Well, if you are asking for my opinion about American Revolution, I already stated it – American Revolutionary War is also known as Independence War. It was much more the struggle of a society with external rulers than it was a strife within the society. And that makes it irrelevant to the current discussion about desirability of Sanders’ political revolution.
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One third of the colonists supported the Revolution.
One third opposed it.
One third was indifferent.
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That’s about right as far as any independence war goes. So what’s the point?
American revolution was not caused by the irreconcilable differences between the colonists who wanted independence and those who were against it. It was not caused by constant the belief that one group of colonists was abusing and discriminating against the other. It was cause by the differences between the large fraction of the colonists and an outside ruler (the ruler who came to be perceived by many as a foreign power).
The point is here:
Which you now see is incorrect, which renders untethered your very next line:
Before?
That is highly debatable since whatever you call it has been in the works for 40 years.
I’m not going to quibble over the terminology of coup or revolution.
Although I do think it’s a distinction without a difference in reference to this stuff.
In reply to “It was much more the struggle of a society with external rulers than it was a strife within the society” you say:
I am absolutely correct.
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With a slight oversimplification the three groups of settlers you refer to can be called “independence fighters”, “leave me alone group”, and “collaborators”. Such groups exist in any society ruled by a foreign power. The tension between these groups is always a consequence and never the root cause of independence wars.
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That the American Revolution was not caused by irreconcilable strife between groups of settlers is obvious when one looks as the outcomes of the independence war: it did not lead to a change in social, economic, and, to some degree, even political structure of the society. Even today we look at English common law to interpret our constitution!
Revolutions are very different – they represent struggle of the oppressed with the oppressors within the society and, if successful, they necessarily lead to an abrupt change in economic, social, and political structure. Sanders’ “political revolution” is of the same kind – it is the revolution of the “working class” against the “billionaires”. Clearly he talks about a non-violent revolution. But the violence is not the only danger of a revolution. Revolutions (including Sanders’ desired revolution) tend to destroy institutions of the society and build new, better ones from scratch. Except that building from scratch is extremely difficult in the context of the society and rarely the new structure is better, let alone sufficiently better to justify the revolution post-hoc. Admittedly, there are cases where a revolution is the only path but based on human experience, revolutions should be avoided if at all possible, This country is (was, until 2016) one of the most tolerant and democratic societies in the modern world – we should not try to build something better from scratch, we should defend and improve what we have.
lol,we Democrats call Sanders 'leap year Bernie…he becomes a Democrat every 4 years.
And always, too.
Sleep well.
I am not always correct but I often am. Critical thinking and ability to both make and correct mistakes (my own and others’) is an essential part of my job.
History and political science are not my areas of expertise, so I am especially open to being proven wrong in these areas. If you had valid arguments – you could convince me but obviously you don’t.
(I do suspect that you understand differences between American Revolution and, say, the French one, so you must be arguing just for the sake of argument.)
That’s true for my job also but I’m not at all sure that I carry that skill over to my postings here.
I’m not saying anything about whether you do, I’m cracking a joke at my own expense.
No.
As I said: You had made some generalizations about revolutions, so I asked to see how the American Revolution in particular fit within your scheme.
And what I concluded from your sequences of responses is that you haven’t thought about it enough.
You might have noticed that the sentence you quoted was followed by “history and political science are not my areas of expertise”.
While we all have various blinders, and those blinders tend to be more effective precisely when we do not have requisite knowledge, it also means that I have no stake in winning an argument about nature of American Revolution (the subject of the discussion that lead to the sentence you quoted).
I don’t need to justify why I will never vote for Bernie. Only that will never happen.
Just like Bloomberg, if I get another spam text on my phone from his LLC real estate minions posing as everyday people, who are trying to give the impression he has grass roots support. He too will go on the never list.
FFS, I’ve received over 75 spam texts in the past 24 hours all with fictional names attached. Best part is I tracked all of them to a 1/2 million dollar private home run by a scam real estate LLC in Tampa FL. Some mighty fine grass roots he’s got there.
“No” as in you do not understand the differences between American and French revolutions? That explains why you would put American Revolution in the same category as French, Russian, recent peaceful East European revolutions, and a “political revolution” desired by Sanders.
And I explained to you that the American Revolution is clearly not in the same category as all of the other revolutions we are talking about. There is a reason it is also called an Independence War. Neither Russian, nor French revolutions are called independence wars. Not even velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe are called independence wars even though arguably they were in part a struggle for independence from the Soviet Union. You do not seem to understand the crucial differences between those events.
I agree with you that all on the same day does a disservice. However this piecemeal primary process over such a long period is also a disservice to the voter. My personal take is for a regional primary system, say 6, over a 3 month time period followed within a couple of weeks by the convention. Ideally the whole process, primaries, conventions and general election could be compressed into no more than 6 months. It is emasculation for the candidates as well as voters to have this thing stretch out for well over a year and does absolutely zilch in the way of finding the person who will win.
Another suggestion is to have meaningful debates held by other than self serving “news” organizations. Debates that ask substantive questions and a moderator that would not allow any one individual to avoid a direct answer to the question, answers with some meat on them.
If you look closely at what I wrote you’ll see I wasn’t calling for you to justify yourself and there is no need for you to do so.
I somewhat doubt that what Sanders is calling for is in the same category as those other revolutions.
After all the vehicle he’s suggesting for implementing it is through voting and the Constitution.
my question regarding Leap Year Bernie is, if he so confident about his Socialist agenda…why doesn’t he run as the Independent he has always been? why does he attach himself to the Democratic Party…he registers as a Democrat every 4 years…Leap Year Bernie…i want a candidate who is a genuine , liberal Democrat.
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I am not justifying myself. I was simply wondering if you brought up an irrelevant analogy fully understanding that it is irrelevant or you still don’t understand that. Neither case is conductive to a productive discussion.
That would be a worthwhile discussion to have (unlike comparisons to American Revolution).
Yes, surely, his preferred methods are quite different from the violent revolutions of the past. But the goals include a revolutionary change in the society, no less revolutionary than the changes thought by those other revolutions. Most importantly, these goals are opposed by significant portions (if not by plurality) of the society. And that means Sanders’ revolution will be either unsuccessful or will lead to a lot of strife and suffering in the society.
Now, it is conceivable that Sanders will manage to control his supporters (no evidence at the moment) and moderate the revolution so that society will not be fractured (even more than it is now) along the way. In which case we are not talking about a revolution – then why all the revolutionary rhetoric?
P.S. Btw, the Russian revolution started peacefully – the tsar was forced to abdicate and the country had a provisional government that could have led to a democracy. But that was way too fast for some and way too slow for others. The provisional government was ovethrown in a matter of months and the violent revolution started. My point is – those who start a revolution never manage to keep it under control.