Revolution

One of the most disturbing trends in the U.S. is that a sizable minority of Republicans believe that we will need a violent revolution against the government.  I believe that people in general and Republicans in particular tend to overestimate the effectiveness of violence.  I find it puzzling that so many Republicans think that they would benefit from such a revolution.

It is easy to see where their frustration comes from.  The size of government seems to be rising, even under Republican presidents.  In addition to this, our society seems more inclined to support gay marriage and the legalization of marijuana and perhaps some other substances as well.  Conservatives seem to be losing ground in all areas.  The country is even becoming less religious.

Even if the conservatives were right on all of these issues it is difficult to see what they would gain through violence.  The change in their power is due to the fact that they face a large, powerful opposition.  Taking a gun and shooting people isn't going to make more people go to your church.  The Republicans will have to take the unpleasant steps of reducing their expectation of what they can accomplish through political victory and widening their coalition by pursuing a more modest agenda.  This is going through the normal, official political channels as opposed to revolution.

But when is revolution desirable and what form should it take?  I would argue that revolution is only likely to achieve its stated aims if it enjoys widespread support.  This is unlikely in a democracy, since if a movement had widespread support it is difficult to tell why the normal, official political methods were unable to bring about the desired results.

My opinion on this is that what is needed is an argument that the existing methods for changing the system in the desired manner are prevented by unfair features of the system as it was created.  The problem that Republicans and Libertarians have in making this case is their near idolization of the men who created the system in the first place.  Leftists and Democrats don't have this problem.  They adhere to the idea of a living constitution.  Aspects of the Constitution that they don't like should simply be ignored.  They may be justified in pointing out that non-leftists also support a living constitution in practice, but this near worship of the founding fathers does have an impact.

Those parts of the Constitution that describe how the president and congress are to be elected tend to be followed, at least to the extent that our elections are honest.  Hence if there is something wrong with the actual selection process, this part of the Constitution will be as dead as Antonin Scalia wants.  The recourse that the people have to change the method of selection is spelled out in the same dead Constitution.  A super-majority of the individuals selected by the imperfect process must agree on the desired changes.  These are the very people who are least likely to desire a change, since it is the existing system that put them there in the first place.

I have an idea about how they should be selected.  Those wanting to serve in the legislature should take a qualifying exam.  Those who pass go into a pool of candidates to replace those in power.  The people vote on what proportion of office holders should retain their positions.  The appropriate number of legislators are then chosen at random for dismissal and replaced at random from the pool.

A number of other people have different ideas about how the system should be changed.  One idea was that we should have legislators serve only a single term.  I think that would be a bad idea because it would remove accountability from the system.  My proposal holds the legislature collectively accountable, giving each individual an incentive to encourage the group make good decisions and attempts to place people who are likely to make good decisions there in the first place by using an examination system to select intelligent legislators.

It could be that my system has defects that I'm not aware of.  Any system is likely to have defects.  What I think is most obviously wrong with the system is that those who have the greatest interest in maintaining the existing method of selecting legislators are the very ones who are each given the most power to preserve the status quo.