Ever heard of the Civil War?
How can they use aggression to force anyone to go to war?
No, there are no degrees of difference between being alive or dead. Either you are alive, or you are dead. Huge difference.
If 5% of the population stopped paying taxes, the government might incarcerate all of them. In which case the government would go broke feeding, housing, and prosecuting all of them. That is the point.
Yes and that has to do with non-cooperation how?
The government’s already going broke. That hasn’t even slowed them down.
It won’t work.
Someone needs to come up with a way to have competition in ‘states’/choosing your own government/something that uses the term government but is a voluntary entity so that we can eliminate the atrocities of the “involuntary government” (I know it sounds redundant, but I’m making a point).
Which government? There have already been a few city governments that have declared bankruptcy. Also, I don’t think you are considering how enormous the cost would be to imprison 5% of the population, not only monetarily, but public relations and stress costs as well. When I say stress, I mean for those that have to incarcerate these people, how stressful it would be for them.
States are overthrown everyday with the help of outsiders who sympahize with the ‘evil’ that seems to overwhelm the populace. Are you asking if revolution is immoral?
5% revolts and the U.S. would send the national guard. If the revolt was peaceful despite instigations for it to be otherwise, then the government would first arrest the leaders of the movement to isolate the others. They would then use the common strategy used by the state: assimilate, remove or exterminate. If 5% of the populace revolts, then the state has the motivation to tax the other 95% to incarcerate or send them elsewhere. Worst case scenario is a bullet to the head, the most economical method for the state. This doesn’t have to be public nor does it need to occur at once. People have a tendancy of “disappearing”, even in the U.S. The degree to which the state cares to take it depends on how well they justify their decision. While we like to think Americans are better, in the face of brutal state force they will do what their masters tell them. You’d probably even have people celebrating that the Government has finally taken care of those evil capitalists.
That did not happen to Gandhi or the civil rights movement.
No it doesn’t. It would be sending its own family, friends, and family of friends elsewhere or to prison.
And most damaging to the state’s legitimacy. They would not choose this option.
Exterminating 5% of the population need not be public?
Individuals, not millions of people.
If 5% of the population decided to stop obeying the government, I would guess they would understand the risk they were taking.
Yeah, because people like to watch family and friends suffer right?
They do it all the time.
Tell that to unlawful combatants in torture camps.
Or the government could be less retarded and slowly act against them.
Salami theory: disprove it. All your assertions are based on the idea that government can’t aggress all out against 5% of the population. I’m saying they could and have done it slowly. Derp.
Look at the USSR. Its almost impossible to figure out how many people the killed in the revolution, from police executions, and from working them to death in siberian work camps. And the conditions in which the forced many of the people in was just a slow death anyway. There are more ways to kill people then by shooting them.
Secondly, on the topic of overthrowl; if a government has no respect for the rights of its people, or in other words, it steals from them, unjustifiably imprisonens them, and murders them, that country is effectually an outlaw, and has given full justification to any people to act against it. A collection of outlaws is no different then a single outlaw. Men do not gain rights by joining in a group. That which is permittable to an individual is permittable to a group of them, and only that.
You did not answer my question. How is me threatening you to go to jail forcing you to do anything? You can still refuse. Humans are not robots.
And that changes reality how?
Slowly? As in what, ten years? Or slowly as in just a few of them? Let’s see, if 15 million people stopped paying taxes, and only a couple of thousand got prosecuted, why would people keep paying taxes if there is such a low risk for not paying taxes? That is why the government would not “be less retartded” and slowly act.
No, I am saying the government would not kill the 5% that disobeys. I never said they would not take action against them. The government could very well try to imprison all of them, and go broke trying to do it.
Regardless, you are saying they could and have done it slowly. When and how?
So are you asserting that neither Gandhi nor American civil rights leaders were imprisoned by the state? That’s not even counting state-sponsored slavery, human experimentation during the 20th century and the destructive policies of the wellfare state.
When it comes to state action, family and friends are secondary to individual survival. A state motivated enough to imprison 5% of the population would not let associations such as family or friends stand in their way. In addition, individuals under a brutal enough regime will indeed turn against friends and family to protection themselves. It’s also based upon the way the state chooses to frame their objectives - which can range from getting rid of the criminal element (as they define criminal) to “re-education”. The bloodiest American war was started over session, and involved families and friends on both sides killing one another (the South opted for secession at first through nonviolence, then fired at Union ships trying to enter their territory).
You assume that at your own peril. You’re attributing individual morality to an entity such as the state. The state has no legitimacy to damage. The state’s existence creates moral hazards, so it is no surprise why the most brutal acts are committed under such regimes. In addition, if there are clear signs of a philosophy with genocidal tendancies (i.e., Socialism), then how can you ignore the threat?
Done over time, in the right conditions, yes - at least without public knowledge.
Context is that you have a brutal regime willing to utilize extermination. The most effective means would be to target individuals for execution, i.e., making them “disappear”. The next step would be to round up groups of people - people the state calls “criminals”.
But I’ll go one step beyond that. The U.S. Government has (high probability) or is close to having (a given) the means to kill human beings discriminantly via the use of biological weapons. The ability to target individuals, groups (such as racial groups), and other genetically defined people is a weapon the State desires because it provides the ability to kill with even greater plausible deniability than military or police force or any of the commonly used methods of a brutal regime in the past. All that would be needed would be a sample of genetic material, which can be gathered in almost any way imaginable. Blame could be passed to almost anyone - terrorists, left-wing/right-wing extremists, even those the state intends to target. We are either at the point, or very close to the point, where all that is necessary is the will to commit atrocities. The killing could also be performed painlessly, so as to cause those with the intent of murdering millions to feel a little better about their decisions. So yes, millions of people could “disappear” from the face of the earth in a matter of time if the State is willing to do it. They can then come in with the “cure” and reinforce their so-called legitimacy.
I’m speaking of the other 95% who will either do nothing or even assist in the crackdown against the 5%. I would love to think that Americans would react differently, the history of human experience says otherwise.
No, because 20% of the American population actually believes in the BS being preached by Socialists/Communists (based on a 2009 Rasmussen Reports poll) - those under 30 (the age most willing to act on that believe system) are in the 33% range. Even more have been convinced that free market principles are the cause of the current political/economic crisis. These people will celebrate the imprisonment or even death of people they consider as being in the way of their progressive society. If it were a conservative movement, then they too would celebrate the imprisonment or death of people who stand in the way of their version of liberty (I mean we bomb the hell out of countries and kill people, and the folks back home are celebrating). Sorry, I admire your faith in the American people, but I see more than just a small minority that would resort to aggression against your 5%.
I don’t believe this happened with either Gandhi’s movement or the civil rights movement (the bolded part).
This is not quite correct. You said it was correct AND good for the US of A to murder Saddam Hussein, because you claimed that they had the moral authority to act for victims. You have not been able to identify who enabled the US or by what authority that should lead to Saddam’s murder.
So this is a completely different example that doesn’t match up with the explanations you offered in the other thread.
Still, the same core question persists. By what moral authority, can you act as my agent, and commit murder in my name?
And while this is an interesting mind puzzle, it is not any reflection of reality. Even if 100% of the people in Iraq empowered America to remove Saddam, they would still need 100% of American tax payers to support it as well.
Would it be morally correct for him to not act on it?
Gandhi’s movement was slightly different in that they had a foreign power. I had mentioned this earlier.
The use of the American Civil Rights movement really depends on where you choose to start. The American Civil Rights movement started about the time slavery was introduced in America. Bacon’s rebellion could be considered the first major conflict that involved a serious challenge to slavery. So there are around 300+ years involved with that movement. The movement had both violent and nonviolent aspects to it, and to assert that the state did not use the methods of assimilation, removal or extermination against those who refused to be slaves or support slavery is simply ignoring the facts. Even if you only consider the 1950’s and 1960’s, to say that the state (through its lower levels) did not resort to force, including outright murder, also assumes a denial of the facts. But then the 1960’s civil rights movement was about political rights within a state and not a movement for independence from a state. To me that’s a significant difference that makes the application of the American Civil Rights movement a bad choice for comparison for the topic in question - the overthrowing of a state.
There is a 99.99% chance that if threaten to kill you, you will choose to serve the state instead.
Well, I think the state could just make a law saying that you can’t get a job or have a driver’s license if you don’t pay taxes, and most people will think this is legitimate. Its aggression but it would be disguised as just another regulation.
Im not saying its impossible to overthrow the state, im saying that a government could deal with 5% non-cooperation. Conversely, the state might not be able to deal with .001% of people uprising if it were done by the right people, say for example if high up government positions decided they were anarchists. Unlikely, but still demonstrates that #'s are not the core of the issue.
Well, I bet they could the prisons wouldn’t be as ritzy as they are now.
See all tyrannical governments surpressing dissenters. Hitler didn’t have to kil all the communists in russia to dominate them; just make an example of a few and you have the collective action problem government is so good at exploiting.
All I’m saying is that government is really good at oppressing us and getting away with it if it is done gradually… Don’t you agree? Can’t you look around and see your civil and economic liberties slowly slipping away with everyone’s approval? If we went from 1776 to 2009 government in 10 years, people would revolt. I think this is the scenario you are imagining. Governments are smarter than this.
Any evidence of this occurring during civil disobedience?
Because there is no evidence of the state being that brutal to people committing civil disobedience.
Done over time? Like what, 50 years? If it takes that long, then the government will be long gone before they get around to killing 15 million people. And if people don’t know the government is doing it, why would they fear the government? If they do know, why would they not be outraged at cold blooded murder of 15 million people? And when in history has an industrialized nation mass-murdered massive amounts of people committing civil disobedience? Give me a break.
I am talking about industrialized countries, not third world African countries.
A little paranoid are we? Give me a break.
For example?
I never said the government would not use aggression, I said the government would not resort to murdering that large of a portion of the population. Government employees, for the most part, are not murderers.
And there is only a .01% chance the government will threaten to kill you for disobeying.
And I would like to know how you think the government could deal with it?
And I bet the family and friends of those that are disobeying would not stand for the government treating them that way…
When has a government ever been able to suppress large groups of people engaging in civil disobedience?
And all I am saying is that government is really bad at suppressing civil disobedience, if done in large numbers.
In the absence of consent, the only tool the government has is force. Whether or not secretaries and burearcrats will arm themselves with billy clubs and riot gear is not the point.
States have murdered 10s of millions of people in the 20th century alone. They have deployed chemical weapons, set up camps to commit genocide, advanced agendas of eugenics through the social welfare and education systems, and used nuclear weapons on civilian populations.
The state isn’t dangerous because of who works for it. The state is dangerous because its rationale for existence is predicated on no moral inhibitions.