Thinking About A Revolution

When I think of revolution, I think of my grandmother. I think of infants. I think of most adults, like me, trying hard to make it work in a world they can't very well understand or predict as it is. We have still, despite all the howling, a very stable system that does a good job of protecting most of us from outright government atrocity, and from the rampaging mindless mob. We need to urge that system back on track. Throwing it out the window is not an improvement, and accomplishes none of the aims claimed by those who cry out for lawless action and overthrow. What we do NOT need is people saying that the only way to "strike back" at some archetypal fatcat is to bring down society around that fatcat's ears. Talk about the baby with the bathwater! That fatcat will fare better than everybody else on earth in the crisis that follows. The old, the weak, and the common and decent everyday people will not fare well, when society falls.

The fact that others can be and are greedy is nothing to give up on civilization over.

The system is built to handle a certain amount of greed. Indeed, if we did our job as a society - the hard work of keeping government accountable and clean, rather than the easy and self-defeating advocacy of an anarchy that will grievously harm the powerless, and not even seriously inconvenience those with real wealth and power! - if we held government even minimally accountable, the system is set up to harness self-interest and greed, to fuel the public good.

I'm kind of passionate about this. I think of my grandmom, my dad, all the other people who rely on the stability around them and who would probably be killed in the mayhem and rioting if and when "shi* got real" - when the revolutionary, licking their chops, finally gets the kind of collapse they've been wanting to bring about.

It's always been easier to do evil than to do good. Lasting good is hard work. Lasting evil, evil that can never be undone...that can be as easy as doing a little homework, and flipping a switch. But the stakes have never been higher than they are in the world today, and it has never been easier for even one person, acting alone, to unleash more horror, harm, and evil.

The revolutionary is the greatest and most dangerous evil on the face of the planet. The revolutionary must be eliminated, by the simple expedient of being made to look ridiculous: we must cure the comparatively minor ills we have. And believe me, next to the widespread bloodbath starvation panic picnic we'll get bringing down society in a pathetic and failed miss at the rich, the ills we have are minor. We need to get our governments to do their job. Pass laws that effectively define abuses, and then enforce them. Self-police and rigorously root out those who allow corruption.

Hard work, I know.