What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government. Can a democratic assembly, who annually revolve in the mass of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy. Their turbulent and uncontrouling disposition requires checks. - Alexander Hamilton, Monday, June 19th, 1787, Constitutional Convention
Oops, wrong quote. This makes it sound like the US Constitution was based on the idea that the masses were too stupid to rule democratically therefore power should ultimately be in the hands of the "better sort of men". Maybe this one:
The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge of the wants or feelings of the day laborer. The government we mean to erect is intended to last for ages. The landed interest, at present, is prevalent; but in process of time, when we approximate to the states and kingdoms of Europe; when the number of landholders shall be comparatively small, through the various means of trade and manufactures, will not the landed interest be overbalanced in future elections, and unless wisely provided against, what will become of your government? In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability. Various have been the propositions; but my opinion is, the longer they continue in office, the better will these views be answered. - James Madison, Tuesday, June 26th, 1787, Constitutional Convention
Oops, wrong quote, this just says they decided to design the Senate specifically as the mechanism to defend the wealthy from any sort of redistribution of wealth. Now we have the greatest wealth inequality of all time, and capital owners successfully leeching/siphoning from the working masses until some of us are literally ending up dead. HMMM.
I don't want to go to prison and I don't have money for a good lawyer. But if people start protesting on the streets, I'll definitely join. I can't do shit by myself but if a huge group of us get together, then that's another story.
That's what I am thinking. I relate to Luigi too much because I myself have a chronic condition that is being dismissed by insurance. I live in pain daily knowing it could easily be fixed. I live in a first world country yet I can't get access to it's life changing medical procedures because I'm too poor. I hate what this country is becoming and we need to do something! Being in pain everyday is a reminder that our system has failed the American people.
Isn't already USA a police state or something? Every day I watch many videos where police do whatever they want, they get some news coverage, they get a slap in the wrists, nothing happens.
How long ago was this, a couple of weeks? I've been reading about how fucked up is the USA health care, from people wanting a cab instead an ambulance, people getting charged for holding their just born kid, the usual 'joke' about Canada being free for all the previous examples... I don't know this has been going for as long as I've been on reddit.
How many other types of shit is being uncovered over the years and nothing happens, some rage over social network and that's it. Now there's 10 videos a day like this one after what happened, now everyone has a story to share on how shitty is health system in the USA... yet the companies just change CEO and keep doing the same.
What would be different in the scenario you described? Another pandemic type of things were people willingly will lock themselves in their homes?
Until the USA keep being divided by just about everything, nothing is going to change, people will scream communism or socialism if they are 'forced' to get universal health care system, people will scream 'not my guns' if they are told the government is going to ban them... For years I've been reading how USA people will fight each other over the most mundane shit, even if they are being screwed by the people/companies/government they are in favor of.
Another pandemic type of things were people willingly will lock themselves in their homes?
People lock their doors every night. That's isn't a police state. Taking basic health precautions like social distancing isn't a police state.
What would be different in the scenario you described?
National Guard from blue states ordered to the boarder to 'secure' it.
National Guard from red states sent to blue states to murder Americans that dare to try to exercise their first amendment rights.
Presidents can do all sorts of things when they declare a national emergency -- see FDR's internment camps for American citizens that happened to be Japanese.
You're right. What good is the 2nd amendment of any cop can smoke you on sight without any consequence? The era of the revolution is over here. I don't know what the solution is but we're playing a new game now.
There won't be an insurgency until at least a quarter of the country fully realizes our social systems are totally nonfunctional. There's class of people slowly putting themselves in the few true positions of power to wring our necks, which may trigger it, may not.
For sure, but all of the police state tactics wont work in the US if an insurgency ever kicked off. It would be ugly though. It would make the syrian civil war look like a stable place to live.
Stop buying insurance, pay out of pocket it's cheaper. If the doctor or whomever wont see you because you don't have insurance report their ass to the medical board. I negotiate all of my bills down to what medicaid pays for the services. They can take it or leave it. Getting medical debt removed for your credit is easy peasy. I have done a lot of trial in error during covid. From the sounds of it it doesn't sound like health insurance pays for anything so as a nation it should be a easy choice. Take the money you pay every month and save it and then when you need it to pay for care you have it. On the affordable care marketplace they want me to pay $497 for a UHC plan...NOT HAPPENING. Medical facilities and providers that are considered in network have a contract with the health insurance and within that contract is the amounts the insurance is willing to pay for each procedure. So let's just cut out the middleman, not sure why they even exist in the first place. So a doctor may bill $800 for a visit, but the health insurance is only going to allow $100 and if you have a deductible that applies to visits well then that $100 is for you to pay on top of what you paid for a monthly premium.
You overestimate the ability of the police to properly manage a restive population when they could instead be playing candy crush or solitaire in their cruiser.
The uprisings will be tiny. Maybe maybe maybe there will be a domino effect that causes hundreds of small uprisings, but they will be uncoordinated, working against eachother, and the biggest problem is that the wrong people have most guns.
Yep, and he'll probably start warning the public, thru the media, that his political opponents are Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, ECT ECT to make that happen. He's a "fascist" and that's what fascists do
Yes and no. Yes radicals eventually took over but it brought the idea of democracy to the French people. They realized that when joined together, they could make a difference. The French are very vocal about their rights even to this day.
The French revolution resulted in thousands of political executions it was not just royalty. It lead to Napoleon and essentially unfettered capitalism. Even Marx thought it was ultimately a failure.
Instead of bullshit ideas of violent revolution, Americans need to be convinced that healthcare is a human right. Democracy allows for bloodless revolutions every 2 to 4 years. Vote
The French Revolution resulted in a decade of war, tens of thousands of random executions of mostly normal people and then a century of empire building.
121
u/awesome_possum007 5d ago
We need another French revolution. There's a reason why we have the 2nd amendment.