable of (and downright enthusiastic about) figuring that selfishness channeled through education and social institutions can produce something like unto BrainGlutton’s cooperative framework of enlightened self-interest through purely secular reasoning; it was old hat thousands of years ago. Xun Zi is the man!
Ermm, no, that might be the Confucians, though they would scorn to think in such barbaric terms as “enlightened self-interest” . . . . The Legalists were all about fierce punishments for petty crimes.
I doubt the aforementioned Xun Zi would find “enlightened self-interest” to be a barbaric term, and I think he’s probably the least bad bridge from Confucianism to Legalism. I’m admittedly less sure that Han Fei would like the term, but I think he’d be on board with the same purely secular logic: we can expect highly publicized arrangements of lucrative rewards and harsh punishments to produce a whole society’s worth of good behaviors precisely because people are acting on selfish motivations.
Someone who rebels because god told him to, IMO falls very much into the camp of those who murder people because the "voices "told them to.
My opinion on the subject is that rebellions/revolutions are always justified when they adequately reflect the true will of the people. This, in turn, is best analyzed by looking at the outcome of the movement since, in most situations, we can expect only those revolutions that reflect the popular will to succeed. Hence, all revolutions that succeed are justified; all revolutions that fail are unjustified. This is a vast oversimplification, to be sure, but in my experience it tends to work pretty well in describing reality, and I have yet to encounter a better and more accurate theory.
So the thirty million people murdered in Stalins purges were happy because the Russian Revolution succeeded ?
And look how happy the general populace of Iran is after their revolution .
And lets not forget the population of Zimbabwe, they are SO happy nowadays, best thing they ever did was to get rid of Ian Smith and his government.
I suspect that you are rather naive ’ about real politik.
I was under the impression that the topic of this thread was “When is Rebellion/Revolution Justified?” You seem to believe that it is actually “Which Revolutions Made Their People Happiest?”
I encourage you to go back and re-read the subject line.
That is all rather useless, if you want to determine the justice of your cause before you rebel.
But, you are on record, here, that all revolutions that succeed reflect the will of the people and are justified. I’ll remember that when Gaddafi falls.
Does the latter have no relevance to the former?!
All Christians are sinners, but only Calvinists are totally depraved. 
My theory is ends-oriented, and so I reject the concept that you can determine whether or not a revolution is justified before you try it.
Keep in mind that my theory is based on the hypothesis that the popular support of a revolution can be extrapolated from the successes that this particular populace enjoys while rebelling. In other words, if People X succeed in overthrowing their government, then we can safely bet that People X had given popular support to the overthrow, and hence it was justifiable.
No such conclusions may be drawn when an outsider comes in and overthrows a national government. In such cases, it is impossible to know whether or not the revolution would have succeeded on its own terms, and hence impossible to determine whether or not is was justified.
So no, if the good Colonel falls before Western imperialism, this will not make the overthrow justifiable. If it was a purely Libyan revolution, then it would be justifiable.
None. You can have a perfectly justified revolution that is quickly derailed and turned against itself. The latter failure in no way invalidates the justice of the original endeavor.
Such is not the case in the Libyan Civil War. The rebels could not win without NATO . . . but neither could NATO winkle out Gaddafi without the rebels. Nor would NATO even care to try if there were no native rebellion.