Another Patriot Father's Dilemma - Is the fight justified?

My previous thread on this topic ( A PAtriot Father's Dilemma - What would you do? ) has raised another, separate question. In that thread, I am writing about being willing to fight a potentially oppressive government. One poster objects to the idea that I should feel justified in fighting what may in fact be a democratically elected regime.

So, if there is a country with a constitution based on the principles of individual liberty and limited government, and the people of that country use their votes to elect governments who abuse their powers and limit liberty while empowering the government, all to the point of extinguishing the original intent of the framers of the constitution, are those citizens who are respectful of the original intent justified in fighting the elected government?

In other words, if freedom fighters are to stand against a majority who prefer slavery, can they claim noble intent, or are they foisting a repression of sorts upon the majority?

reply to post by Grumble


hi grumble
with our freedoms secreted away the state of play will entail picking the dissenters off one by one, possibly on unrelated charges and with the stigma of being a home grown terrorist. i feel once you raise your head above the swamp gas you will be picked off with all sorts of unending future problems. i say inform and educate your kids as much as you can on all manner of knowledge. i feel this situation has but just started and is by no means in the bag. it is for the governments of the world to be held accountable to it's peoples. that said the more who are informed the better. bear in mind that all governments have an enemy within as well as without. stay fast and watch it develop.

Although I continue to consider outright civil insurrection a justifiable option, and a very ugly one at that.. I'm starting to come around to the idea that maybe we should start by fighting economically....no longer feeding the machine...simply opt out as much as possible...the "bogslife" (beyond organization/government systems) as George Ure puts it...The current system only exists because we actively support it....If we actively withdraw our support, the system implodes on itself (this may happen anyway].....Of course, TPTB will not go quietly into the good night, and scarifices will be made..but without our massive economic contributions, if a physical contest does evolve, the playing field has been somewhat leveled.

This touches upon, perhaps, what I consider one of the most important and telling questions in contemporary political theory...

...America is a Liberal Democracy.

Liberalism and Democracy are complimentary, but also opposing ideologies.

Liberalism is the pursuit of one's individual right; most importantly and simply defined as the right to pursue one's own beliefs and potential(Positive Liberty), unfettered by the constraints of others(Negative Liberty)...(See Isaiah Berlin "Two Concepts of Liberty", A VERY influential bit of political theory.)

Democracy is of course, a form of government where the majority of the citizens, in essence, are responsible for holding state-power....we all know this...in America of course, we are charged with electing officials who, in theory, will "represent" our collective will...IE Representative Democracy.

Now, here we see that Liberalism is focused on the individual and Democracy is focused on the collective.

Additionally, thanks to the work of economist and political theorists, such as Joseph Schumpeter(who's most influential work is "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy"), Leo Strauss(one of the forefathers of the Neo-Conservative movement, and teacher of Paul Wolfowitz(former Bush DoD executive, current President of the World Bank, and former member of the now defunct, relatively PNAC) and Allan Bloom(a very significant contemporary right-wing political theorist and academic), Milton Friedman, and a fair few others...economic liberalism has become the main focus of the political thought surrounding liberalism.

Also, over the past century, contemporary politics has seen the shifting of the emphasis in our understanding of Liberal Democracy from having a fairly equal balance of focus between the democratic and the liberal to the a conceptualization of "Liberal Democracy" in which Liberalism, primarily economic liberalism in the form of an emphasis on capitalism/comercialism, has gained the upper hand, or completely usurped the Democratic" aspects of the overall political ideology...the Post-Cold War era has furthered this shift, as any form of collective ideals get labeled as "socialist" or "Communist"...

So, to tie it to the OP's question...to me, it seems that the "Patriots", in their pursuit of liberalism, or the rights of the individual over the responsibility to the public or, as they tend to put it, the pursuit of "smaller government and fewer taxes"...these "Patriots" are not so much attempting to repress the majority as much as they are, rather, further promoting the liberal aspects of our particular political system to the determent, or complete ignorance, of the democratic...

Originally posted by madhatr137

So, to tie it to the OP's question...to me, it seems that the "Patriots", in their pursuit of liberalism, or the rights of the individual over the responsibility to the public or, as they tend to put it, the pursuit of "smaller government and fewer taxes"...these "Patriots" are not so much attempting to repress the majority as much as they are, rather, further promoting the liberal aspects of our particular political system to the determent, or complete ignorance, of the democratic...

And so you're suggesting what? If our current "liberal democracy" is no longer responding to the will of the majority of its citizens, what is it you suggest?.....that we all need to go out and vote harder? No, I completely and utterly disagree with your premise...The founding documents set up a representative democracy...not a nation of democratic representatives...and when the government is no longer representing the people, (and I challenge you to make a case that we ARE being properly represented) then we (the citizenry) have every RIGHT and an absolute DUTY to remove and replace it...by whatever means necessary..

I disagree that the government is not representing the will of the people. Perhaps I feel that way because I work with the general public in a middle American city, and the ignorance and stupidity of the average person repeatedly astounds me.

It seems to me that this idea of representative democracy became less obedient to the ideals of the Enlightenment and the Founding Fathers as two shifts occurred. Firstly, over time voting rights were extended to more people, many of whom had neither the background nor the motivation to support the greater good. Secondly, the industrial revolution rendered greater and greater numbers of people essentially useless to our society, or at least not directly connected to the making of profits.

So, I suppose you could say that the government is responsive to the median voter, and that voter is clueless, useless, and self-absorbed. So does one accept the judgment of that voter out of deference to the constitution even if he chooses to give away his power (and yours), or does one become an enemy of the state?

reply to post by Grumble



The FEDERAL government has lost ALL touch with the will of its taxpayers (care to rebut this statement?)....and yes, they are counting on the majority to follow along with their lies...without idiots blindly supporting them, they fail and they know it.....my whole point, before the political science 101 rant, was that maybe the easiest way to force the Federal Government to comply with the Constitution...is simply to not support the Fed machine anymore...let it starve...We the people are MUCH stronger collectively than any government (yes, even with all their firepower) and they know that too...I just don't think it has to come to bullets flying in DC...

The FEDERAL government has lost ALL touch with the will of its taxpayers (care to rebut this statement?)....and yes, they are counting on the majority to follow along with their lies...without idiots blindly supporting them, they fail and they know it.....my whole point, before the political science 101 rant, was that maybe the easiest way to force the Federal Government to comply with the Constitution...is simply to not support the Fed machine anymore...let it starve...We the people are MUCH stronger collectively than any government (yes, even with all their firepower) and they know that too...I just don't think it has to come to bullets flying in DC...

Very well said...politicians are the most disgusting rats on the face of this planet.

first i'm going to say if a band of rebels get together and by some act of god they take over the government do you think they would know a thing about political process worldwide. Africa for example has had many of "freedom fighters" who steal power and what happens to the country.. it begins to tear itself apart from the inside. The people in power of america now have been elected by its citizens. You disagree with someones policies then you run and enact your policies. We elect these people because its a job we cant do our selves. You think if someone like rush limbaugh or sean hannity were elected president theyd have one clue about politics or about foreign relations. No. (I chose those names because they are average guys with an aoppinion which is what this "resistance being discussed on the other board would be.) This countries system is set up so that no one group can have power for too long because they arent the supreme rulers of the country. Imagine if america wasnt founded on a democratic process. Do you think the Bush/Cheyney administration would have given up their power? hell no. If it wasnt for our countries sense of democracy we would be living under a constant dictatorship. Imagine King George Bush and the long line of family heirs. (Which would include Jeb). If you dont like who represents you start a petion to vote them out but it also means that you yourself would need to become extremely involved in finding the canidate who represents you and hopefully many others. Though this country is one for personal freedoms it is a group effort. So instead of insisting on "revolution" or violence perhaps we should works together to make it work. "AMERICA - A WORK IN PROGRESS" - ME

Originally posted by RolandBrichter
And so you're suggesting what? If our current "liberal democracy" is no longer responding to the will of the majority of its citizens, what is it you suggest?.....that we all need to go out and vote harder?

Well, we do have an incredibly low annual turnout for elections...vote harder...no, vote more, yes...

Or more people could, I don't know, run for election...do a better job at putting together grassroots political movements...not the extremist kind...but real, thought out efforts to get third parties into a position to actually matter in politics.

But of course, that's too difficult, right? I mean, its far easier to launch a armed Revolution than it is to actually get a honest cultural/political dialogue going right?

The founding documents set up a representative democracy...not a nation of democratic representatives...and when the government is no longer representing the people, (and I challenge you to make a case that we ARE being properly represented) then we (the citizenry) have every RIGHT and an absolute DUTY to remove and replace it...by whatever means necessary..

You can challenge me to make the case that we are being properly represented, but that is not a case that I have ever intended to make...do the Democrats represent all of the left? No. Do the Republicans represent all of the Right? No.

I would posit that no matter how many times and with how many revolutions and rebellions, if we keep pressing reset on the system...or following the "Patriot/Constitutionalist" agenda...we will continue to not be represented in politics, because the system is corrupted and we have outgrown the system in which we function as a society...but that is a completely different subject altogether.

Originally posted by madhatr137

Or more people could, I don't know, run for election...do a better job at putting together grassroots political movements...not the extremist kind...but real, thought out efforts to get third parties into a position to actually matter in politics.

But of course, that's too difficult, right? I mean, its far easier to launch a armed Revolution than it is to actually get a honest cultural/political dialogue going right?

Therein lies the whole issue...Any third party that HAS tried to pry its way into this political mess is IMMEDIATELY labelled "extremest" by those who are threatened by their argument... It's not a right or left issue here...both of those "parties" are simply extensions of the same machine...Therefore, yes, rebellion is what I recommend, although I'm not convinced that it has to be violent, as stated above...and only so far as the Federal power is returned to the original configuration of the Constitution

We elect these people because its a job we cant do our selves

...and you really think these people are doing their job?

the situation this country and the world are in is a big mess. I think that when put into that type of situation you are going to do the best you can as quickly as you can. It may not work in 2 seconds it takes time. So do i think they are doing the best they can yes. They are doing the best with what they have to work with. This is all our country so we all have to help support it. It may be ugly for a minute or so but when we get out of it i bet youll be happier than a pig in #.

[edit on 17-5-2009 by SchefSalad]