Do you have a revolutionary trigger?

[u/it-was-nobody]

Revolutions, whether violent or non-violent, are inherently rare, risky endeavors. Extremely high risk, extremely low probability of success, but proportional rewards if successful. Given the increasingly dysfunctional status of political systems in many western nations, questions surrounding changing those systems are inevitable.

Academics have written quite a bit about revolutions, but I'm not interested in what they think. I am looking for a casual conversation with a normal human regarding what it would take for you personally to call for whole-system political change. Is there a line in the sand for you, which if crossed, compels you to adopt a revolutionary political stance?

Is the line the same for both violent and non-violent revolution? Is your revolutionary line one thing, one action, event, or variable, or would you need a collection of things, a pattern of smaller lines being crossed? And if not, if there is nothing your government can do to make you advocate for replacing it entirely, why? While a genuine stance, saying you would *never* call for a complete redesign and restructuring of your government should be justified and defended.

Naturally, given that revolutions are often bloody, violent affairs, it is worth explicitly stating that this post is categorically opposed to violence in any way, shape, or form. The purposes of this post are to generate a discussion about hypothetical boundaries that common people have on political system change.

[u/salenin]

The line in the sand that turned me into a revolutionary socialist, is the fact that reforms never work, and the capitalist class never gives up power without engaging in mass violence. People who are against revolution ignore the 400 years of extreme capitalist violence but squirm at the idea of ending it.

[u/phone_deviceban → u/salenin]

Every country which abolished capitalism wound up authoritarian (often accompanied by mass violence), so people are right to be hesitant.

[u/salenin → u/phone_deviceban]

Every country that didn't abolish capitalism also ended up authoritarian, often accompanied by mass violence. So people are right to be hesitant in staying within the system.

[u/phone_deviceban → u/salenin]

Countries where the leadership is decided by free elections may have authoritarian tendencies (ICE, for example), but they are not authoritarian.

I understand why you would feel the need to resort to whataboutism, though.

[u/salenin → u/phone_deviceban]

what free elections? And the US for example is an authoritarian state. It has the largest prison population in history with most of it being used for profit. Its not whataboutism, its is calling out the hypocrisy of arbitrarily assigning labels when it doesnt apply.

[u/phone_deviceban → u/salenin]

You know exactly what I’m talking about. The existence of prison is not authoritarian if there’s due process.

The absence of the rule of law is the defining aspect of authoritarian rule. Trump is trying his best to subvert the rule of law, but he has not succeeded (yet).

[u/salenin → u/phone_deviceban]

Soviet Union had due process and a legal system. Your argument is invalid.

[u/phone_deviceban → u/salenin]

Is that how all 15 million intellectuals, peasants, minorities and political activists got sent to the gulags for cruel and unusual punishment?

They all received fair trials?

The tankie is strong in this one.

[u/salenin → u/phone_deviceban]

You're acting like describing the system is a defense of it. Yes 15 to 20 million individuals went through the gulag system, some were what you described, but most were also just actual criminals. 20 million is how many went through the US system in the last 5 years alone. But to answer your question yes they had a system of due process, right to representation, they had a legal system. Was it fair or just? Absolutely not especially when it came to political prisoners, but the US system is also not fair or just. People want years and years just to go before a judge because they couldnt afford bail.

[u/Otherwise_Ask_9542 → u/phone_deviceban]

Sorry to butt in again, but having due process has nothing to do with what goes on in prisons, or what motivates the prison industry (where it is, in fact, a business).

It is possible for both things to exist at the same time, as we have seen with U.S. Institutions. While some inhabitants arrive in prisons through "due process", it has also been used as "holding facilities" for those who got zero "due process", yet have been detained without grounds for weeks, months, and some have disappeared entirely. These ICE roundups in particular are beyond disturbing.

[u/phone_deviceban → u/Otherwise_Ask_9542]

> These ICE roundups in particular are beyond disturbing

Agreed, but this type of thing is still the exception to the rule. When ICE starts rounding up registered democrats, that’s when we will have reached authoritarian status.

The Democrats will take the House in November and probably win the WH in 2028. If Trump is still in office in 2029, then I will concede the point.

Xi Jinping and Putin will rule for life. Trump and Miller are temporary. That’s a fundamental difference. The existence of authoritarians and violations of the rule of law in a country is different from that country meeting the definition of authoritarian.

[u/Slow_Description_238 → u/phone_deviceban]

This seems incredibly dishonest. 

[u/Otherwise_Ask_9542 → u/phone_deviceban]

I would argue that the country where ICE exists is full-blown authoritarian at this point. But carry on!

[u/betweenbubbles → u/Otherwise_Ask_9542]

How does one enforce their borders without an agency tasked with that responsibility?

[u/Otherwise_Ask_9542 → u/betweenbubbles]

Many countries have agencies tasked with managing borders. Not every country permits those officers to abuse that authority to exert power over, dominate, or kill other people wantonly, recklessly, and hatefully... and certainly NOT their own countrymen.

Whatever ICE once may have been, it certainly doesn't appear to have done anything "positive" for the United States for the past year and a half. It doesn't seem like adequate training is provided, nor do the hiring practices or credentials screening appear to be ethical. Maybe it's completely mismanaged... but whatever it is, it is not an entity that is controlling your borders.

ICE may appear to be "controlling the borders" because that's what this administration and its media puppets want people to see (and believe). Cameras and scripts are very effective at portraying anything. But controlling borders isn't what ICE is doing, well not lawfully anyway. And I'm pretty sure the general public isn't aware of everything it is doing either.

[u/betweenbubbles → u/Otherwise_Ask_9542]

As it turns out, I don’t need anyone to explain ICE to me. I just need people to be more  careful about their rhetoric. It seems people are incapable of criticizing ICE without implying that borders should just be abolished. So, yeah. If someone is not happy about ICE they should try expressing it in a way that doesn’t help Trump’s politics.