When is the proper time to resist with force?
Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 7 months ago to Philosophy
Consider the question posed in this excerpt from John Ross' "Unintended Consequences"
Totalitarian regimes are wrong, so don't let the State enslave you'. That's like saying, 'Don't get sick'. The important question is, when do you know it's going to become enslavement? When is the proper time to resist with force?"
"Please elaborate, Mr. Bowman." Henry took a deep breath.
"The end result, which we want to avoid, is the concentration camp. The gulag. The gas chamber. The Spanish Inquisition. All of those things. If you are in a death camp, no one would fault you for resisting.
But when you're being herded towards the gas chamber, naked and seventy pounds below your healthy weight, it's too late. You have no chance. On the other hand, no one would support you if you started an armed rebellion because the government posts speed limits on open roads and arrests people for speeding.
So when was it not too late, but also not too early?"
"Tell us, Mr. Bowman."
"Professor Arkes, I teach a Personal Protection class off-campus, where most of the students who sign up are women. I'm seeing some strong parallels here, so please indulge me in an analogy."
"Go ahead."
"A woman's confronted by a big, strong, stranger. She doesn't know what he's planning, and she's cautious.
Getting away from him's not possible. They're in a room and he's standing in front of the only way out, or she's in a wheelchair—whatever. Leaving the area's not an option.
"So now he starts to do things she doesn't like. He asks her for money. She can try to talk him out of it, just like we argue for lower taxes, and maybe it will work. If it doesn't, and she gets outvoted, she'll probably choose to give it to him instead of getting into a fight to the death over ten dollars. You would probably choose to pay your taxes rather than have police arrive to throw you in jail.
"Maybe this big man demands some other things, other minor assaults on this woman's dignity. When
should she claw at his eyes or shove her ballpoint pen in his throat? When he tries to force her to kiss him?
Tries to force her to let him touch her? Tries to force her to have sex with him?" Henry took a deep breath and shrugged.
"Those are questions that each woman has to answer for herself. There is one situation, though, where I tell the women to fight to the death. That's when the man pulls out a pair of handcuffs and says, 'Come on, I promise I won't hurt you, this is just so you won't flail around and hurt either of us by accident. Come on, I just want to talk, get in the van and let me handcuff you to this eyebolt here, and I promise I won't touch you. I'm not asking you to put on a gag or anything, and since you can still scream for help, you know you'll be safe. Come on, I got a full bar in here, and color TV, and air conditioning, great stereo, come on,just put on the cuffs.'
"I tell women that if that ever happens, maybe the man is telling the truth, and maybe after talking to her for a while he'll let her go and she will have had a good time drinking champagne and listening to music. But if she gets in the van and puts her wrists in the handcuffs, she has just given up her future ability to fight, and now it is too late." Henry realized he had been making eye contact with all the other people in the lecture hall, just as he did when he taught a course. Now he looked directly at the professor.
"How do you spot the precise point where a society is standing at the back of the van and the State has the handcuffs out?"
Totalitarian regimes are wrong, so don't let the State enslave you'. That's like saying, 'Don't get sick'. The important question is, when do you know it's going to become enslavement? When is the proper time to resist with force?"
"Please elaborate, Mr. Bowman." Henry took a deep breath.
"The end result, which we want to avoid, is the concentration camp. The gulag. The gas chamber. The Spanish Inquisition. All of those things. If you are in a death camp, no one would fault you for resisting.
But when you're being herded towards the gas chamber, naked and seventy pounds below your healthy weight, it's too late. You have no chance. On the other hand, no one would support you if you started an armed rebellion because the government posts speed limits on open roads and arrests people for speeding.
So when was it not too late, but also not too early?"
"Tell us, Mr. Bowman."
"Professor Arkes, I teach a Personal Protection class off-campus, where most of the students who sign up are women. I'm seeing some strong parallels here, so please indulge me in an analogy."
"Go ahead."
"A woman's confronted by a big, strong, stranger. She doesn't know what he's planning, and she's cautious.
Getting away from him's not possible. They're in a room and he's standing in front of the only way out, or she's in a wheelchair—whatever. Leaving the area's not an option.
"So now he starts to do things she doesn't like. He asks her for money. She can try to talk him out of it, just like we argue for lower taxes, and maybe it will work. If it doesn't, and she gets outvoted, she'll probably choose to give it to him instead of getting into a fight to the death over ten dollars. You would probably choose to pay your taxes rather than have police arrive to throw you in jail.
"Maybe this big man demands some other things, other minor assaults on this woman's dignity. When
should she claw at his eyes or shove her ballpoint pen in his throat? When he tries to force her to kiss him?
Tries to force her to let him touch her? Tries to force her to have sex with him?" Henry took a deep breath and shrugged.
"Those are questions that each woman has to answer for herself. There is one situation, though, where I tell the women to fight to the death. That's when the man pulls out a pair of handcuffs and says, 'Come on, I promise I won't hurt you, this is just so you won't flail around and hurt either of us by accident. Come on, I just want to talk, get in the van and let me handcuff you to this eyebolt here, and I promise I won't touch you. I'm not asking you to put on a gag or anything, and since you can still scream for help, you know you'll be safe. Come on, I got a full bar in here, and color TV, and air conditioning, great stereo, come on,just put on the cuffs.'
"I tell women that if that ever happens, maybe the man is telling the truth, and maybe after talking to her for a while he'll let her go and she will have had a good time drinking champagne and listening to music. But if she gets in the van and puts her wrists in the handcuffs, she has just given up her future ability to fight, and now it is too late." Henry realized he had been making eye contact with all the other people in the lecture hall, just as he did when he taught a course. Now he looked directly at the professor.
"How do you spot the precise point where a society is standing at the back of the van and the State has the handcuffs out?"
If I lived in the immediate vicinity I could go to the source and provide something definitive that they might listen to, but I do not.
Based on my reading of the climate and GW issues on wikipedia it is clear to me that they are biased in favor of the so called scientific consensus. The articles consistently downplay any who point out the weak arguments. They constantly quote the IPCC and the CRU as authorities even though those agencies have been exposed as trying to manipulate the data.
"The scientific consensus on climate change is "that climate is changing and that these changes are in large part caused by human activities,"[60] and it "is largely irreversible.
As I mentioned, the real story has been modified to make it appear that the WWI soldiers were at fault, but they were peaceful.
The House voted to award a reduced amount to help the soldiers, but the Senate voted against it.
Congress could easily have solved it peacefully by issuing tradeable rights, setting up a free market for the rights to the soldiers bonuses so soldiers could sell them at a discount, but instead the feds used force against the patriots who fought WWI for America and survived.
This elegantly makes my point about government changing history to blame the innocent when they are no longer here to defend themselves.
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should!" (emphasis mine)
Science is great. But it should never be considered good. It is a means. The end comes from morality itself - not science.
For as long as I can remember, science has been ahead of societal evolution. It's comparable to giving a loaded revolver to a 5 year old. I guess we need to make our society smarter or our scientists dumber.
Your idea reminds me of an episode of Stargate SG-1 where the team finds a cave on a planet of Vikings with strange symbols on the wall. They figure out that they are actually clues to opening the vault door. One of the clues is being able to successfully identify the first five digits of pi. I think another had to do with the weight of a neutron in relation to a proton and the last the speed of light. Upon opening the door, one was greeted with a hologram image (interactive) of an alien being. The test, of course, was to wait and see when science had improved to the point that they would be willing to accept the notion that the gods of Asgaard were in actuality an alien race known as the Asgaard.
I had never heard anything about it before and I was amazed. It is one of the things I remember most vividly about my grandfather. It was a moment when I realized he was treating me as a thinking adult instead of as a child.
The Bonus Army massacre by Gen. McArthur, Eisenhower, and Patton should be taught to everyone, but today almost no one knows it happened. Everyone who lived then is gone and the fedgov propaganda makes it almost impossible to believe those murderous actions of 3 WW2 heroes and a former president against innocent American civilians.
Hmm - come to think of it, it would make a pretty good SF story.
Hmm - come to think of it, it would make a pretty good SF story.
Hmm - come to think of it, it would make a pretty good SF story.
Hmm - come to think of it, it would make a pretty good SF story.
Load more comments...