Couldn’t have said it better. This is the piece, like several songs I’ve heard in my life, that I wish had written myself. I have taken several stabs at it in various comments but never finished the job. Thus, thank you.
I’d add 1.5 observations. (1) The three conditions of voidable consent, pattern, and exhaustion may not be formally met and yet still be satisfied. The state governments, for example, could continue to exist in name only without actually being federalized, as the judiciary could still interpret the Constitution in a way that completely undermines and distorts its meaning without being technically stripped of jurisdiction, and as the media could effectively be muzzled algorithmically or through other more or less invisible means which technology or artificial intelligence makes available. I’m reminded here of a quotation from 2014 by Tom Carter of the World Socialist Website, commenting on the Anwar al-Awlaki case:
“Judge Collyer’s ruling underscores the danger, now well advanced, of the establishment of a police state in the United States. As the World Socialist Web Site has previously warned, de facto dictatorial rule could be implemented in America while changing little in terms of America’s current institutions, legal doctrines and personnel. The same judges could sit on the same benches, the same reporters could appear on the same nightly news shows, and the same politicians could sit in the same offices.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights would perhaps remain sealed behind museum glass without being formally abolished, but these documents would simply cease to have any practical relevance in the new pseudo-legal framework of death panels, total surveillance, ‘state secrets,’ ‘qualified immunity,’ ‘deference to the executive in wartime,’ ‘kill lists,’ the ‘global war on terror,’ and ‘balancing’ democratic rights against ‘national security.’”
I realize the danger of allowing this relatively imprecise state of affairs to warrant a violent revolution, but clever enough people in power who are bent on sustaining their rule have attempted, and will continue to attempt, to make it appear, primarily through “interpretation” and transversal cooperation across the three supposedly adversarial branches, as if all of the regular constitutional and juridical mechanisms of the law and valid legislation still function when they no longer do. Revolution would be just as morally justified then as it would be in the openly tyrannical case, although it might be more difficult to devise a theoretical justification. In any case, the revolutionary threshold will likely be reached through some amalgam of the standard-issue tyrannies of the past and these types of informal intolerable encroachments.
(.5) the technological circumstances are different now than they were at the time of Locke and Jefferson. This factor cannot be overlooked by defaulting to familiar revolutionary ideas. With sufficient sophistication, technology could make a traditional revolution impossible.
Robotic police ”dogs”, for example, have been in development for a while and have already been deployed as trial balloons at major public events like the World Cup, along with warm and fuzzy propaganda about how allegedly cute these menaces are. Ditto drones, AI, and universal surveillance.
Technology is an independent factor which qualitatively changes the revolutionary calculation and the rate at which a revolutionary judgment in the liberal tradition must be made. It must be confronted separately as a stand-alone informal threat to add to (1) above which could seep unnoticed into life (if it hasn’t already done so) to such a degree that it will dispense with the prospect of the withdrawal of consent - which would be rendered obsolete given sufficiently pervasive infiltration.
I'm afraid we are closer to exhaustion than we are willing to admit because the population that needs to understand these thresholds have been forcibly made ignorant and the goal of the fascists is to trigger violence to justify violence. I hope I'm wrong but hope is not a strategy.
Thank you. As always I appreciate the breakdown you provide and the anchor to reality your posts provide. I truly appreciate the thought, effort, and insight that goes into producing these notes. Im curious if theres a threshold of people or states that rescind the ability to redress grievances via the justice ir legislative system. Some states already severely restrict their citizens rights and cooperate with illegal and unethical federal guidelines and have horrendous judges and AGs corrupting their justice systems and one party controlled election systems. How many people or states have to qualify as exhausted for the threshold to be met? Its a completely rhetorical question and im thinking of women in parts of this country who effectively have less rights, no true opportunity for redress (per their states legislative and justice systems and the current state of the federal legislative and justice systems), and are dying from this setup. Don't those rounded up by ICE meet the exhausted and patterned criteria?
Excellent exposition! I agree that all peaceful means have not yet quite been exhausted, but watching thousands of poor souls locked away, sent to third countries or killed, citizens garnering 100 yr sentences for just being there, the environment being stripped for wealth, our country sold for parts, our institutions and government buildings destroyed etc. I for one am already exhausted. How much longer can we wait? How much more destruction of our legacy will it take, before it is way too late?
This framework for a duty of rebellion seems to assume violence is the only alternative to acquiescence. Advocates for nonviolent revolution argue that revolution can be achieved through nonviolent means, even after exhaustion of constitutional mechanisms for redress, and with the objective of entirely replacing a tyrannical government. They further argue that revolutions made through nonviolent means are more likely to produce a just and stable new government than has typically been produced by violent revolutionary actions. When the thresholds proposed here are finally crossed, advocates for nonviolent revolution will say, "no weapons are needed now, because nonviolent methods cost less, are more likely to succeed, and they produce better outcomes." Can a rationale for political violence be sufficient and complete without addressing the possibility of nonviolent revolution?
Thank you for this cogent post! I wonder if a nonviolent revolution is possible in the current climate of discontent & violence against our citizenry. I agree that the exhaustion condition has not been met, but I fear that it is closer than we'd like to think it is.
The American public has been poorly educated in most subjects for decades now, our attention spans shortened by design, and our tolerance for violence, be it physical or verbal, increased by multiple platforms and actors. I admit it ~ I'm both anxious and fearful about our ability, as a nation, to make it through this stage in our lives in a rational, nonviolent fashion.
Good idea to take this on, Mike. And beautifully done. We need to always think through totemic statements to make sure we really know what we’re saying.
To simply ask what would I do if our suffering is too great is a question fraught with confusion and anxiety. The criteria you have articulated if clearly met would then give me the conviction and courage to act.
What is the difference between an openly cancelled election and an election that is so thoroughly undermined through gerrymandering, federal meddling in the electoral process, and ICE intimidation that the results cannot be considered legitimate?
One of my favorite books of all time is by the irreplaceable Dr. Seuss called “Yertl the Turtle”. In it the turtle king climbs on the backs of his turtle subjects, one on top of another on top of the other, higher and higher until the throne collapses of its own weight and instability. But what triggers the collapse is one poor turtle at the bottom of the stack. This turtle, named Mac, confronts the king with a great speech! After acknowledging that the king does indeed oversee great territory, he says that “down at the bottom we too should have rights.”
It’s only a children’s book, meant to convey good values and behavior, not a book of philosophy or ethics. And yet, for many years now I have wanted to see a copy of this book to every member of congress. Maybe now’s the time
Couldn’t have said it better. This is the piece, like several songs I’ve heard in my life, that I wish had written myself. I have taken several stabs at it in various comments but never finished the job. Thus, thank you.
I’d add 1.5 observations. (1) The three conditions of voidable consent, pattern, and exhaustion may not be formally met and yet still be satisfied. The state governments, for example, could continue to exist in name only without actually being federalized, as the judiciary could still interpret the Constitution in a way that completely undermines and distorts its meaning without being technically stripped of jurisdiction, and as the media could effectively be muzzled algorithmically or through other more or less invisible means which technology or artificial intelligence makes available. I’m reminded here of a quotation from 2014 by Tom Carter of the World Socialist Website, commenting on the Anwar al-Awlaki case:
“Judge Collyer’s ruling underscores the danger, now well advanced, of the establishment of a police state in the United States. As the World Socialist Web Site has previously warned, de facto dictatorial rule could be implemented in America while changing little in terms of America’s current institutions, legal doctrines and personnel. The same judges could sit on the same benches, the same reporters could appear on the same nightly news shows, and the same politicians could sit in the same offices.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights would perhaps remain sealed behind museum glass without being formally abolished, but these documents would simply cease to have any practical relevance in the new pseudo-legal framework of death panels, total surveillance, ‘state secrets,’ ‘qualified immunity,’ ‘deference to the executive in wartime,’ ‘kill lists,’ the ‘global war on terror,’ and ‘balancing’ democratic rights against ‘national security.’”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/04/07/cour-a07.html
I realize the danger of allowing this relatively imprecise state of affairs to warrant a violent revolution, but clever enough people in power who are bent on sustaining their rule have attempted, and will continue to attempt, to make it appear, primarily through “interpretation” and transversal cooperation across the three supposedly adversarial branches, as if all of the regular constitutional and juridical mechanisms of the law and valid legislation still function when they no longer do. Revolution would be just as morally justified then as it would be in the openly tyrannical case, although it might be more difficult to devise a theoretical justification. In any case, the revolutionary threshold will likely be reached through some amalgam of the standard-issue tyrannies of the past and these types of informal intolerable encroachments.
(.5) the technological circumstances are different now than they were at the time of Locke and Jefferson. This factor cannot be overlooked by defaulting to familiar revolutionary ideas. With sufficient sophistication, technology could make a traditional revolution impossible.
Robotic police ”dogs”, for example, have been in development for a while and have already been deployed as trial balloons at major public events like the World Cup, along with warm and fuzzy propaganda about how allegedly cute these menaces are. Ditto drones, AI, and universal surveillance.
Technology is an independent factor which qualitatively changes the revolutionary calculation and the rate at which a revolutionary judgment in the liberal tradition must be made. It must be confronted separately as a stand-alone informal threat to add to (1) above which could seep unnoticed into life (if it hasn’t already done so) to such a degree that it will dispense with the prospect of the withdrawal of consent - which would be rendered obsolete given sufficiently pervasive infiltration.
I'm afraid we are closer to exhaustion than we are willing to admit because the population that needs to understand these thresholds have been forcibly made ignorant and the goal of the fascists is to trigger violence to justify violence. I hope I'm wrong but hope is not a strategy.
It's not the worst precursor to a strategy, though!
Thank you. As always I appreciate the breakdown you provide and the anchor to reality your posts provide. I truly appreciate the thought, effort, and insight that goes into producing these notes. Im curious if theres a threshold of people or states that rescind the ability to redress grievances via the justice ir legislative system. Some states already severely restrict their citizens rights and cooperate with illegal and unethical federal guidelines and have horrendous judges and AGs corrupting their justice systems and one party controlled election systems. How many people or states have to qualify as exhausted for the threshold to be met? Its a completely rhetorical question and im thinking of women in parts of this country who effectively have less rights, no true opportunity for redress (per their states legislative and justice systems and the current state of the federal legislative and justice systems), and are dying from this setup. Don't those rounded up by ICE meet the exhausted and patterned criteria?
My thoughts exactly.
Excellent exposition! I agree that all peaceful means have not yet quite been exhausted, but watching thousands of poor souls locked away, sent to third countries or killed, citizens garnering 100 yr sentences for just being there, the environment being stripped for wealth, our country sold for parts, our institutions and government buildings destroyed etc. I for one am already exhausted. How much longer can we wait? How much more destruction of our legacy will it take, before it is way too late?
This framework for a duty of rebellion seems to assume violence is the only alternative to acquiescence. Advocates for nonviolent revolution argue that revolution can be achieved through nonviolent means, even after exhaustion of constitutional mechanisms for redress, and with the objective of entirely replacing a tyrannical government. They further argue that revolutions made through nonviolent means are more likely to produce a just and stable new government than has typically been produced by violent revolutionary actions. When the thresholds proposed here are finally crossed, advocates for nonviolent revolution will say, "no weapons are needed now, because nonviolent methods cost less, are more likely to succeed, and they produce better outcomes." Can a rationale for political violence be sufficient and complete without addressing the possibility of nonviolent revolution?
Thank you for this cogent post! I wonder if a nonviolent revolution is possible in the current climate of discontent & violence against our citizenry. I agree that the exhaustion condition has not been met, but I fear that it is closer than we'd like to think it is.
The American public has been poorly educated in most subjects for decades now, our attention spans shortened by design, and our tolerance for violence, be it physical or verbal, increased by multiple platforms and actors. I admit it ~ I'm both anxious and fearful about our ability, as a nation, to make it through this stage in our lives in a rational, nonviolent fashion.
Agreed! Indeed. Let me add my voice to the chorus of "THIS!" Very glad I read this piece to the end.
Good idea to take this on, Mike. And beautifully done. We need to always think through totemic statements to make sure we really know what we’re saying.
To simply ask what would I do if our suffering is too great is a question fraught with confusion and anxiety. The criteria you have articulated if clearly met would then give me the conviction and courage to act.
A little ahead but along similar lines:
https://www.popehat.com/p/we-should-talk-about-the-morality-of-political-violence
Thank you for all the thought and work you put into this. I always thought I was a pacifist. You’ve made me understand that, when necessary, I am not.
What is the difference between an openly cancelled election and an election that is so thoroughly undermined through gerrymandering, federal meddling in the electoral process, and ICE intimidation that the results cannot be considered legitimate?
One of my favorite books of all time is by the irreplaceable Dr. Seuss called “Yertl the Turtle”. In it the turtle king climbs on the backs of his turtle subjects, one on top of another on top of the other, higher and higher until the throne collapses of its own weight and instability. But what triggers the collapse is one poor turtle at the bottom of the stack. This turtle, named Mac, confronts the king with a great speech! After acknowledging that the king does indeed oversee great territory, he says that “down at the bottom we too should have rights.”
It’s only a children’s book, meant to convey good values and behavior, not a book of philosophy or ethics. And yet, for many years now I have wanted to see a copy of this book to every member of congress. Maybe now’s the time
Include Rumpelstiltkin’s daughter for economics lesson.
Yours is truly " the smile of reason" and may my enraged soul be led by it.
Surely the coming theft and corruption of the Midterms would be that THRESHOLD?
Then what!
I agree with you 100%. Well reasoned and sourced.
I agree with this totally.