Violent revolution

Barky, I'd join your NCR. If I'd be good to join.

Now I hear the Lebanon is getting all antsy and sttuff.

Seriously - is 2011 the Year of Political Flipouts?

1848 2: Rerevolution

I almost wait with baited breath for societal collapse in the US, it means we can do a better job next time.

I would prefer society not fall in such a manner. The amount of destruction and death would be horrendous and any return to normalcy would be long coming.

I could easily see the rise of aggressive nation states duking it out for turf for a few years with many of them taking or trying to military equipment and people to their side.

No thanks.

Things are fine for me. I'd rather not die because people are deluding themselves into thinking they can restart the country.

If I find out an actual revolution or societal collapse is happening in America, I'm moving my ass to Canada.

Canada will likely see a lot of violence and upheaval as well. There will be no escape for anyone in the world if the U.S. implodes. The U.S. going down suddenly would cause huge problems for the world as a whole.

But at least we wont have to pay them damned taxes!

Short of an international force of sizeable military strength stepping up preferably an ally I do not see a U.S. collapse being a good thing ever. Granted our society is getting pretty fucked up from my point of view I would rather drag it a new direction kicking and screaming rather then off the bastard and find a new one to take its place.

^ What you said. However, I think collapse is inevitable the further in the future you go. No society ever lasts without massive upheaval of some shape or form. Just a matter of time - no idea when that'll be then, that's the million dollar cap question.

@ Tuefel: About Canada, well it won't just be the Canadians — I can easily see the British Forces based at Suffield getting involved, and any other forces undertaking exercises within Canada.

It'll be too big to ignore.

I don't plan on dying in such an event, I'd rather align myself with a nation state and work for them, trained military personnel would be in high demand and I'd be right in that niche.

Interesting thought. So on the violent revolution side what nations has this been necessary for? What nations have had successful peaceful revolutions or ones with minimal blood shed?

I can only think of India on the successful peaceful side.

India wasn't really a successful peaceful revolution, that was just a result of the British Empire's ongoing dissolution. Plus the the whole fiasco of splitting India and Pakistan wasn't exactly peaceful.

Better examples would probably be the various nearly bloodless revolutions in Eastern Europe following the collapse of the USSR.

Those were very similar to the British example in that they represented the collapse of an empire, rather than the wholesale overthrow of an existing government. Those "revolutions" simply filled in the power vacuum left by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. And they did not all leave peaceful, stable governments in their wake.

The issue here is that running a democracy is difficult in Eastern Europe since some of these countries were made up of existing countries (Yugoslavia) or only had autocratic leadership. Democracy has to be taught in my view and its not a natural or efficient way to run a government but it is a humane way to run one.

^

Same problem Afghanistan has, they can't be ran under a democratic government because they simply don't understand the concept in the first place, which is the most important hurdle. Voting for everything doesn't make sense when you come from a culture where rule of law has been decided by the strongest warlords for centuries, if not outright millennia.

Not to mention they are unlikely to accept any system forced on them by a foreign party, which again goes back centuries.

I would say that a worthier cause would be building infrastructure in Afghanistan but I'm sure that will head nowhere as well.

Not that attempting to create a democracy isn't a good cause but I know too many people in my poly-sci classes who think that deep down inside everyone wants to be like us but doesn't realize it.

edited 2nd Feb '11 10:13:50 AM by saladofstones

Yeah.. It isn't that the Afghani people don't want Democracy, they just don't have a clue what it is, and it's so foreign that if you try to explain it they'll just dismiss you and essentially say "Pfft, that sounds stupid."

Blegh, Im so sick of people talking about "rebuilding society from the ground up". No, you know what, you'll do the same goddamn thing all over again, just like you've done every other goddamn time someone had to start society over. It always ends up the same damn way! No matter how you do it, no matter what ideology you might start off with, eventually the system becomes corrupted by outside interests of various kinds, and the whole process starts over again.

There in lies they truth and history of every nation in some degree as they exist today. The real trick is to make the time between revolutions and the amount of violence needed increase for time and decrease for destruction.

Yeah, but thats not going to happen, because revolutions do not go off according to a schedule.

Cycle of Government, is what I think you're referring to. Monarchy, to Republic, to Democracy, to Tyranny. Then you have a revolt and jump back a number of steps. Rinse and repeat.

I never mentioned a schedule. But the point is duly noted.