So let's assume we wipe'm out. Then what?

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Hello, my astroturf-munching grasshoppers freedom loving worshipers of liberty & democracy! Here's an interesting excerpt from a conversation. "The morons who think protesting is a better use of their time". -- I heard that line recently. (Really? Can you "hear" a line? Anyway). The whoever-said-that made an interesting point, actually. A while ago I praised my awakening compatriots who are pissed at everything - the guvmint, the political class, the bureaucratic institutions, everything - and are now expressing it on the streets. Maybe they'd manage to bring their protests far enough to change something, anything, this time. Maybe not.

I'm hearing some voices going as far as urging for a kind of a "civil war" of the lower-than-grass masses against the arrogant, overweening elite who won't "Get *it*(TM)" and listen to the People. And I say to myself, "Really? Civil war? You're going there?" But obviously there are people who believe this crap and they believe it's a viable way of changing their predicament (even more hilariously, changing it to the better - can you imagine!?) So let me play my schizophrenic other side here for a while, and argue with the Me who wrote the above-linked post, and dig a bit further into this.

Direct quote from elsewhere (rough translation mine): "A war against the government would spare us a few more years of agony and misery. Let's wipe'm out! The whole political class!!!"
First reaction: what, just a FEW years? Then what?

But fine, fine. I'll play a bit more srsly here. So... first question. Aren't we forgetting something? The fact that politicians emerge from among us. The People(TM). (Capital P because I respect the People sooo so much). Fact: many of us are entering politics and become the scum that politicians are, having realized that this is a viable alternative to actually working a decent job; and a nice option and a way to make a fortune, to build some links and all in all, achieve self-betterment (screw the rest!)

So... shouldn't that Change We Can Believe In, actually start from ourselves, first and foremost? Because, let's say we "wipe'm out", all of Them, as the proposition says. And who'll occupy "their" place on the next minute after they're out? The same Scum(TM). If not even hungrier and more desperate to make a fortune and build links that would then bring them self-betterment. After all, which one of us wouldn't have that thought crossing their mind at some point, while on the path into politics? "Let me just get elected and arrange my life, the rest will naturally follow". Isn't that how the Political Class(TM) makes new recruitments? Isn't this how its ranks get filled with new fresh Scum(TM)?

So, the whole situation looks very much like this: You're laid on the surgeon table at the Emergency in hospital, and you're being told you'll have to get one of your legs amputated. But don't you worry, you'll have a new one growing in its place because you're a political chameleon, and lizards grow new limbs, no problem. Except, your new leg will suffer from the same malfunctions that were inherent to your previous one. You're just putting the problem away for a later time, when it could be even worse than today, but don't you worry, let's cut it now, we can think about the implications later.

Stupid metaphor, I know. OK, next talking point I'm hearing these days: "If anything, after a good nice old-style civil war*, the politicians will have at least taken the point and the People will have woken up!"

That's nice, but you can't guarantee that. There's no guarantee that the next cycle won't be the same like the previous one. Not that it hasn't happened here before. For me the REAL, deep Change(TM) can't be done overnight. And neither through an abrupt cataclysm (unless it's a result of tensions that have been piling over a long time, which in fact is not a sudden event but, again, a long and gradual process whose final expression is some drastic cataclysmic social event). Basically, drastic events happening overnight only tend to lead to toppling the status quo and quickly establishing a new status quo, which, when you think about it, would most probably carry the features of the previous one. Only the main players will have changed, and some of the slogans. The history of this part of the world (East Europe) tells us many stories of exactly this.

It's just too easy to imagine that some extreme event would change everything with a magic wand. And so we find it too easy to forget that, in fact, good nice lasting changes are not an event - they're rather a process. They happen slowly, very slowly. With lots of gradual, painful efforts. The more conscious the effort (as opposed to spontaneous and chaotic), the better and more profound the results. It's done with lots of blood and tears, and sweat. Metaphorically. Not through the chopping of some heads and rolling them down the street beside the guillotine. This time literally.

____________
* except, you can't make an old-style civil war in the lack of guns throughout the populace; which, by the way, I suspect is the sole reason that there haven't been any heads cracked open yet, and no chests punctured by bullets (water cannons can be a bit annoying, but on the upside, it's still near +30'C outside)... but I digress.

Comments

For some reason...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of Pope Innocent III who has been quoted as saying, "Kill them all and God will find his own."

For those who believe that the ends justify the means, we must realize that the means bring about the ends. When we employ violent means, we achieve violent ends. Those who pursue a violent solution are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Re: For some reason...

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.

Pope Innocent III?!

Reputed to have been said by Abbot Arnaud of Citeaux, at the siege of Beziers, surely.

Re: For some reason...

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

"ends justify the means"

Well what else would they justify?

:p

Re: For some reason...

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Haha, yes. :-)

Re: For some reason...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Would you justify mass slaughter with the ends of "liberation?" Destroy the village in order to save it.

Re: For some reason...

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Who said anything about saving it?

If you want war you better be prepared to win it, otherwise "Carthago Delenda Est"

The fools advocating "Class Warfare" do not understand the game they are playing.

Re: For some reason...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Mass slaughter is an unsporting but very effective method. There's a reason Stalin began his offensives overrunning a region the size of France while the democracies failed to capture Axis armies on their own merit as opposed to Axis mistakes in 1943 and that reason was Stalin was perfectly fine with the massive slaughter it took to clear out the Germans from Ukraine.

Re: For some reason...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

That is the crusade in question. Some attribute the quote to the pope.

Re: For some reason...

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Who are these some? The first mention of it was in a letter describing the siege to Innocent.

Re: For some reason...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Pope did not say this, it was a soldier during the Albigensian Crusade who said this. The Pope did not disapprove of the *sentiment* but he never actually *said* it any more than Captain Kirk said "Beam me up scotty."

Re: For some reason...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

As pointed out above, a monk has been credited with this slogan. There are a number of possibilities of its relation to Innocent III:

1) The pope said it first.
2) The pope heard about the monk's use of the phrase and repeated it.
3) The pope never said it, but it was falsely ascribed to him.

As for people who claim that they know what a particular pope did and did not say: there are drugs for that.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Extremism has the seductive appeal of providing simple answers to complex problems. It assumes that by sufficient application of ideas or actions that have often limited relevance to the issue at hand that one can untie as opposed to cut Gordian knots by using simplicity to provide a core of strength against complexity. The unfortunate truth of human nature and the political dilemmas that propel extremism is that these simple, easy solutions really aren't solutions, simple, or easy and yet complexity selling well requires one hell of a salesman to make it so.

Power at its core always comes from the barrel of a gun, but if that is the solution to all issues at all times then it is no solution at all, but instead is the refuge of those unable or unwilling to seriously think or to seriously consider why things exist as they do and to propose alternatives.

The view that wiping out a political class would change anything ignores the problems that in wiping out that class the new holders of power must replace it, and little guarantees that they would have the ability to think or to act beyond the demands of their time or the situation. And failure to do either here could be extremely fatal to any cause that would use such methods. At the ends of the day, if the only thing that holds something together is that the power-wielders have nukes and the overpowered have no-nukes then the center must fall apart.

TL;DR: This idea never has and never will and never can end well.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

But, but, "Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice."...

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Would you have joined the French Resistance in 1940? Would you condemn those who did?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I'd have totally joined them. I love their hats!

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[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Nobody was in the French Resistance in 1940 except Charles De Gaulle and his movement. And historically the German resistance did more harm to Hitler than the French resistance did up until the Allies reaching within artillery range of Paris.

Enslavement...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... in the name of Liberty is vicious.

(Enslavement in the name of Slavery is also vicious.)

Bullets come...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... from the barrel of a gun. Power is something quite different. Power gets things done. Bullets prevent things from getting done.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Aren't we forgetting something? The fact that politicians emerge from among us. The People(TM). (Capital P because I respect the People sooo so much). Fact: many of us are entering politics and become the scum that politicians are, having realized that this is a viable alternative to actually working a decent job; and a nice option and a way to make a fortune, to build some links and all in all, achieve self-betterment (screw the rest!)

This is why the problem is the system, not the people. You can't fix the problem by electing "better" people.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

But I want a solution! Waaaant! ;-(

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

People are willing to put up with extravagance and obscene wealth and inequality so long as they feel that the mechanisms of government regulation are in place. In America, the general feeling is that not only are people extravagantly wealthy, but they also control the methods of regulation and policing, which isn't right.

You can either have your money or you can have the government, but you can't have both.

[bikinisquad3000.livejournal.com]

Aren't we forgetting something? The fact that politicians emerge from among us. The People(TM). ... Fact: many of us are entering politics and become the scum that politicians are ... let's say we "wipe'm out", all of Them, as the proposition says. And who'll occupy "their" place on the next minute after they're out? The same Scum(TM).

Could you run this by me again? I can't think of a job of which you couldn't say that a person doing it is, in fact, a person who came from the general population of people. I also can't figure how that translates to every person on the planet being equally capable and inclined to do said job, in the exact same way.

And since when are "many" of us entering politics? I feel like I'm missing out on obvious satire here, this is so weird.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

There's no satire, unfortunately this is rather serious. And I'm talking from the perspective of my experience in my country. I'm not sure how things are in yours.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

A small number of politicians may emerge from among us, but most come from an elite layer of society that is off limits to most. They are typically wealthy, they attend elite schools, they often come from political families, they are well connected to exclusive social circles. Few have ever had to work for a living, with the sort of job and wage of the average citizen. No wonder they have an entitled, let them eat cake point of view.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

That's not what's happening in Bulgaria. There's simply no upper class, no aristocracy. It was destroyed over 45 years of communism. The new parvenus are hardly anything like a "traditional" higher class. They've made their wealth through fraud. Most of them.