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Originally Posted by CosmicTang
There's no way to accurately predict what would happen in a Constitutional crisis where the country came to the brink of revolt. Maybe the armed forces would fire on their own people, maybe they wouldn't. In 1989 in Tianenmen Square the Chinese military turned on its own people. Two years later in Red Square the Russian military sided with the people and refused to carry out a coup effectively finishing off communist rule and facilitating the demise of the Soviet Union. In both cases the citizenry was unarmed.
I don't know what would happen here. The militias might cave in the face of better trained, better armed military and police forces. Or perhaps seeing the dissenters as plain folk like their families the kids in the military might refuse to fire.
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Well said.
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What I do know is that the fact this is starting to happen should give the government pause to think about what its doing to piss off so many people. The militia folks are not without their relevant talking points.
As to the person who suggested we vote and use free speech...you haven't been paying attention. The government is doing what it damn well wants regardless of what the people who pay the bills are screaming for. The people roundly said no to the bailouts and they were granted behind closed doors. They voiced their opinions on health care, and yet again were largely ignored. And the final insult may have been the Supreme Court granting corporations--possibly including foreign ones--the right to spend as much money as they want in campaigns which would determine elections of our representatives. I think it's plain they don't have the people in mind.
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Let me play a little devils advocate.
Obama got 53% of the vote or 69million votes. There are around 200 million eligible voters in this country and about 300 million total people. That means only about 34% of the eligible votes and 23% of the population voted for him. He ran on a platform of raising taxes, bailing out companies and creating national healthcare. Today his approval rating hovers around 47-49% depending on the day. So you could argue that aside from the supreme court thing, which he has no part in and was a terrible ruling that sold out the American people, he has delivered what he said he was going to and many of his strongest supporters still support him and his action. He really only cares about them and they are getting what they wanted.
Much of this unrest is simply the right trying to regain their footing. The republican party is a dying animal. In the next 15 years we will see an increase in the black and latino populations (actually it is all ethnic minorities but mostly blacks and latinos) of 300% while the white population will stay about the same. These are groups that tend to vote democrat. Add in the fact that they are losing a grip on the religious right and it makes for a very dim outlook for them 10-15 years from now. They are working hard to build a new base and the tea party is that base. They are switching to the angry white person base and right at the moment it is working. But just because there is a vocal group out there doesn't mean everyone in the country feels that way.
Voting can change it. There is no need for an overthrow. If everyone eligible to vote that was angry at the government voted against those that they don't like, we would have new leadership. No shooting, no uprising, just votes.
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So the question becomes: when is it enough?
Clearly the government isn't working for the people anymore and the Constitution is an afterthought to seemingly everyone in D.C. At what point do people have not merely the right, but the responsibility to do something about it?
I would hate to see the situation come to violence but should these bullies and their corrupt and unjust system be allowed to continue while hiding behind the guise of democracy?
Honestly, when is it enough?
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To me the question is who should the government be listening to? If a person didn't bother voting, but is against a bailout or a health care bill, should the leaders listen to them? The answer is that they probably should, but they don't because they don't have to because that person isn't going to vote during the election anyway, so they have no fear of that person. If everyone who complained and is angry would actually vote we would potentially have more viable leaders and a third or even fourth party. But as it is about 30% of the population controls the rest of the population.
If you truly want your government to fear you, put the guns down and go to the voting booth on election day. As it is right now the Tea Party thinks they are being revolutionaries and in November they are going to vote republican and many of those people will be no better than the democrats that are there now.