Is A Civil Overthrow Of A Modern First World Nation Possible?

Discussion in 'Diplomacy & Conflict Resolution' started by upside-down cake, Oct 23, 2015.

  1. TheResister

    TheResister Banned

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    I don't know what it would take in numbers to challenge a current regime that operates outside the laws. Tyrannical governments have a hard time making a case for tyranny and they have to rule via fear. Currently this has led to a lot of discontent with the powers that be.

    Currently the people are going through that phase wherein they are exhausting all of their nonviolent political and legal avenues of redress. When our forefathers went up against King George, you remember what they did prior to engagement of a physical nature:

    "In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people." Declaration of Independence

    "We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation." (an excerpt from Patrick Henry's Give Me Liberty speech)

    Right now the people are holding out for a miracle with political propaganda prostitutes (like Donald Trump as an example.) The bottom line won't change, but the resolve of those who favor Liberty will grow even more intense. The public relations war will test the presuppositions of many and change the balance of committed fighters on both sides. So, how far will those representing a de facto (that is, illegal) government go in order to suppress a grass roots campaign to restore Liberty?

    There will first be a war for the hearts and souls before there will be any kind of insurgency. But, if we articulate what is we want to replace the status quo with, a sufficient number of people will emerge that can overcome the limitations of technology and the presence of a militarized police.
     
  2. Ritter

    Ritter Well-Known Member

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    The average "First Worlder" is first and foremost way to comfortable, stupid and deluded to ever even realise he is living in a (*)(*)(*)(*) state. To busy poking on their iPads and spending time on other useless stuff such as porn and alcohol, a revolution in the "1st World" is highly unlikely. Add tot his what you have already mentioned, the fact that the state have secured they own the gun-monopoly, a revolution become s even more difficult and thus the state can defend any kind of behavior with "you voted for it".

    I do not believe in Anarchy or Libertardianism, but it is still somehow always nice to see when people organize to show their discontent with the state.

    I feel we are actually seeing a change in many "First World" countries. If it is to the better or worse, I will not comment on. But it is clear that people are fed up after years and years of the same old repetetive bollox from their states, by turning to the more "radical" candidates/parties they hope to see change. All over Europe there is a minor "nationalistic revolution" going on and seems like the same trend is emerging in the US with Donald Trump. It is obvious people are not happy.
     
  3. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Well, first you have to realize that your definition is rather silly.

    "First World" has not a thing to do with economic power, military power, or form of government. It is a definition created in the 1940's to define where a country was placed in regards to the US-Soviet spheres of the era.

    Are you aware that South Africa is a "First World Nation"?

    Are you aware that Finland is a "Third World Nation"? As is Ireland?

    These are purely political definitions, nothing more.

    However, it is much less likely, since "First World Nations" are traditionally more stable politically then Second or Third World nations.

    However, this is also not always true. Iran was a First World Nation in 1979, and we all know what happened there. Today they are Third World, because they are not tied closely to either the US-NATO or Russia.
     
  4. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Slight correction here.

    Tim McVeigh was indeed at Waco. But he was not a member of the Branch Davidians, nor was he involved in the seige itself in any way.

    He was however one of the Pro-Militia anti-government protestors that congregated outside of the police lines during the seige.

    [​IMG]

    He was present, simply not in any way in the form that Pardy is trying to imply.

    And the Branch Davidians under David Koresh had become a dangerous doomsday cult. Their leader had already been thrown out of one religion, after gettting a 15 year old girl pregnant, then repeatedly telling the pastor that God had shown that he was supposed to marry the pastor's teenage daughter. This was a very twisted individual, who convinced his followers to live in Manson Family like conditions, moving from place to place from Alabama to Texas. And for years he had been preaching that his martyrdom would come in the United States.
     
  5. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So far, the traitorous" protestors in Ferguson have failed.

    What you call "traitors" overthrew the British in this country. Of course, from your messages it is clear that anyone who opposed government is by definition a "traitor."

    Almost everyone needs a god-master. For many people that god is government. Such is the nature of many of your messages.
     
  6. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The answer to the OP is yes, but unlikely. The flaw in the OP's message is the OPer assumes there is a precise dividing line between government and civilian. There is not.
     
  7. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Sadly, most do not seem to understand that the US Revolution started as a Rights protest. They were simply asking that the Government recognize their "Rights as Englishmen", as established hundreds of years earlier in the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. It was only when the Parlaiment refused to recognize these rights that they mood went from protest to rebellion.

    Most do not even seem to know that the origin of the Declaration of Independence was originally to draft a request for reconcilliation. It was only when the British continued to ramp up the pressure against them that the tone changed from Reconcilliation to Separation.

    The OP misunderstands a great many things. Like what makes a "Third World Country" in the first place.
     
  8. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The Muslim overthrow of First World Nations in the West is already well underway. Death by a thousand cuts, lost with a wimper rather than a boom. It is inevitable, just a matter of how many generations and how rapidly Muslim minority violence, terrorism and votes caused increasing concessions and capitulations along the way.

    Europe has been invaded, only they didn't carry their weapons with them and the EU is paying for the invasions of their countries. Many Democrats want this for the USA as well and are already capitulating, such as demanding Americans all respect the religion of Islam, while they are fine with cursing Christianity and Christians. One only has to read this forum to see this.

    - - - Updated - - -


    First World Countries" is just a phrase that most people understand.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Asian countries aren't falling for this self-destruction invited invasion crap.
     
  9. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Then why do most of them seem to think it has something to do with socio-economic factors?

    I bet that the majority of people actually have no idea what the 3 definitions mean, and how countries fell into which listing. It was purely by how nations fell in relationship to their alliances to NATO, Warsaw Pact, and Unalligned. Third World is the latter group, which fallowed neither NATO or Warsaw.

    [​IMG]
     
  10. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    The only successful revolutions were those led by the middle classes, those with the technical and administrative skills and intellectual capacity to form a government in the aftermath. All the rest have failed miserably, and only ended with brutal dictatorships. If there were to be a real revolution in a European country or the U.S., it would be a middle class one, and a relatively peaceful transition. The American Revolution was successful because it was a revolution led by the 'middle class', and of course since it was technically against a foreign power it was violent, but it didn't end in the country turning into the typical crap hole that was, and still is, routine for South America or Africa or Asia, nor did a long lasting enmity remain between us and Britain over it.
     
  11. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    As to the question of the original OP of course it could happen and in fact did in 1989. The Soviet Union was completely dissolved as a state by the actions of its people in a General Strike. The Army tried to prevent it, but they saw the futility of trying to oppose a GS and joined it.

    No state or government can withstand a General Strike. There isn't really any need to fight as the Army and Police cannot maintain even all the functions of government by themselves, let alone all the businesses. If everyone decides to simply stay home and do nothing the nation will stop, and what is the government going to do?

    Things have to be REALLY bad before a GS is even slightly possible though. Even in the time of the ACW things never really got that bad in America. The ACW was really a regionally based rebellion rather than a true Civil War.
     
  12. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    You are mixing 2 very different things here. And the only succesful thing required is that the old government be overthrown, nothing in the definition of a revolution insists that something else take it's place.

    In fact, I think I would have a very valid claim that most succesful revolutions come from the military, and have little to no involvement of the "middle class" at all. I can give you pages of examples of this happening, and they already have the infrastructure in place as well.

    And most of the others all to often rise from the lower classes. Nobody can realistically claim that the "Communist Revolutions" are from the Middle Class. Other then 1 or 2 charismatic leaders, the majority of the membership in the revolutionaries are from the bottom of the economic ladder.
     
  13. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    A successful revolution is one that actually changes the country for the better, as opposed to just a revolution; the American Revolution is an example of a successful revolution, your average African revolution isn't, they are merely changes in leadership, and end up being worse than what they changed. The Communist revolutions were not successful revolutions, they merely exchanged one dictator for another, in effect not real revolutions, just a period of anarchy with just another repressive status quo imposed.

    Nobody claimed the Russian Revolution was led by the middle class; the middle classes in most countries tend toward the kind of liberalism expressed in the various European struggles against the aristocracy and the American Revolution. The Reformation is an example of a middle class led revolution, or a series of revolutions, actually, that would fall into the successful category.

    I will add that the military is part of the middle class in most countries, particularly in South American, Africa, and most of Asia.
     

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