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Revolution 2020
The American Mind ^ | 09/23/20 | Angelo Codevilla

Posted on 09/23/2020 2:01:34 PM PDT by PoliticallyShort

Understanding what drives the revolution that is destroying the American republic gives insight into how the 2020 election’s results may impact its course. Its practical question—who rules?—is historically familiar. But any revolution’s quarrels and stakes obscure the question: to what end? Our revolution is by the ruling class—a revolution from above. Crushing obstacles to its growing oligarchic rule is the proximate purpose. But the logic that drives the revolution aims at civilization itself. What follows describes how far along its path that logic has taken America, and where it might take us in the future depending on the election’s outcome.

Aristotle, in Book 5 of the Politics, describes how revolutions kill regimes (such as America’s) that balance the contrasting interests of ordinary people with those of the wealthy, of officials, and of other prominent persons. As the balance between any complex regime’s components shifts over time, the system may seamlessly transform into unmixed democracy, oligarchy, or some kind of monarchy. The revolution may be barely perceptible—providing that those who impose themselves, whether from above or below, do so without adding insult to injury. But, if the party that takes power thereby destroys the friendship that had bound the several parts, even trifling incidents can spiral into all-consuming violence. Thucydides’ account of the revolution that destroyed Corcyra during the Peloponnesian War is prototypical. The French revolution, the Spanish civil war, and countless others echo it.

Today, the oligarchic transformation of America’s republic is turning violent. Aristotle, however, points out that oligarchies born of violent revolution tend to succumb to the very violence that births them, quickly degenerating into some kind of tyranny or one-man rule. Restoration of anything like the original constitutional regime is most unlikely.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanmind.org ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: biden; blogpimp; revolution; trump
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1 posted on 09/23/2020 2:01:34 PM PDT by PoliticallyShort
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To: PoliticallyShort

Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama may have been a fatal combination.

They already have us 30+ million people down the road to being North Mexico.


2 posted on 09/23/2020 2:08:14 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents|Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Lurkinanloomin

[Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama may have been a fatal combination.]

It sure seems like it. Funny how they all love each other.

And hate pro-American, anti-NWO President Trump.


3 posted on 09/23/2020 2:13:48 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: 14themunny; 21stCenturion; 300magnum; A Strict Constructionist; abigail2; AdvisorB; Aggie Mama; ...
I rarely invoke the Federalist/Anti-Federalist ping list, but this very long article on the American Civic Religion and our current situation is a must-read.
4 posted on 09/23/2020 2:35:47 PM PDT by Publius ("Who is John Galt?" by Billthedrill & Publius available at Amazon.)
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To: Publius

Thanks for the ping! Reading now...


5 posted on 09/23/2020 2:43:22 PM PDT by Old Sarge (We are seeing the birth of the Socialist Putsch)
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To: PoliticallyShort
This is a very scary essay, yet I find little to disagree with.

Think of an academic Travis McGee.

I disagree with the idea of President Trump as a spent force, if he is re-elected. The things President Trump is coming up with, at the end of his first term, could make huge differences, if enacted through a second term.

6 posted on 09/23/2020 2:45:48 PM PDT by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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To: PoliticallyShort

The title got me to thinking how glad I am that there in NO Revelation 20:20 in the Bible. You just know that if there were it would portend even more dire things for our present year.


7 posted on 09/23/2020 2:55:05 PM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress (http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/BYTOPICS/tabid/335/Default.aspx D)
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To: Publius

Tonight’s reading bump


8 posted on 09/23/2020 2:55:14 PM PDT by Loud Mime ("Now, go and do your duty before darkness covers the earth." Michael Uhlmann (1939 - 2019))
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To: PoliticallyShort

I have been cleaning my weapons and making sure I have sufficient ammo on hand in case CWII begins in November. Patriots would never start it but when it starts we will respond with everything we have. These George Soros soy boys will shite themselves when we start fighting back and it won’t be the same as facing down police in democrat ran cities who have been effectively neutered by their lib mayors and governors.


9 posted on 09/23/2020 2:55:48 PM PDT by TonyM (Score Event)
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To: PoliticallyShort

Unlike the author, I believe civil war is a good outcome.


10 posted on 09/23/2020 3:03:05 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: Publius
I am not advocating any Conspiracy Theory.   With the Council on Foreign Relations heavily membered with high level Republicans and Democrats through the years, I feel certain that futuristic planning has been discussed and vectored into the direction of both parties.

I also feel that with the advent of Cray Research Computers in the 1980's , social engineers have crunched numbers and attempted to profile a way to navigate through terrifyingly possible future so called disaster scenarios.

I have no confidence in these insane speculations.   Any attempt to influence humanity's path is doomed to suffer the law of unintended consequences.   I think the proponents of the Council on Foreign Relations and the like, are deranged enough to make the attempt, and that is what we are seeing today from the Deep State and the evil Oligarchs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_in_2100

11 posted on 09/23/2020 3:03:55 PM PDT by higgmeister ( In the Shadow of The Big Chicken)
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To: Publius

Thank you, Publius...much appreciated. I will read it.


12 posted on 09/23/2020 3:04:31 PM PDT by rlmorel ("Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies"- George Orwell)
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To: higgmeister

The deep state is AI?

Plausible. Likely even.


13 posted on 09/23/2020 3:05:45 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: PoliticallyShort

As one of millions of deplorable nonessentials, I will be happy to read this later today.


14 posted on 09/23/2020 3:07:37 PM PDT by caseinpoint (Don't get thickly involved in thin things.)
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I messed up the title of that link:

Scientific computing on vector computers

15 posted on 09/23/2020 3:08:16 PM PDT by higgmeister ( In the Shadow of The Big Chicken)
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To: Mariner
The deep state is AI?

Plausible. Likely even.

I would only have said guided by .... but.

Something like the HOLMES IV system supercomputer, alias Adam Selene, like the one in "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" might be a possibility but I don't think we are quite there yet.

Come to think of it, when I was in the USAF in the 1970's, I was privy to many things that would have amazed the public.

16 posted on 09/23/2020 3:16:40 PM PDT by higgmeister ( In the Shadow of The Big Chicken)
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To: higgmeister

Come to think of it, that was what Aristotle was saying.


17 posted on 09/23/2020 3:18:16 PM PDT by higgmeister ( In the Shadow of The Big Chicken)
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To: Old Sarge
The author bangs the drum loud about the left and makes Trump out to be a paper tiger and true Americans as having no plan. A few less pounds of ink for the ogliarchs and more facts about what is being accomplished by the hero's efforts in the present administration . This is war , yes we will win it , no I doubt we will be gracious to traitors.
18 posted on 09/23/2020 3:55:20 PM PDT by mercier (You cannot have successful capitalism without a moral component.)
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To: mercier

I can boil that whole article down to the author’s point in four words:

The Left Has Won.


19 posted on 09/23/2020 4:00:30 PM PDT by Old Sarge (We are seeing the birth of the Socialist Putsch)
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To: Publius
Freedom is a vague term. I think that we should be talking in terms of liberty and license. The progressives are OK with increasing citizens' license to achieve their base desires, however they are determined to thwart citizens' liberty to achieve their full potential.

Many on the right think that the progressives are either nihilists or relativists. This is a grave misunderstanding. Like us, they are objectivists when it comes to ethics, only their objective ethical philosophies are vastly different than ours.

Conservatives tend to believe in Virtue Ethics, i.e. each and every person should strive to become as virtuous as humanly possible and in so doing will make the correct ethical choices as they crop up.

The left, on the other hand, tend to be consequentialists (or what once was called utilitarian). To them it is not about individuals becoming virtuous and forming a virtuous society. Instead it is a system crafted by so-called experts that imposes its idea of ethics on the individual citizens. This is the source of all the virtue signaling, unconstitutional bureaucratic statutes, carbon credits, blue ribbon committees, supreme court decisions, etc.

If we are going to succeed, Codevilla suggests we must no longer be afraid of the word 'populist'. Codevilla suggests that the current crop of neocons, freemarketeers, boomercons, GOPe, etc. are going to be cast aside by the deplorables and replaced by more populist leaders who are even more populist than Trump. Both the left and right will accuse populists of all the typical slurs: anti-Semitic, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, and personality cultists.

Some of the potential populist leaders will say things that will be seen as fitting one or more of the above descriptions. If, however, we look into the lives of these potential leaders and see mostly virtuous men who are sickened by the current state of the US, then we must ignore the hatemongers and sign-up with the populists.

The right-leaning libertarians of AEI and the Cato Institute have done nothing for us. The neocons set us back a century or two. The social conservatives are way too passive depending on prayer and hoping for the Second Coming. We need strong populist leadership which is unafraid to denounce the elites, support the common man, and make peace with anyone who still believes in the original conception of America.

20 posted on 09/23/2020 4:01:44 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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