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Egypt
Recently we have all witnessed the masses in Tunisia & Egypt rise up against their rulers & I’m sure there are plenty of libertarians who’ll think this a good thing & though I can understand why many would think it’s a good thing what do people think these uprisings will result in?
A few years ago I remember a libertarian friend of mine getting very excited about the overthrow of a regime in a former Soviet satellite in central Asia, this was until I pointed out to them that the uprising had been whipped up by members of these previous regime.
There’s a saying about the change in government that I try to keep in mind & that is the rider of the horse might change but the whip remains. They might very well have a change of regime in Egypt & it might be less oppressive in some ways but it might very well be oppressive in other ways as government often is.
What I’m saying is that anytime there seems to be a popular uprising it only replaces one government with another.
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My thoughts exactly. These are domination cultures that will keep asking for, and accepting rulers. As long as the whole system is based on coercive means of societal control, all the old ills will plague it. The particular oppressiveness that develops is a toss up.
"Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe."
Frank Zappa
What If Something Like Egypt Happened Closer To Home?
The product of the uprising in the middle east will come first from the minds of the people, then from the minds of those who step up to take advantage of the power those people accept living under. I believe real change can and will come when uprising is based on the cultural recognition that the idea of 'power' is a bad, and unceccessary one altogether. There's alot of work to do before that can happen.
Check out the poll results in this article:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/562840/201102101920/What-Egyptians-Really-Do-Want.htm
I hate to be a pessimist but there will always be men who’ll attempt to gain power over others.
In the main since the dawn of mankind man has constantly attempt to control & regulate their fellow man.
THinking one government would be better than the other is like thinking lung cancer is better than stomach cancer. All three are, ultimately, a cancer.
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Jackie Fiest
Well as I said even with Mubarak gone there will still be one group holding the whip over another & that's because how things usually are.
I'd add that that's how things will be until enough people say fuck it we ain't going to takethis crap & commit some serious sucession
There was an interesting reply to that article, saying that the author failed to state another question asked on the pole, asking how many people wanted democracy.
The more and more I look at it and listen to you guys, I can see what you guys mean by oppressive/aggressive government that people want. If you take both sources of numbers as fact, you have 59% people wanting democracy, and 84% wanting to execute people leaving the Muslim faith. People just want to lord over others, and this is about as clear as you can get.
When you consider the horrors of the world, the incidence of crime, wars, child abuse, corruption etc., yeah how the heck would anyone ever expect to escape the fact that somebody is going to dominate them? So if domination is inevitable would it not simply be the default position to try to fight for the best possible form of domination, and furthermore grab whatever benefit you can from that system? It would seem so.
I would like a couple things to enter into consideration. I do agree that there will always be people who want to meet their own needs by depriving their fellow man of meeting theirs. But how much relevance would those people have in a free society? Would they be at a loss to find an attitude among the common people which accepts their domination as any sort of necessary or acceptable condition of life? Once the bulk of society is able to integrate the fact that rulers are not necessary, who will ask for the rule of these people? The loss of liberty is the fruit of these people's efforts to disconnect the mind of man from reason. A gain in liberty is the fruit of our efforts to restore that connection. We have seen movement in either direction in our lifetimes and we have seen that great change is possible, and can happen quickly.
To understand the blindness and hopelessness that binds us consider all the forces alighned against ending slavery in 19th century America. In the American south to have the entire aristocracy, the government, all the wealth, power, and money completely dependant on this institution and furthermore citing biblical passages in defense of it, it would have seemed to an observer in that frame of reference that it's laughingly niave to suggest that bad people will ever let go of this profitable practice of outright owning other human beings.
What would happen if you stood on a soap box in the south today and suggested that it should be brought back? You would be a laughing stock. People would ingnore you and go about their day.
There is no reason to believe that same type of transformation is not possible with regard to aggression-based government. One day a person will stand in the town square promoting the establishment of a system for societal organization in which they should be placed in coercive control over the life, liberty, and property of everyone else. Passersby will chuckle to themselves and go about their day.
It appears that human beings evolved as hunter-gatherers, existing and interacting without coercive governance for 90-99 percent of their history. I have not found it logical to conclude that 1% of human history indicates that to live under coercive rule is any sort of natural or necessary state of man.
Its seems the uprising in Egypt has back fired
Mubarak has gone but now the military are now in charge 7 seem intent on cracking down upon the protestors
It occurs to me that this situation is pretty benign unless the people in Egypt can secure a great deal of economic freedom. As long as it remains pretty authoritarian the country will remain repressed into relative inneffectiveness and impotence on the world stage. If by some miracle the country becomes free with the embedded flaws in principle still present, that's when you got trouble.
Let's say they rewrite the constitution to form some sort of Islamic minarchy. Everyone is entitled to life, liberty, and property, and by the way Allah's government is number one, pay your taxes, and don't forget it.
Now you have a burst of productivity to produce lots of tax cattle and aquire a bunch of weapons. At some point the government then embarks on it's own muslim version of manifest destiny. No wonder the U.S. government has supported so many dictators. They prevent competition.
There's one very specific reason as to why the US government has propped up the regime in Egypt & that is Egypt is the onlyArab nation to have a peace treaty with Israel.
Its been noticeable that the US government hasn't been keen on the uprising in Egypt because they fear it might lead to a change of regime in Egypt which wouldn’t keep the peace with Israel.
Any Israeli-Arab conflict there might be shouldn’t be the business of the united states government, but the Jewish lobby is extremely powerful & therefore has a say in uS foreign policy.
Ah yes, the ever necessary support of Israel. "our only ally in the region", an "outpost of freedom in a land stuck in the middle ages". If you want to get elected from the state of Indiana to a position where you get to control other people's lives from the halls of the United States congress, you pretty much have to proclaim your intent to support the use of violence for "god's chosen people". Apparently the UN in 1948 now passes for god.
When I was a lot younger I asked my Grandmother why she never thought about going to live in Israel & her response was she didn’t have to live in Israel to be Jewish.