What would it take for you to fight for your liberty?

[Less Than Liz]

Quick video.

Like the thread title says, I what it would take for you to fight for your liberty, or if you even would at all. It's a short prompt, but an important one, especially in light of modern movements such as the Arab Spring which, regardless of how it will conclude, illustrates at least a few breaking points where people will say "That's enough." But most of us live in stable, westernized countries. For all our complaints, we're relatively well off, live under the rule of law, and have a modicum of say in how our country is run. It's easy to consider a situation where someone blasts into the White House and essentially burns the Constitution, but these days the encroachments are more subtle, are democratically enacted through legislation, and are sometimes written in such a way that most people don't even know what the legal consequences are. So what would it take?

[Tactical Leg Sweep]

I think the problem is that it's an extremely broad question. There are plenty of actions that would cause me to resist and possibly even consider outright insurgency, but you'd have to narrow the category, otherwise there's a pretty broad spectrum of grievances.

[Less Than Liz]

Tactical Leg Sweep

I think the problem is that it's an extremely broad question. There are plenty of actions that would cause me to resist and possibly even consider outright insurgency, but you'd have to narrow the category, otherwise there's a pretty broad spectrum of grievances.

I kept it broad on purpose. People have to imagine the spectrum of grievances and react accordingly. Maybe you'd literally have to fight because the government is physically harming its citizens and prohibiting civil means of figuratively fighting. Maybe not. Maybe other people don't care to make the distinction, and see even less physically forceful incursions as grounds for genuine revolution.

[Tactical Leg Sweep]

Less Than Liz

Tactical Leg Sweep

I think the problem is that it's an extremely broad question. There are plenty of actions that would cause me to resist and possibly even consider outright insurgency, but you'd have to narrow the category, otherwise there's a pretty broad spectrum of grievances.

I kept it broad on purpose. People have to imagine the spectrum of grievances and react accordingly. Maybe you'd literally have to fight because the government is physically harming its citizens and prohibiting civil means of figuratively fighting. Maybe not. Maybe other people don't care to make the distinction, and see even less physically forceful incursions as grounds for genuine revolution.

Well certainly that would be a major one. Usage of deadly military or even deadly paramilitary force to put down protests, especially peaceful ones would be a pretty big deal breaker. Any incursions onto the bill of rights or suffrage in general would be pretty solid reasoning for me at least.

[Demon Kagerou]

I think the most sensitive liberty issue for me.. as probably near anyone this age.. is the freedom of information, particularly on the web. And a lot of the issues are a thin line for me... as an artist, I respect people respecting people's work. But I don't see the point when the main issue is funding outdated publishing companies. It also seems to hinder basic communication in an age where a lot of people are connected by sharing thoughts on the same movies, music, etc. Memes as it were.

I feel such forces against it are fighting against the evolution of society, and the individual rights to grow and connect to the world beyond themselves.

Not as bad as denying food, or property or guns, I know. But the bar is supposed to be raised every now and then, yes?

Reactionaries really are the worst when any liberty is involved.

[Old Blue Collar Joe]

Tactical Leg Sweep

I think the problem is that it's an extremely broad question. There are plenty of actions that would cause me to resist and possibly even consider outright insurgency, but you'd have to narrow the category, otherwise there's a pretty broad spectrum of grievances.

Actually, Liz has it right. Figure the odds of her to be sneaky. Beware her law degree when she gets it.
The government isn't going to take our rights away in one fell swoop. They've been doing it incrementally for quite a long time. I think we all have our breaking points, but they've got the populace so well trained to be on side A or B, that most only focus on lost rights when it is the 'bad guys' that take them.
Look at the Patriot Act. When Bush did something to further diminish our rights, the left went batshit, but when Obama did it...only the right became unhinged. Two sides of the same coin, and we're all watching it disintegrate, until we finally reach the point that we start to wake up as a people. But...will it be too late?

[Tactical Leg Sweep]

Old Blue Collar Joe

Tactical Leg Sweep

I think the problem is that it's an extremely broad question. There are plenty of actions that would cause me to resist and possibly even consider outright insurgency, but you'd have to narrow the category, otherwise there's a pretty broad spectrum of grievances.

Actually, Liz has it right. Figure the odds of her to be sneaky. Beware her law degree when she gets it.
The government isn't going to take our rights away in one fell swoop. They've been doing it incrementally for quite a long time. I think we all have our breaking points, but they've got the populace so well trained to be on side A or B, that most only focus on lost rights when it is the 'bad guys' that take them.
Look at the Patriot Act. When Bush did something to further diminish our rights, the left went batshit, but when Obama did it...only the right became unhinged. Two sides of the same coin, and we're all watching it disintegrate, until we finally reach the point that we start to wake up as a people. But...will it be too late?

I would say that's only because most people agree that violent resolution to these grievances isn't necessary as of yet. Laws can still be repealed and overturned. People aren't being killed in the street or being taken away in the dead of night like they are/were in the middle east and other areas. I'm not going to start fighting in an insurgency because I know I can still affect change through popular sovereignty (despite all the whining of college kids both IRL and here on gaia, because I just don't get it man, I'm just a sheep for the man, man). When I can't, that's when yielding to force is necessary. Until then, anyone sane would prefer a nonviolent and legal solution.

[Old Blue Collar Joe]

Tactical Leg Sweep

Old Blue Collar Joe

Tactical Leg Sweep

I think the problem is that it's an extremely broad question. There are plenty of actions that would cause me to resist and possibly even consider outright insurgency, but you'd have to narrow the category, otherwise there's a pretty broad spectrum of grievances.

Actually, Liz has it right. Figure the odds of her to be sneaky. Beware her law degree when she gets it.
The government isn't going to take our rights away in one fell swoop. They've been doing it incrementally for quite a long time. I think we all have our breaking points, but they've got the populace so well trained to be on side A or B, that most only focus on lost rights when it is the 'bad guys' that take them.
Look at the Patriot Act. When Bush did something to further diminish our rights, the left went batshit, but when Obama did it...only the right became unhinged. Two sides of the same coin, and we're all watching it disintegrate, until we finally reach the point that we start to wake up as a people. But...will it be too late?

I would say that's only because most people agree that violent resolution to these grievances isn't necessary as of yet. Laws can still be repealed and overturned. People aren't being killed in the street or being taken away in the dead of night like they are/were in the middle east and other areas. I'm not going to start fighting in an insurgency because I know I can still affect change through popular sovereignty (despite all the whining of college kids both IRL and here on gaia, because I just don't get it man, I'm just a sheep for the man, man). When I can't, that's when yielding to force is necessary. Until then, anyone sane would prefer a nonviolent and legal solution.

Agreed. My personal concern is that the government seems to be like a snowball rolling down hill, and gaining speed as it goes. I think we're a long way human wise from resorting to the violent method, but it will, eventually, reach a boiling point.

[Kaltros]

I fight for my liberty all the time, in various ways. I just do it on a smaller scale than politics, because I think the political system can't really be reformed anyhow. Much better to build a new one from the ground up, so a replacement might be ready once the fall comes.

[Complex Systems]

I'm going to hate doing this, but I actually agree with at least part of what Kaltros said.

Kaltros

I fight for my liberty all the time, in various ways. I just do it on a smaller scale than politics, because I think the political system can't really be reformed anyhow. Much better to build a new one from the ground up, so a replacement might be ready once the fall comes.

As a libertarian I try to remain vigilent of the world in which we live. While I don't quite believe in the rhetoric presented in Hayek's Intellectuals and Socialism, I do believe that by participating in academic discussion and the public realm the tide towards liberty is fought in most democratic (and republic, before people pounce) states. I've accomplished this through academic publications through work, op-eds, and blogs I've participated in over the years. This has to some degree helped spread the beliefs in freedom, liberty, and equality under the law that I hold dear.

Furthermore, I believe that individuals should create black markets, showing the inefficiencies at trying to crack down on certain economic activity, and participating in at least mildly subversive behavior (when I tutor, I don't report my income to the IRS, I've smuggle cigarettes across state borders to sell for profit, pirating and sharing music, and any number of minor ways of breaking the laws). While these are hardly large protests, I think they show the power of the right of individuals to freely contract under mutually beneficial exchange in a free market, something I wish to defend.

Finally, I vote with my feet. Things like the TSA have made me, for the most part, stop traveling by air plane. Random bag searches in the DC metro have made me pump up the air back into my bike's tires over the winter and remain vigilant of when they might appear. I've stopped buying food from Chick Fil'A and other entities that fund political positions I disagree with. I give my time and energy to groups that actively push for the sort of liberties I wish to see society embrace.

Now, what would bring me to violence? I don't know. Large tax increases, crack downs on my ability to start businesses, or seek gainful employment according to my own desires would certainly be high up there. There are a handful of issues I consider riot worthy, and while I've gained a large sense of dissatisfaction with public protests, it's because I feel ultimately that political methods are neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for greater liberties. And, certainly, if push comes to shove, I may vote with my feet and move to other countries that embrace the values I like more.

[azulmagia]

OP is aking everyone for a decision threshold for a course of action no-one knows how to effect.

Also, moveable lines in the sand detected.

[Less Than Liz]

azulmagia

OP is aking everyone for a decision threshold for a course of action no-one knows how to effect.

Also, moveable lines in the sand detected.

Sorry, not all of us are going to cater to your "special needs." The short bus is over there. *points to GD*

[TANRailgun]

Quote:

What would it take for you to fight for your liberty?

An excuse, and a reasonable chance of not getting my head blown off or spending the rest of my life in a jail cell.

[Amongst_many]

I would just move to another country, I wouldn't risk my life for some sorry state that all it did was s**t over it's citizens. ******** it, there's better options, I'm not swayed by petty nationalist notions that I'm somehow bound to the place I was arbitrarily born into

[Heimdalr]

A series of observations, events that I can clearly see are harmful to the people, pretty much anything that lets me know that beyond the official pretty words and media rationalization there is a people in suffering. To get out there, in the streets, and see with my own eyes how cops brutalize the defenseless for misdemeanors, how armed 30-car convoys protect the powerful and how corporations with their fingerprints all over the government straddle the skyline with phallic monuments to their own ego. It's not indicative of a nation in good health.

I'm not certain how advanced these symptoms must be for me to be willing to take up arms. A new law, perhaps more invasion of privacy, expansion of eminent domain, more exceptions to the right to free speech. Perhaps prison-related; incarceration of petty criminals, jailor abuse, executions. Perhaps economy-related, high unemployment, stagnant wages, rises in cost of living. And on top of any of these there should be a sizable outbreak of civil disobedience from which to escalate into insurgency.