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Ancient Insurrections–and Ours (Guest Post by Bret Devereux - acoup.blog)

lifeisstillgood 5y ago
The story of Thrasybulus' message is a great one. Highly unlikely to be true as told but it has such great resonance through 2,500 years :-)
bediger4000 5y ago
"Would-be tyrants keep trying until they succeed." The Bulwark writers are all never-Trump conservatives, I guess what we used to categorize as "movement conservatives", pretty doctrinaire. This article strikes me as an attempt to deal with the consequences of movement conservatism. But beyond that, what is the Jan 6 insurrectionists' end state? Clearly and unequivocally, the modern USA is economically interdependent, and internationally dependent. Squashing some geographic areas of the US via police or military force would cause extreme economic disruption fairly rapidly. Suppressing zones based on perceived racial prevalence would cause really odd disruptions. For example, ruling eastern city centers militarily would disrupt telecom and internet services - that's where all the cables, fiber optic and electrical, come together and interchanges exist. Sure, a US government could move long-haul terminations and the interchanges to all-white suburbs over the course of 2 or 3 years, but there would be a lot of interruptions of service. I'm sure there's other infrastructures that reside in city centers or areas that aren't "Real America" that would cost time and effort to relocate to safe, "Real America" areas. But that's just short term, 2-5 year economic effects. The Jan 6 insurrectionists appear to want a very limited set of people in charge, and a small subset of political ideas expressed and implemented. Disallowing dissent or participation by large segments of the population means wasting a lot of human potential, simultaneously generating astronomical amounts of ill will. How would a US dictatorship (or very limited oligarchy) deal with that? We know for a fact that the US needs new tech and innovation to keep going, to get us out of looming crises of consumption and resource limitations. How does a US dictatorship deal with that? Merely commanding innovation to come forth doesn't work.

The story of Thrasybulus' message is a great one. Highly unlikely to be true as told but it has such great resonance through 2,500 years :-)

bediger4000 5y ago

"Would-be tyrants keep trying until they succeed." The Bulwark writers are all never-Trump conservatives, I guess what we used to categorize as "movement conservatives", pretty doctrinaire. This article strikes me as an attempt to deal with the consequences of movement conservatism. But beyond that, what is the Jan 6 insurrectionists' end state? Clearly and unequivocally, the modern USA is economically interdependent, and internationally dependent. Squashing some geographic areas of the US via police or military force would cause extreme economic disruption fairly rapidly. Suppressing zones based on perceived racial prevalence would cause really odd disruptions. For example, ruling eastern city centers militarily would disrupt telecom and internet services - that's where all the cables, fiber optic and electrical, come together and interchanges exist. Sure, a US government could move long-haul terminations and the interchanges to all-white suburbs over the course of 2 or 3 years, but there would be a lot of interruptions of service. I'm sure there's other infrastructures that reside in city centers or areas that aren't "Real America" that would cost time and effort to relocate to safe, "Real America" areas. But that's just short term, 2-5 year economic effects. The Jan 6 insurrectionists appear to want a very limited set of people in charge, and a small subset of political ideas expressed and implemented. Disallowing dissent or participation by large segments of the population means wasting a lot of human potential, simultaneously generating astronomical amounts of ill will. How would a US dictatorship (or very limited oligarchy) deal with that? We know for a fact that the US needs new tech and innovation to keep going, to get us out of looming crises of consumption and resource limitations. How does a US dictatorship deal with that? Merely commanding innovation to come forth doesn't work.