# Will the people ever rise again? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 19, 2008, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905 "2008-12-19T14:27:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/21 "2008-12-19T19:04:03Z")
It would have to get pretty bad. A massive failure of infrastructure like utility companies might be enough to start it off though. Say unemployment continues to rise and congress (state or federal) does nothing to alleviate the rising cost of everything. people begin to fail to pay. eventually certain areas are either cut off or commandeered somehow to ensure that the families in them can continue basic needs. Police are not numerous enough to control the problem. People squat in their homes and defend them with arms. Eventually the state reaches a critical mass as the feds refuse or unable to come a decision and it formally withdraws, and begins emergency proceedings on it’s own. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/22 "2008-12-19T19:18:15Z")
I suspect that most revolutions aren’t really political in their causes but at bottom economic. People revolt when the government is either in the way of their trying to survive and make a living, or even worse when the government is the active cause of their poverty. The American revolution was largely against the economic strictures the British government tried to impose on the Colonies. The French revolution was due to the monarchy clinging to the old model of the landed aristocracy and ignoring the needs and desires of the emerging urban class. The British reforms of the early nineteenth century were due to the desire not to follow the French example. In the twentieth century Communism took hold in those places where Capitalism failed to improve the average standard of living, and didn’t take hold where the standard of living was improving. Communism itself was revolted against when it became clear that it would never provide more than a shabby subsistance. In the 60s a handful of radicals tried to promote revolution, but few young people were actually willing to give up their soft middle class lives. In the 70s and 80s farm foreclosures lead to a right-wing movement against the “Zionist” system responsible. Most people want to be Safe, Rich, Proud, and Free, in that order. Even if you take the view that people are largely cattle, even cattle will bellow if you snatch food away from their mouths when they’re hungry. So what would it take for the people to rise? It would take something like a permanent Great Depression, in which the old system had irrevocably failed yet the government clung to it and refused to reform. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/23 "2008-12-19T19:21:22Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > Yes, secession is a joke and only bandied about by a fringe. Like revolution is much better? > > Things are just fine right now, so nobody is willing to revolt. My point is that if the nation started to REALLY hit the skids, I would expect secession to be part of the revolution. Take the example of the President refusing to step down. Lets go further and make it Bush/Cheney with the support of some military elements to make it stick. > > Where would the organization to rise up come from - a demagogue individual or a state legislature? I argue that the movement would be more likely to come from a state than an individual. The American Revolution was run by people representing areas, the Confederacy split off based on votes by states. I think the same would happen again in the US. > > What would be the trigger to get California to secede, along with other Western States? I do not know. But I think that for it to be a true revolution it would take an action by an already existing entity such as a state government. But the problem with your scenario is that in imagines California splitting away while the rest of the US just knuckles under. Why is the rest of the US knuckling under? Why aren’t they splitting off too? In fact, forget splitting off, why not just stick together and instead of everyone trying to leave the United States, just have the faux-dictator arrested? Cheney can declare himself dictator, but he isn’t the dictator until the rest of us start obeying his orders. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/24 "2008-12-19T19:25:41Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > But the problem with your scenario is that in imagines California splitting away while the rest of the US just knuckles under. Why is the rest of the US knuckling under? Why aren’t they splitting off too? In fact, forget splitting off, why not just stick together and instead of everyone trying to leave the United States, just have the faux-dictator arrested? Cheney can declare himself dictator, but he isn’t the dictator until the rest of us start obeying his orders. I was using CA since I live here. Again, if things really went to hell and folks started wanting something new - Texas would jump (and OK might go with them). CA would leave - and might offer a deal to OR and WA. I did not mean just CA - I mean that if we had a revolution a lot of states might decide to go it alone. It would be easier to defend your territory than to try to fight it out in DC. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/25 "2008-12-19T19:25:55Z")
> [@haymarketmartyr](#): > > In the last 100 years, the closest we came ot such armed revolt was in late 1931 and early 32 when people fought that their government did not give a rats ass about them. There were a few cases of actual armed rebellion like the farmers who took over a Red Cross store in Arkansas but harmed nobody. There were however a number of instances of “penny auctions”:when a farmer’s foreclosed land went up for auction, his friends and neighbors would attend the auction armed with their rifles and shotguns. As soon as bidding opened someone would shout “One Penny!” and then everyone would brandish their weapons pointedly, daring anyone else to raise the bid. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/26 "2008-12-19T19:44:54Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > The American revolution was largely against the economic strictures the British government tried to impose on the Colonies. And it was less about what they were actually suffering than about what they not unreasonably **feared.** From [_The American Way of Strategy,_](http://www.amazon.com/American-Way-Strategy-Michael-Lind/dp/0195308379/sr=8-1/qid=1166282273/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-9788122-0265632?ie=UTF8&s=books) by Michael Lind: > [@](#): > > Many people remember vaguely that the American Revolution had something to do with taxes. A few remember that the issue was whether the power to tax lay with London or the American colonies. But this was a surrogate for the real issue: preserving the American way of life. > > In the first two-thirds of the eighteenth century, the British colonists in North America developed a distinctive way of life quite different from that of their British cousins. Something like Britain’s aristocratic society endured in the South and parts of the Northeast. But in general, colonial society was characterized by a degree of middle-class prosperity and widespread property ownership unknown in any other society in the world. Not only were America’s yeoman farmers, artisans, and merchants better off than most Britons and Europeans, but also the cost of government was much lower. > > The trouble began in the aftermath of the French and Indian War (Seven Years’ War) of 1754-63. The British imperial government insisted that the colonists pay more of the costs of their own defense. The colonists, however, feared that the London parliament was trying to destroy the system of colonial self-government that had grown up in the preceding generations. They remembered that the London parliament had destroyed the Scottish parliament in 1707 (it would eliminate the Irish parliament in 1801). They feared that the same thing was now happening to them. They would pay ever higher taxes, even as their colonial assemblies lost authority to the London parliament. As a result, British North America might come to resemble Ireland or Scotland, impoverished countries were absentee landlords held vast tracts of land and where major decisions were made by well-connected aristocrats and merchants in London with little or no accountability to the people whom they ruled. > > \ > > This history may be familiar but the point is not. For Americans, the independence of the United States from Britain and its organization as a democratic republic was a means to an end, not an end in itself. The end was the safeguarding of the communal right to self-government and the individual liberties that the British settlers in America had already enjoyed for generations under British rule. Americans adopted their own strategy for defending the American way of life against imperial centralization – independence as a democratic republic – only because their first choice, self-government within a federal monarchical empire, was rejected. Democratic republicanism and national independence were only two of several possible methods for preserving what by 1776 was the traditional American way of life, characterized by personal liberty, widespread property ownership, low taxes, and an inexpensive military. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/27 "2008-12-19T19:55:36Z")
As someone who believes we should scrap the Constitution and do better, I have to agree it’s just not going to happen. What it would take is not a stupider population but rather stupider politicians and Establishment types. For instance, if they hadn’t realized people weren’t going to stand for the same old same old back in the 1930s then I expect we would already have a new government. Instead they were flexible enough to allow governmental actions that were unthinkable a decade earlier and forstalled a revolution. I think we can expect similar flexibility in the face of future crisises so revolution isn’t going to occur. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/28 "2008-12-19T21:06:01Z")
> [@haymarketmartyr](#): > > Czarcasm - that was one of the best one sentences replies I have read here. I second the motion. ---
**Author:** ![Stealth\_Potato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Stealth\_Potato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Potato)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/29 "2008-12-19T21:11:40Z")
> [@haymarketmartyr](#): > > In the last 100 years, the closest we came ot such armed revolt was in late 1931 and early 32 when people fought that their government did not give a rats ass about them. There were a few cases of actual armed rebellion like the farmers who took over a Red Cross store in Arkansas but harmed nobody. There was also the [Battle of Athens](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946)) in 1946, in which citizens of McMinn County, Tennessee (including many returning WWII veterans) took up arms against corrupt county government. Hardly a national issue, but worth noting nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/30 "2008-12-19T21:29:29Z")
Well, there have also been quite a few serious riots which can be considered, in a way, mini-revolutions. They just were not widespread enough to present any serious challenge to the system as a whole. Only to very small parcels of it. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/31 "2008-12-19T21:52:51Z")
_True_ uprisings _never_ occur, except when the populace is faced with starvation, & perhaps not even then. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/32 "2008-12-19T22:18:10Z")
I should point out that there are more levels of government than Federal, and that most oppression comes from local, town or village government. Edit: I see Stealth Potato cited the case of Athens, TN. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/33 "2008-12-19T22:25:40Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > I should point out that there are more levels of government than Federal, and that most oppression comes from local, town or village government. I should point out that in many cases oppression does not come from **government** at all, except in the sense that it’s backing up the oppressors. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2008, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/34 "2008-12-19T22:47:53Z")
I could see a military coup before a general uprising, and even that is solidly in the pipe dream realm. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/35 "2008-12-20T02:15:35Z")
BrainGlutton is correct. Taking your typical case of oppression. 1888, Alabama, say. The KKK are the oppressors. The fact that the mayor, sheriff, and the best businessmen in town are all members of the KKK just give it the power to oppress. Of course, it’s hard to separate the two. If the people who run the town are the oppressors, then the oppressors are the government. If they’re just Mrs. Grundy, then you can ignore them. It’s the improper use of police powers that need the equalizing force of arms in civilian hands. I cite Abbie Hoffman. [http://www.tenant.net/Community/steal/steal.html](http://www.tenant.net/Community/steal/steal.html) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/36 "2008-12-20T05:21:53Z")
Do I get to choose which mob is going to overthrow the government, and do I get to vote on which mob leaders will be be running it after the overthrow? ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/37 "2008-12-20T05:33:31Z")
That it will happen is inevitable. The cause of the revolution, when it happens, and the results are not. I can’t remember the last time a country came apart peacefully. Some sort of violent conflict occurred to precipitate it, or occurred after the initial fragmentation. Countries do not last forever, and they don’t break up without a fight. Why should we be any different? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/38 "2008-12-20T05:41:31Z")
I think it would take either one of the two following scenario: 1. A long and protracted unpopular war on a much larger scale than the current ones in Iraq and Afghanistan or even Vietnam. A draft would probably be in effect as well. 2. A condition (plague, energy shortage, famine, depression, etc) where the government could barely provide for the basic needs of the American people. This would result in a fragmenting of American society along enthic, socioeconomic, or political lines as fringe groups, extremists and criminals seek to gain power or advantage in the resulting power vaccuum. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/39 "2008-12-20T06:09:01Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > A total repudiation of written history and an average 30 point drop in I.Q. might do it. Funny, actually reading quite a bit of written history has led me to the opposite conclusion. Although I suppose it was worth dropping from the 190-200 range of IQ; the trade-off of pure ability to argue for material to argue with is my cross to bear. > [@Airman Doors](#): > > That it will happen is inevitable. The cause of the revolution, when it happens, and the results are not. In all seriousness, I never took you for someone who’d quote Marx. To address a larger point, if revolutionary organizations wait until the shit hits the fan to begin organizing, they’ll have all but missed the boat. People need to have confidence that they _can_ change the system well before something like the Great Depression sets in, otherwise they end up completely demoralized. In that kind of confusion they’ll look anywhere for answers; if the strength and clarity of organizations on the left are insufficient, there’s a greater risk of people turning towards the far right instead. Weimar Germany is the textbook example here. People won’t automatically fight just because life sucks economically and politically. They have to learn that they _can_ fight, and _how_ to fight, in preparation for this kind of thing. The union victory at Republic Windows, and the growing movement against Proposition 8, are two small but important lessons in that regard. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2008, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905/40 "2008-12-20T16:14:53Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Funny, actually reading quite a bit of written history has led me to the opposite conclusion. Although I suppose it was worth dropping from the 190-200 range of IQ; the trade-off of pure ability to argue for material to argue with is my cross to bear. What written history has shown _me_ is that when violent means are used to overthrow a government, a lot of innocents get the shaft, then the most violent amongst the revolutionists usually becomes the leader. What amuses me about this is that those who advocate violent revolution automatically assume that the innocent bystanders killed will be someone else, and that the revolutionists that eventually come out on top will be someone they approve of. > [@Olentzero](#): > > In all seriousness, I never took you for someone who’d quote Marx. Marx was a student of history-in all seriousness, I never took _you_ as someone who would follow in his footsteps so closely. By the way, I believe Marx _also_ once said, “I believe my soup is cold!” So what. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-people-ever-rise-again/477905.md?page=3)