Does America Need A Revolution?

[Her]

No, I don't think I need to. It's up to you in how you would like to respond. If you believe that America needs a Republican revolution, then yes, you believe America needs a revolution. If you believe that America needs a communist revolution, then yes, you believe America needs a revolution. If you believe that America needs a black revolution, then yes, you believe America needs a revolution.

The question is if America needs a revolution and it's not clear from your answer if you think yes or no.

Very well then!

There's already a Republican revolution of sorts happening - but the exact opposite of the 1980s renaissance conservatives still get dreamy-eyed over. One where the dwindling moderates can't do any realistic damage control as they can't pin their excesses of their beliefs on some fringe radicals, this total exposure of their core voters true beliefs leaving the GOP in a precarious balance regardless of the election outcome. It's interesting to see Reagan's name invoked almost religiously when his excesses are somewhat (key word is somewhat) moderate compared to the unrestrained fanaticism the remaining candidates and their followers seem to have. Nancy certainly checked out at an crucial watershed moment for her party.

I've been typing and deleting things for what seems like an hour because I can't exactly put into words or even agree on where to start for an American revolution. Certainly not an armed one in any case, any attempt at that will be swiftly destroyed by the army and will only give cause for more repressive crackdowns/justification for things like the Patriot Act.
I think the best place to start is dealing with the biggest tinderbox in America right now - institutionalised racial injustice (the police system, prison-industrial complex, certain voting laws, etc) and how Americans interact with and react to that. As we've seen repeatedly over the last couple of years, tensions have risen to a point that cannot be ignored or put down to 'angry black people' as is so often done. I don't think America can claim any progress until it has made revolutionary changes to how it deals with its oldest and most persistent sin.

 

[Somewhere_]

America needs a Voluntaryist revolution, but not a violent one. Only a peaceful revolution that slowly changes everything. Anything else would result in a new government, more of the same, or complete anarchy.

But this isn't possible at the moment, but hopefully sometime in the future.

 

[gimmepie]

Does the US need a revolution? No.
Does the US need reform? Definitely.

The political system in the US is very convoluted, especially elections, and it's that convoluted system that allows for people to completely wall things like supreme court elections and allows ridiculous extremists like Donald Trump to get enough momentum going for their campaigns to become an actual threat.

 

[KorpiklaaniVodka]

For now, I think America needs a massive reform, especially the external politics and the corporate issue.

If Trump wins however... then maybe.

 

[Her]

I was just casually reading some things that Scalia opposed/supported before he died and one thing I found interesting (and something I surprisingly agreed with considering he's bloody Scalia) was that before we can consider amending the Constitution for the better, we need to amend the amendment process itself. That in itself would be a revolution considering the near-impossibility of passing an amendment in the first place, let alone one that would allow for an easier passage to get through further amendments.

https://www.slate.com/articles/news...tion_is_much_too_hard_blame_the_founders.html

Slate puts it into far better terms than I ever could.

 

[Livewire]

America needs a revolution in the sense that it needs to reject extremism, bigotry, xenophobia, income inequality, and putting convenience and the status-quo before the right thing to do. So basically, it needs to revolt from Donald Trump and his kind of rhetoric.

 

[Sir Codin]

I can't help but love this.

The way you all are reacting. It's beautiful. It's a sign that everything will soon break down and crash. Good. It was bound to happen anyway; might as well get it over with so we can all move on and maybe create something better once the rubble has been swept away.

Revolution is inevitable. Sanders and Gary Johnson are two of the best chances this country has at greatness (for different reasons from each other, though), but let's be realistic: Gary is too libertarian to be elected and Sanders, while he may have a chance, offers a social system that America is just not ready for. It's going to come down to Hillary and Trump. Evil vs Evil. As it always has been, but it won't end well. Not this time.

Does anyone from Canada or Netherlands want a roommate?

 

[Dusty]

I don't think that America needs a straight up revolution, but it certainly needs reform, as Pie said earlier. And honestly, I don't see that reform coming until it all collapses. The average democratic republic lasts for 200-250 years, and we're just about there, and it sure seems like America is on a general decline when it comes to the government. At some point, it'll collapse. Then out of the ashes, something else will be formed, and that'll be the new America.

But lets be honest, a revolution would never work. Revolutions worked in the past because the people were able to get relatively equal resources. In the 1770s America had muskets and ships, just the same as Britain. In the 1800s those behind the French Revolution had just as many muskets as the government. But now? You could get a hand gun, maybe a semi-auto rifle. The government on the other hand, has tanks, jets, bombs, drones, etc. You would have to have a huge split in the military itself to have a revolution, otherwise the resources just aren't there.

 

[Kanzler]

But lets be honest, a revolution would never work. Revolutions worked in the past because the people were able to get relatively equal resources. In the 1770s America had muskets and ships, just the same as Britain. In the 1800s those behind the French Revolution had just as many muskets as the government. But now? You could get a hand gun, maybe a semi-auto rifle. The government on the other hand, has tanks, jets, bombs, drones, etc. You would have to have a huge split in the military itself to have a revolution, otherwise the resources just aren't there.

To be quite honest, I think the military men and women of the United States are more loyal to the people than to any government figure and body.

 

[Ivysaur]

It will be white republicans vs. a blue government Mexicans, Negroes, liberals and whatever portion of the military does not defect. Republicans would win. Democrats have high numbers but their states are geographically isolated, the people are unfamiliar with effective firearm use and Dem policies have alienated large chunks of the military. To counter this they want to zerg with even more Mexicans through unchecked immigration and erode the 2nd amendment so the opposition population is disarmed.

What? It's funny, but, as it turns out, there are slightly more non-whites in the army than in the US population as a whole. And not every white is a Republican. Also, except perhaps in really lopsided zones (say, the DC, where there are barely any republicans, about 4% of the population, less than Asians), every state has at last a 30% share of every party, plus people who don't vote but will "take a side". Also "Mexicans" for hispanics and "Negroes" is a terminology that... yeah. Also a pretty idiotic stereotyping.

Social issues will fuel the fire but the actual ignition of conflict will be a massive economic crash. Apathy is too strong a deterrent when the system still works, we've seen in South Africa with whites that even if you're being murdered and have to drive to work in an armoured car you still have a job and a family to feed so people either flee or retreat to gated communities. No job and poverty = fight, especially since polarization is continuing further than what it was in 2008.

Well, the 2008 economic crash didn't cause any civil war. It's far more complex than it seems.

Does America need a revolution, civil war or large scale unrest? No, that will be terrible for the country, lots of people will die. What's needed is the cessation of globalization and importation of foreigners to drive down wages, as well as constant politically correct censorship and Marxist agenda pushing. That won't happen so I see civil war as inevitable.

Ignoring the Fox-News-stupid non-argument of "marxist agenda", I'll put it in a different way.

First of all, ending globalisation means that you are advocating for inflation. Because the upside of importing cheap products is... that you buy cheaper products! So consumers save money. If you have to buy inefficient US produce (because you can't make every good with 100% efficiency, sorry to tell you) instead, you'l be paying more for the same. And perhaps some people's wages would go up as they start selling more expensive goods by banning the competition- but the rest would see their purchasing power go down as they have to pay more for the same things. And that's not really very capitalistic.

Second, the real challenge is not just the "importation of foreigners". Foreigners won't "plummet wages" indefinitely as they need to earn a US living wage too in order to pay US prices now that they live in the US. They might be used to scraping by with lower salaries in their countries whre stuff is cheaper, but if you move to Illinois, I'm afraid you can't afford to ask for a "Mexican" salary, because you can't pay "Mexican" prices for food or clothing any more- you need to pay Illinois prices. Plus there are laws guaranteeing that every worker will make at least a certain amount of money per hour, so you can import as many foreigners you want, the salaries won't go any lower.

On top of it, salaries heavily depend on how you can compete too. I have two degrees in Journalism and I'm studying for a masters in Economics. I work writing analysis on the situation of American countries, like say, the near-collapse of the US shale oil industry or the current political upheaval in Brazil. If a wave of poor Romanians, Moroccans or Syrians comes here, I doubt any of them would be able to out-compete me on my field and drive my salary down. I have Mexican friends who speak impeccable English and have several degrees in engineering. If they move to the US, I doubt they'll be driving anybody's wages down- if anything, they'll be helping the US companies that are trying to recruit top talent to compete against other high-end companies.

And that goes on. If you are a qualified doctor, or scientist, or programmer, or lawyer, or actor -anything that requires knowledge, ability and qualification-, the chances of a random poor migrant coming in and outcompeting you through wages are close to zero. Who can be outcompeted? Minimum wage workers (whose wages can't go any lower anyway), or manual, routine-job blue-collar workers who are but cogs in a machine. You have two options, of course: either educating your workforce so they become something closer to engineers or creators, or taking the illiberal route of banning the importation of foreign labour. Will that fix everything? I'm afraid not, because the mid-20th century dream of a middle class of blue collar workers is nearing its end because of a simple reason: robots. If you artificially increase worker prices by banning competition, who is to say that the companies will not choose to buy machines instead, if they are cheaper over a long run? If deliverymen become too expensive to hire, a drone can do their job. If a cashier becomes too expensive, you can buy a check-out machine. If a worker in a car-making chain becomes too expensive, you can replace him with a robot and leave just two guys in maintenance. The real competition for routine, low-skill jobs is not foreigners, but robots.

And what happens if you ban immigration, ban robots and ban foreign imports of cheaper products? That consumer prices will shoot upwards, as you are essentially forcing companies to pay more for their workforce, which will be reflected in prices. And, of course, that will essentially destroy the ability of US exporters to compete abroad- that is, if any other country is ready to buy US produce after the US refused to buy anything produced abroad. In short, you'd be strangling the US economy with those steps. And the trust in US debt depends on the dollar being a commodity in itself. If the country chooses to isolate itself, the whole system will collapse, taking the entire economy along.

foreign intervention against a government seen as tyrannical.

In case you were wondering, I think that the only humans beings in the world who see the US Government as tyrannical are precisely a minor but fairly vocal part of the US population. If there was an uprising against the current, legitimate US Government, any foreign countries jumping in would do so to defend it, not to fight it (except perhaps actual tyrannies like Russia or China).

 

[Kanzler]

There will not be a revolution, there will be a civil war.

It will be white republicans vs. a blue government Mexicans, Negroes, liberals and whatever portion of the military does not defect. Republicans would win. Democrats have high numbers but their states are geographically isolated, the people are unfamiliar with effective firearm use and Dem policies have alienated large chunks of the military. To counter this they want to zerg with even more Mexicans through unchecked immigration and erode the 2nd amendment so the opposition population is disarmed.

Social issues will fuel the fire but the actual ignition of conflict will be a massive economic crash. Apathy is too strong a deterrent when the system still works, we've seen in South Africa with whites that even if you're being murdered and have to drive to work in an armoured car you still have a job and a family to feed so people either flee or retreat to gated communities. No job and poverty = fight, especially since polarization is continuing further than what it was in 2008.

Does America need a revolution, civil war or large scale unrest? No, that will be terrible for the country, lots of people will die. What's needed is the cessation of globalization and importation of foreigners to drive down wages, as well as constant politically correct censorship and Marxist agenda pushing. That won't happen so I see civil war as inevitable.

Also, the military cannot quash a large scale internal uprising for the following reasons: Desertion, the vast nature of the U.S spreading forces thin, the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare as seen Vietnam and Afghanistan, depletion of industrial production from rebel areas and foreign intervention against a government seen as tyrannical.

I don't think that's likely. The only people who would be closest to igniting a civil war would be economically marginalized, low-information, nativist whites, who make up only a fraction of Republican party support. I don't know how many moderate (relatively) Republicans could handle a party that pays increasingly close attention to economically marginalized, low-information, nativist interests and rhetoric.

According to this:

It looks like there is indeed a split in gun ownership according to party lines. But notice that independents (who don't identify as Republicans, but might well vote Republican) also have low rates of gun ownership. And not all of those who identify as Republicans are Trumpists.

I think Americans who would fire on other Americans would be seen as traitors. I don't think those who would advocate for or start a civil war would have much sympathy from everybody else, to be honest. A lot of Americans might think that the country is heading down a very wrong path, but they would never take to arms over it because they have common decency. The fear is that if more people become radicalized and no longer see violence against a fellow countrymen as treason, those civilized standards that uphold the republic and the common peace will be gone. But I think that's highly unlikely given the reasons above.

 

[RegalSin]

Well we need to think about anti-privacy, freedom of expression. I am not talking about stupid youtube I am talking about the internet before myspace and before facebook. When it was normal and those who was some what educated had a right to do whatever they want in there own privacy. We have so many rights issues ( again against men because that is where it matters the most ) that is destroying or preventing families from being built. The list goes on and on. It is all terrible. As with what Snowden said. Anti-privacy needs to become non-exsitence. It is part of what is holding the US back and causing problems. Before anti-privacy my life was happy and free now I feel like a monk in a monistary no matter where I go. I blame womanist primarily or anybody in those circles. The problem is racist households or households with selfish individuals who are feeding the problems.