How much violence is justified in overthrowing your own government?

Question

If Americans don't like american policies, they protest. (mostly peacfully) But what if the government doesn't listen? What do we as the people do to make our voices heard?

This question is more directed towards earlier peoples, such as France and England, but any input on it at all would be appreciated.

Answer 1

In getting rid of the government people are pretty violent.  Look at what the French did during the French revolution.  But unless you have a large army hiding in your back yard I would try anything beyond protesting.  The government is especially interested in its own welfare and will kill you.

Answer 2

Even if you changed the words, the inference is still the same and I will answer the question, in this way:  How much violence against you would you think the government would be justified in using if you were violently "opposing" the government?  Keep in mind, thinking about earlier peoples, that the degree of violence at our hands today is so much greater than those earlier peoples, that one ought to pause before talking about it.  Consider one cruise missle aimed at the place you live versus 1,000 muzzle loading muskets, on 10,000 muskets...somewhere in increasing the number of muskets, you will get the equivalent of one cruise missle.

Answer 3

Depends on what your own government has been doing to you.  Americans dealt rather violently with King George's armies a couple of centuries ago, and they were about as well justified as the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto.

The Americans and the Warsaw Jews both used whatever weapons they could get their hands on, including guns, to stand against tyranny.  Their survivors in America and the offspring of the few Warsaw Jews that survived still feel pretty strongly about the right to bear arms.

Answer 4

When does the poor) hungry) illiterates) people (demonstrate) or (condemner) or (denounced) or (civil disobedience) against his (government)?

Of course When that nation loses (bread to eat - hungry) (security to go shopping at mid night – with out  Theft

Rape  ,Murder  ,Fear) (Safety to go to library at mid night with out Theft ,Rape ,Murder Fear) (King tender heart ) ((free school and university to erase ignorance and illiterates )) (peace to live with out war)

Some time your rich smart enemy ask you for civil disobedience

But if the government and rich companies

Teach the nation free

Give free medical treatment for poor and middle class peopl

If the  government and rich companies build free houses for homeless and poor and middle class people

If the  government and rich companies try to pay the debts of poor and middle class people

Then we will build a nation who will not listen to his enemy and will not destroy his economy by  demonstrations or civil disobedience

Answer 5

Americans are conditioned to believe they are free but any act of the courageous revolutionaries of the sixties and seventies are long dead. America people are so terrorized by this new military controlled police regime to even organize as the tire tracks are on our back. They would rather sit home and watch Tivo...that could change though in the event of a full blown market crash then it's every man and woman for themselves think Katrina or the LA riots of April 1991.....

Answer 6

In America to get things done in government, you have to be albe to make laws. Thats the easiest way to overthrow our government. Bush's administration overcame our 3 point check system within 2 years of taking office, by passing the Patriot Act, it wasnt really hard with a republican congress. They was so happy to get rid of Bill Clinton they thought they had the first Bush back in office, SURPRISE!!!!

Answer 7

Depends on the reasons you have for overthrowing the government. Long before you overthrow a governemtn, you should have tried every outlet available for making change within the system.

Here in the US we do protest, but any group that thinks they can effect real change through protest alone is kidding themselves. Also, much of what is protested could be changed through individual action.

An example of this is health insurance. In 2004, 42% of Americans under the age of 65 did not have health insurance. In 2005 it dropped to 30% and in 2006 itdropped to 18%. This was done not through mostly protest or through government intervention as a response to protest, it was done by health companies that came up with cheaper insurance plans for individuals and families that they could acquire on their own rather than through their employer. Protest called attention to the issue, but it was private sector rather than government that responded. Overthrowing the government to get health care would have been a less effective solution.

There is no set formula, but you do need to balance the violence so you do not lose the support of the very people you are trying to help. Also, violence is not necessary is some cases to effect change. If you have the advantage of sheer numbers in the situation,then civil disobedience is the best solution as Gandhi demonstrated (Because 100,000 Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians, if those Indians refuse to cooperate).

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. (Mahatma Gandhi)

Answer 8

In the sixties...go back there we got our *** beat by the protecter of the people  LA cops redneck mothers...IWAS THERE...I KNEW MLK...watch it

Answer 9

Watch what you ask here, the big C is about to or may already have passed a law that would make it possible to jail people for their answers to a question like this. But... I'd have to say whatever it takes until the job is done and remember that the military and police officers won't necessarily support the cause, 'cause they are supported by the government. (Kinda sounds like good ole England before the colonists came over, doesn't it?)

"The Tree of Democracy is watered with the blood of tyrants."-Thomas Jefferson

Answer 10

When they start using Bechtel and Blackwater paid mercenaries to knock on YOUR door and tell you to leave because they plan to take your property, then it's OK to buck the system.

Bush has given himself the right to do that, so don't think it will never happen.

Weather control is not a myth.

Answer 11

WHO WILL LEAD THE PEOPLE AFTER  THE COUPE ????

Answer 12

Actually, only liberals seem to protest government policy.

Whatever amount of violence you use, you had better make sure you win, because there will be h**l to pay if you don't.  You had also be prepared to lead the people in your new government, because you will be weak and ill-established, and easy to kill.

Answer 13

One makes ones own justifications, but dissidents tend to use tactics appropriate to the tactics employed against them.

Governments either have a tradition of listening to public opinion and compromising, or of violent suppression of opposition.  But no government has ever liked dissent or allowed people to overthrow it if it could prevent it.  

England had a long tradition of compromise between King and Parliament and several protest movements and small revolutions beginning with the Magna Carta, the ascent of the House of Parliament during the Reign of James I and culminating with the ascent of the House of Commons.  

France had no tradition of compromise and when the revolution finally came in 1790, it was exceptionally violent and bloody.

The point is that if the government has a tradition of listening to peaceful protests, that is usually as far as it will go.  In the US during the 1960s, peaceful protests escalated into riots and arson and more than a few bombings of public buildings, but the government enacted civil rights laws and ended the draft.  Had it not, we could have had an escalatory spiral resulting in deaths on both sides.

In countries with a tradition of making dissidents disappear, protests are subdued until the insurgents think they have enough power to violently seize control.  Consider Prague in 1956 or Castro's takeover from Batista in 1959.

Answer 14

Our Government is made up from it's people, so we only have our selves to blame.

The armed forces are your family, friends and neighbors, so it really wouldn't be that hard.

But as a_wood80 said "You had also be prepared to lead the people in your new government.".