Utopian

[MicroBalrog]

You, on the other hand, seem to be implying the proper response to Prohibition (18th amendment) should have been revolution. [/qute]

The proper response to Prohibition was revolution. THey repealed the Prohibition, they didn't screw around with 'compromise'.

In essence, I state that we should react to the Welfare State in the same way in which the Sufragettes reacted to the lack of proper representation and the Civil Rights marchers reacted to discrimination and the way abolitionists reacted to slavery.

No. However, I am implying that any "revolution" will need abrogations of rights at least that bad.

Please explain this assertion. So far I don't even understand by what mechanism this would occur.

[makattak]

So using the laws and following constitutionally proscribed processes qualifies as "revolution"? (i.e. passing the 21st Amendment.)

If that is the case that following constitutionally proscribed processes is a "revolution", then, I'll support your "revolution".

[MicroBalrog]

Yes, of course.

However, it doesn't mean that I support respecting all the various social institutions that sprung up informally around the Constitution over the years.

[makattak]

Yes, of course.

However, it doesn't mean that I support respecting all the various social institutions that sprung up informally around the Constitution over the years.

Well, if that's revolution, I support "revolution" as well: I think every state should withhold the money taken from people's checks by the IRS and then have the state send the money to the IRS.

That way if the federal government starts playing with the "purse strings" the state can simply refuse to send the tax bill.

I hardly consider that "revolution", though.

[MicroBalrog]

But then we ask ourselves, what is a revolution?

[zahc]

Don't forget this one:

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

So using the laws and following constitutionally proscribed processes qualifies as "revolution"? (i.e. passing the 21st Amendment.)

If that is the case that following constitutionally proscribed processes is a "revolution", then, I'll support your "revolution".

That sounds more like reform than revolution.  I don't want to quibble over the terms but there's a difference, and a major distinction, that needs to be recognized here.

[makattak]

That sounds more like reform than revolution.  I don't want to quibble over the terms but there's a difference, and a major distinction, that needs to be recognized here.

I quite agree. That's why I questioned his use of the word "revolution" and continue to use it in quotes. I think that is reform as well.

[Seenterman]

But then we ask ourselves, what is a revolution?

Not all revolutions require firearms.

Definition: Revolution
a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving.

[MicroBalrog]

Not all revolutions require firearms.

Definition: Revolution
a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving.

This is the very point I was seeking to make.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Not all revolutions require firearms.

Definition: Revolution
a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving.

"Revolution" implies a rapid, impassioned, dramatic overthrow of the previous order, often throwing out the good with the bad.  "Reform" is a more orderly and deliberative process which seeks only to fix the problems and preserve what's good about the previous system.

Definitions:
revolution
reform

The Founders wrote about balancing the need a government that can be changed as the need arises vs the possibility of a popular demagogue inflaming the passions of the population to implement damaging, radical changes, such as installing himself as a dictator and/or revoking the peoples' hard-won liberties.  They put a number of checks in place to try to prevent such an occurrence.  In the intervening years many of those checks have been removed (example: the direct election of senators). 

It's hard to look at the Obama phenomenon and not see the wisdom in their thinking.

[sanglant]

Types of revolutions
A Watt steam engine in Madrid. The development of the steam engine propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the world. The steam engine was created to pump water from coal mines, enabling them to be deepened beyond groundwater levels.

There are many different typologies of revolutions in social science and literature. For example, classical scholar Alexis de Tocqueville differentiated between 1) political revolutions 2) sudden and violent revolutions that seek not only to establish a new political system but to transform an entire society and 3) slow but sweeping transformations of the entire society that take several generations to bring about (ex. religion). One of several different Marxist typologies divides revolutions into pre-capitalist, early bourgeois, bourgeois, bourgeois-democratic, early proletarian, and socialist revolutions. Charles Tilly, a modern scholar of revolutions, differentiated between a coup, a top-down seizure of power, a civil war, a revolt and a "great revolution" (revolutions that transform economic and social structures as well as political institutions, such as the French Revolution of 1789, Russian Revolution of 1917, or Islamic Revolution of Iran). Other types of revolution, created for other typologies, include the social revolutions; proletarian or communist revolutions inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism); failed or abortive revolutions (revolutions that fail to secure power after temporary victories or large-scale mobilization) or violent vs. nonviolent revolutions.

The term revolution has also been used to denote great changes outside the political sphere. Such revolutions are usually recognized as having transformed in society, culture, philosophy and technology much more than political systems; they are often known as social revolutions. Some can be global, while others are limited to single countries. One of the classic examples of the usage of the word revolution in such context is the industrial revolution (note that such revolutions also fit the "slow revolution" definition of Tocqueville).

[MicroBalrog]

"Revolution" implies a rapid, impassioned, dramatic overthrow of the previous order,

I'm all for rapid, impassioned, and dramatic.

[Balog]

I'm all for rapid, impassioned, and dramatic.

Yeah, that French Revolution worked out really well huh?

[seeker_two]

Yeah, that French Revolution worked out really well huh?

Better than the Russian Revolution did.....and the French were really lucky that all they got from it was Napoleon....

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I'm all for rapid, impassioned, and dramatic.

And that's precisely the problem.

[Balog]

But HTG, this time it'll work! Really! It's different now, all those revolutions before just didn't have the right people leading them!

I should also note Micro undoubtedly has a different view about what a "good result" from a societal revolution would look like.

[longeyes]

Revolution is not something you weigh the pros and cons of.   It is theater of the absurd.  And that doesn't mean it's not part of the "option set."  Right now, to many, America's future appears to be jackboots and monkeywrenches.  If you believe, as some do, that the age of Good Faith began dying forty years ago and is now all but evaporated, your view of realism has to be modified.

[MicroBalrog]

But HTG, this time it'll work! Really! It's different now, all those revolutions before just didn't have the right people leading them!

It worked for the Founding Fathers, the English, the Turks, the modern Greeks, the Irish, the Romanians, and a dozen of other peoples I can mention - and that's just the non-peaceful ones, which are not our subject. The notion that revolutions never work is the stuff of legend.

[Balog]

It worked for the Founding Fathers, the English, the Turks, the modern Greeks, the Irish, the Romanians, and a dozen of other peoples I can mention - and that's just the non-peaceful ones, which are not our subject. The notion that revolutions never work is the stuff of legend.

I was actually speaking of peaceful societal revolutions as well. That said...

FF I'll grant you.

Which English "revolution" are you referring to?

Turkey: you refer to the post-WWI establishment of independent .gov? Refuting an order shortly after it is imposed by a foreign body against the will of the people is not a revolution ie sweeping cultural change. It's resistance to outside influence; not the same thing.

Modern Greeks: again, which "revolution" are you referring to?

Ireland: the IRA's consistent terrorism is a good result? Or what are you referring to?

Romania: you refer to it's post-Communism change? I'll also grant you that. If America ever becomes a Communist country then yeah, almost anything would be an improvement. Not saying a lot.

Also, cherry pick and strawman much? "It's utterly impossible and never ever works" != "It's a bad idea and generally doesn't work."

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

It worked for the Founding Fathers, the English, the Turks, the modern Greeks, the Irish, the Romanians, and a dozen of other peoples I can mention - and that's just the non-peaceful ones, which are not our subject. The notion that revolutions never work is the stuff of legend.

It's not that revolution never works, it's that it rarely works.  And at least in the US, there are other alternatives to revolution that work much, much better.

[MicroBalrog]

Turkey: you refer to the post-WWI establishment of independent .gov? Refuting an order shortly after it is imposed by a foreign body against the will of the people is not a revolution ie sweeping cultural change. It's resistance to outside influence; not the same thing.

I am pointing to the Young Turks' rebellion and establishment of parliamentary rule.

[

Modern Greeks: again, which "revolution" are you referring to?

Greek war of Independence.

Ireland: the IRA's consistent terrorism is a good result? Or what are you referring to?

The establishment of the IRish Free State, and later, independent Ireland.