Shifting Your Monkeysphere
I just read today they arrested someone who may have tried sending a poisoned letter to the President and a number of other political officials. According to his letter, he felt he was doing the right thing - well, of course he did, or he would not have attempted it. But it has me thinking about a number of things. Specifically, perception and urgency. I'm going to make a comparison to my argument about the 2nd Amendment briefly, but this is not really about gun rights - it is just that my argument there is a point towards my general thoughts on this.
Where is the line between a person doing what they think needs to be done for liberty, and a person who is a dangerous criminal who needs to be incarcerated? My argument with the 2nd Amendment is that it was designed for people to protect their homes (and nation) against oppression, but if you look at the modern age, there is no hope in hell that any group is going to be able to rise up against the government - the military and police force are against you, and the nation as a whole (and most other nations) are going to see you as dangerous criminals who need to be taken down. Unless the government becomes a true dictatorship (and with elections as they are, I'd say the US still has a long way to go there), you're not going to see anything akin to the Arab Spring here in North America.
But there's the point. If you feel well and truly wronged - what actions can you take? You can yell and scream in public, but you aren't going to get many people on your side. You can argue until you're blue in the face. You can vote, or try to make a grassroots movement. The Tea Party's a good example there, but they were funded by the rich, and even they're willing to work inside the system, which means the kind of change you're wanting? Probably not going to happen.
So what avenues does someone who is quite literally terrified of the government have? Or someone who seriously believes that their rights are being curtailed? And that's where this becomes ... dangerous. The only avenue to change becomes drastic measures, because nothing else will work. And of course, this kind of action will usually fail - and faced with that failure, this person usually has only one recourse left to them, and that's usually where the story ends - for them.
There's a scene in Shogun, where Toranaga is talking with Blackthorn about the Dutch and their rebellion against the rulers in Europe. Toranaga thought that this rebellion against authority was inexcusable. Blackthorn replied that there was one mitigating factor, and Toranaga replied there is no excuse at all to give. Blackthorn replied, "We won." Toranaga hesitated, then accepted that victory is the *only* mitigating factor. If you won, you were right.
I once discussed this mindset when it comes to immigration, and the occupation of territory - such as the Romans coming into Europe, and the Spanish and English coming into North America. I asked, "When are you no longer defenders of your home, and instead a threat to the country itself?" The person I was talking to said, "One generation". As soon as someone's put down roots and raised a native of the land, those who came before have no right to try to reclaim the territory. Now, this didn't sit well with me, even if I can see the logic. Once a generation has passed, the people fighting to defend their homes no longer have a home to defend, and the people they're attacking consider the country their home too. So, who's right? The nature of the conflict has shifted, and will continue to shift as time progresses.
So, really, the only way to be right is to 'win'. And in the modern age, 'winning' is difficult. There's an inertia to civilization in North America that is almost impossible to overcome. You will not, I think, ever see a significant shift in how the government works in North America, because democracy works on the law of averages, and the fringe elements mostly cancel each other out. You can't use the proper channels to initiate significant change, and that leaves extremism. But, unless you can somehow get enough people to back you, succeed, hold power, and keep that power for a generation or more, you're going to lose. And to keep that power once you've taken it by force? Well, now you're the dictator.
I think that's why you see some of the power plays in politics in North America. You hear about it in the news: "voter suppression". It's as close as you can reasonably get to a dictatorship in North America - because you can't explicitely forbid those opposed to your ideals from voting, but you can try to make it as hard as possible. And I think any group who tried to take a North American country by force - and somehow succeeded, would need to use similar tactics to try to create a sense of legitimacy. They couldn't outright ban their opponents from voting unless they wanted to appear to be dictators, but they could try to suppress the vote so as to win - and thus show that people agree with their ideals. That, I think, is as close as you'll ever get, and even getting to that scenario is a stretch.
But there it is again. The legal avenue to enact change is mired down. If your ideals, in your mind, are being trod upon, you can't just ban those who disagree with you from having their voice heard. And if you think these people are the problem, and they outnumber you - what options do you have? I don't begin to say I have answers to this. But it makes for interesting - and disturbing - thoughts.
So, if you see society moving away from your beliefs, and the system itself is working against you - what option do you have? And what does this make you?