I'm pretty confident a revolution is on the menu.
One wonders if the next revolution will be like America in 1776 or France in 1789.
I'm hoping for the former but planning for the latter.
The French Revolution was shaped more by Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ideas than perhaps by the works of any other figure. I see a lot of the influence of Rousseau in the rhetoric of the contemporary left.
In Rousseau’s writings about the social contract, he notes:
“These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one — the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others.”
While Rousseau can rightly be seen as advocating a form of collectivism, he perhaps unintentionally makes the point why collectivist, socialist and communist societies are ultimately destined for failure and it is here: “…the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others.”
I think it is emblematic in Democrat policies and in the statements of their "thought leaders" that Rousseau's idea that if everybody is the same, nobody will ever want to rock the boat. The problem is that conditions can never be made equal for all, and even the attempt creates a hell on earth. Human perception simply will not accept an arbitrarily enforced "equality" (that's what the "equity" push of the Democrats is).
The class envy being shopped by this administration with their demonization of successful people by the implication that they are somehow not pulling their weight for society – that they are in violation of the social compact – is a prime example.
In John Locke’s 1689 Second Treatise of Government he wrote that individuals in a state of nature would be bound morally, by “The Law of Nature, not to harm each other in their lives or possession, but he also recognized that without government to defend them against those seeking to injure or enslave them, people would have no security in their rights and would live in fear. It seems plausible that movements like the Tea Party and MAGA arose in response to the fear that the current definition of the social contract strips the individual of his rights.
There is some significant legitimacy in the view that the government is not interested in equality of rights at all, it is only interested in abrogation of the rights of some in preference to others.
And that, my friends, is the antithesis of equality.
"There is some significant legitimacy in the view that the government is not interested in equality of rights at all, it is only interested in abrogation of the rights of some in preference to others.
And that, my friends, is the antithesis of equality." AND it is also the antithesis of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for all.
I think it's actually a FALSE revolution that's going on. I can't recommend to everyone more strongly that they check out the 1939 book "The Revolution of Nihilism: A Warning to the West" by Walter Rasuschning, former mayor of Danzig and originally a Nazi supporter who saw through what was going on. It's available free online.
Today's "revolution" - despite its show of meaning (socialist, "progressive," what have you) - is actually fundamentally empty, like that of the Nazis. It takes advantage of "revolutionary" language to institute a fascism more nihilistic even than the wildly destructive idealism of the French and Russian Revolutions. In other words, what's going on is the great American COUNTER-Revolution. It's the restoration of elitist, aristocratic plutocracy in "underdog" disguise, and it runs absolutely counter to all that the American Revolution fought for.
This also suggests a connection between the Nazi dedication to antisemitism and the contemporary left's obsession with Israel: both are totally fantastical fictions, symbolic keystones for the entire edifice.
Here's Rauschning's book: https://archive.org/details/revolutionofnihi027970mbp