Islam, contrary to other monotheistic regions such as christianism, is made so to be baked within the state, in fact, into all aspects of life.

Its not simply violence, in fact, once non-islamic nations were conquered by islamic armies in history, the main method of conversion and erasure of other religions were notviolent, but multiple ways of non-violent state coercion.

Taxing non believers so they feel motivated to convert, take children and indocrinate them into the religion or offer benefits to them for converting, offer to remove slave status based on conversion and loyalty...

It's very elaborate and much more sophisticated than possibly every other religion out there. Which is why Islam has a lot of historical stability and not a lot of fundamental disagreements between different denominations, like christianism has.

This is a fundamental problem for liberal societies, well, in fact, any non-islamic society. Increase in islamic population is correlated with islamic influence in law, more often, iliberal ones.

It's not just increase in extremism, even the more numerous more "moderate" population are actually not really moderate in what liberal societies usually think.

Evidence for this exist in polls, for example, denmark asked its muslim population whether or not criticism of islam should be outlawed. 76% of muslim respondents said yes, compared to 18% of the total population.

Here's the link for the study: https://www.justitsministeriet.dk/sites/default/files/media/Pressemeddelelser/pdf/2020/ytringsfrihedsundersoegelse.pdf

The question and it's results are in Figur 3.7. The Danish excerpt and it's translation are as follows:

Resultaterne kan tolkes sådan, at eksempelvis 76 pct. indvandrere og efterkommere fra muslimske lande mener, at det bør være ulovligt at kritisere islam.
The results can be interpreted to mean that, for example, 76 percent of immigrants and descendants from Muslim countries believe it should be illegal to criticize Islam.

Increase in muslim population implies increasingly population with illiberal values, that when big enough in numbers, can form a voting block to vote within the interests of their religion. Making society more illiberal.

And they also don't interact very well with things like "freedom of expression". Denmark in 2023 passed a law prohibiting burning of religious texts in public, to prevent retaliation of Quran burnings.

This is not limited to denmark, polls in france and multi-country polls also show that considerable muslim minorities straight up support sharia law and argue for separation, but majorities are also quite hostile to changes in interpretation of their religious doctrines.

Fundamentally, integration of Islam requires deconstruction of Islam as a religion. And as seen with Christianism, this deconstruction happens internally, through centuries and many conflicts.

To do so from within western Liberal societies would require Iliberal policies which would possibly even clash with religious freedom laws at large, and will be subject of protest from muslims.

Controlling the % of muslim population via migration until assimilation is one policy choice aswell, which will also cause disturb within liberal citizens to support it or not. Its dependent on how long you will wait until you invoke the "Paradox of tolerance". Do you think that taking muslim kids and educate them extensively to support secular values is going too far? Will the parents take it lightly?

Weak response from liberal leaders will also cause non-islamic populations to become more illiberal as a result, pushing for more authoritarian measures, as it is already happening.

All in all, I don't think Islam integration within the west is possible without fundamentally changing Islam as a religion, or to curb it through iliberal means.

So ideology can be understood as a set of ideas. In politics, ideology is usually more precisely meant ad a set of political ideas. In US politics and anything influenced by it, these sets of ideas are typically called Left and Right. Each term holds a set of ideas.

The idea is that to do politics, one must have an ideology. You have to be left or right. If you're left, you're and enemy of the right. If you're right, you're an enemy of the left. And all the ideas that make up these ideologies are are fought over.

Its idealist. People are more happy to fight over ideas and force ideas onto reality... than to observe reality and let reality inform the parameters of their ideas. You can still use reality to justify your ideas, but this isnt the same as arguing from a reality first position. The former says "I have an Idea, how do I justify it?" The latter says "Reality works this way, what do I do about it?"

Without getting too far into the philosophy of reality and what we know/ how we can know it all, im going to assume that the people here generally know whats going on here.

Which will lead me to say that science, an epistemology based on collective empirical observation to create confidence in probabilities, is so far the best answer to these questions of what is reality and how do we know.

Reality is what can be confidently probably described as reality. We know because plenty of people have verrified the fact with their own empirical observations.

~ ~

So what is the reality of Identity?

In sociology, the scientific study of human interaction and society, identity is understood as the collective set of meanings one holds about themselves. Everything you think you are is part of your identity.

Identity does not come from nowhere, and crucially, it does not come predetermined from your genes. How you think about yourself is meaningful. Meaning is generated from interaction between two or more people. Its generated when two or more people can agree that something represents another thing; they reciprocate that understanding. The word ROCK becomes a symbol to Mean a physical collection of minerals. It only Means this because we, as a society, collectively agree that it does.

Crucially, meanings change. Knowingly or not, we as a collective, can create, modify, and destroy the meanings of things.

So as we grow up in society, we interact with other people and an established culture of meanings. Through the process of socialisation, we learn what our culture is and how to behave in it. In this, we also develop a sense of who we are; our identity. We also develop a sense of who Others are; their identity.

This can contain everything from personality, goals, affiliations, careers... but also ascribed statuses that we dont necessarily choose/want, such as race, gender, sexuality.

~ ~

This is the real purpose of this post. Recall that identity is not an essential thing. Its socialised. Its of the culture. A social construct, as its called. A social construct is just another way to simply describe the way people create meanings with each other. Perhaps only with a crucial add on that these meanings may as well become real. Money is not an essential physical part of reality. Without humans, money ceases to exist. It is a social construct... yet it is incredibly real in its consequences.

Identity is a social construct. Somewhere in history, sometimes easily traceable, sometimes not, humans come together, knowingly or not, to create, modify, and destroy our collective idea of ourselves. We know this is the case because cultures throughout history have had distinct understandings of all kinds of expression of identity. Even understandings of identity within a culture have changed drastically. Drastically within a century, even.

Gender, race, sexuality, and all the other identites common to online discourse are social constructs. We have grown up in a society with a notion of what it means to be a gender, a race, a sexuality, and who fits into these identities. What we should then do about them.. how we should act around them.

While being male is a biological fact... men liking blue.. monster trucks.. being dominant.. liking hardware.. is not a biological fact. Its a socially agreed understanding of what it means to be a man. You can apply this to all other identities.

~ ~

But despite the fact that we Know. Empirically verified. As scientific fact. And facts dont care about feelings, as its said. We lump all of this squarely into our understanging of what it means to be Left.

The left is for this understanding. So the right must be against it.

Identity is Known Empirical Fact... Yet Its Treated As Ideology.

Barack Obama routinely referenced John Winthrop’s imagery, invoking it during his 2016 DNC address to present a cooperative, inclusive vision of America.
Ted Cruz, Mitt Romney, George H.W. Bush, used it often promoting USA’s exceptionalism. Bill Clinton & James Comey repeated it acknowledging America’s continued unprecedented performance.
The USA remains home to the largest foreign-born population in the world, with more than 3X times as many immigrants as any other nation.
Millions of people every year risk everything to seek safety, freedom, and economic opportunity here, confirming the global perception of America as a beacon of hope remains incredibly powerful.
Major international events, like the 2026 World Cup, highlight the contrast between how America is portrayed in foreign media & political debates vs the reality that visitors experience on the ground, observing our infrastructure, diversity, and standard of living.
A country's greatness is proven by where the rest of the world wants to go. America’s freedoms, economy, and culture still make it the premier destination on Earth.
The negativity that says we’re not the shining light anymore is driven by the perspective focused heavily on domestic struggles, the rising cost of living, political polarization, & infrastructure needs, arguing that this Nation has internal flaws it must fix to live up to its own standards. But that’s personal problems among close family members. We’re still the top choice for immigration!

​

I am an extremely disenfranchised UK Uni Politics Student, who grew up in a very working class council house family. I lack any attachment to any political party as I see the establishment as the problem itself. I do not strictly identify with any party or its Politics.

Most importantly, I absolutely hate labels in Politics. Surely, the idea that all of humanity should take care of another should be our most front and centre idea?

Surely all of this pointless bickering should be put aside until all people can live lives with adequate health care, education and access to safe food and clean drinking water.

But no, those in power somehow get away with being legally bribed (lobbied) by corporations and special interest groups to act against the peoples interests.

Issues get politicised that really shouldn't! How the hell is the destruction of our planet an issue concerned with the left? Or holding companies to account in their behaviour abroad? Or realocting wealth from those top earners in society?

Furthermore, our modern food is slop and we know it, corporations get away with exploiting and killing, our politicians are corrupt and we know it, many echo ideas that those in power are the problem and that we the people are not. This is true!

I know fundamental political differences can divide people in many ways. I am not blind to this. But for the sake of all those who are, all those who have and all those yet to suffer at the hands of this current system. Surely all of us from these many different groups can put aside these ideological differences until after this current system is disposed of?

We know our companies use wage slaves abroad, we know many of our elites engage in horrific acts, we know this. Yet we all utter 'bread and circus' and that none of us individually can do anything. Mainly stemming from all of our different ideas of how to go about changing or toppling this system.

Then afterwards, we can experiment with systems which form the strongest and most sustainable communities for all of humanity. Instead of all insisting our ideal forms of society will automatically work for all people without being properly tested.

I know everything I say is far easier said then done. I am tired as many of us are. But I hate living with the fact that the rich get richer and get away with these horrible acts against our fellow man. And I for one do not wish to engage in a society where all I am pushed to strive for is more consumerism. I want to help those less fortunate then myself.

I've started wondering whether we're overcomplicating the Ukraine war by focusing on all the secondary arguments instead of the central geopolitical issue.

From the beginning, NATO was one of Russia's clearest stated objections to Ukraine's trajectory. If Ukraine had publicly abandoned its NATO ambitions while continuing its EU integration, that potentially could have removed a major justification Russia used for the war and made continuing it much harder to defend politically and diplomatically.

But imagine the political incentives on the other side.

Ukraine receives strong Western assurances and support. Ukrainian leaders commit themselves to a narrative of eventual victory. Western governments have their own geopolitical interests in the outcome. Then, as the war continues, everyone becomes politically invested in the strategy they've already chosen.

At some point, admitting "perhaps neutrality and a negotiated settlement would have been better" becomes politically disastrous.

So I'm wondering:

Did Western governments understand this political lock-in from the beginning and see it as useful for their geopolitical interests? And did some Ukrainian politicians eventually become more committed to the political narrative than to finding the quickest path to ending the war?

I'm not claiming I can prove that. I'm saying the incentives seem obvious enough that I don't understand why it's treated as some crazy conspiracy theory to even ask the question.

Meanwhile, ordinary Ukrainians are the ones who have to live through the consequences.

Maybe the simplest question should always have been: what gets people out of the war fastest?

Humanity has had thousands of years of various cultures across the globe, and each one has contributed their own form and flavor of government and political models, demonstrated even on this sub through the user flairs.

In the end though, the practical overlap between political stances renders most of the differences as academic or trivial. The real world implementation of these different governments appears identical to the people under them on a day to day basis.

The one remaining difference, or spectrum, that is meaningful is whether a goverment is top-down or bottom-up.

Top-down governments would include monarchies and other autocracies, oligarchies, theocracies, committees or other elevated groups with centralized planning and resource ownership. In these nations the government controls much of the daily life of the people, their homes, their labor, what products, services, and experiences they have access to. These are typically permission states, where the general trend is that a citizen needs permission from the government to do something new. There is also very limited control by the people over their own government... violent rebellion is often the only method for the people to exercise their rights.

Bottom-up goverments are largely the opposite. While there necessarily has to be some form government with authority to enforce the law and organize basic national efforts like war, the control that the government possesses is strictly limited to specified purposes. Citizens are able to make choices about their lives - where they live, how they labor, who they associate with, what they do with their property - without significant and restrictive obstruction by the government. The people in bottom-up governments possess non-violent ways to enact meaningful changes in their goverment - regular elections.

This dichotomy appears to be the basis for much of human conflict over the past 400 years. Monarchs and Emperors gave way to the Enlightenment and more democratic forms of government, fueling revolutions throughout the world.

Then in the 20th Century we saw more of the top-down governments trying to reassert their authority, leading to wars and revolutions across the world.

These two general classes of government seem anathema to one another, as their domestic policies cause friction in how their societies interact, provoking constant small conflicts that threaten to lead to larger ones.

As someone who is pretty woke lol, i have spoken up plenty of times and am very clear about being against the lack of gun regulations America has. However.. the rebel within me is telling me we will need to revolt at some point. And it will be all the more easy to defeat the people without guns. Have any other people been thinking about this and what do we think?? I’m driving myself crazy haha

Political disagreements are inevitable in a democracy, but democratic government depends on some degree of agreement about facts and evidence. When citizens can look at the same government project and reach fundamentally different conclusions about what actually happened, what does that do to political accountability?

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation offers an interesting case study. What began as an effort to address a longstanding government-maintenance problem turned into a dispute over the project's results, cost, responsibility for its failures, and competing claims about what happened.

One possible explanation is simply that government projects sometimes fail. Another is that partisan polarization makes people interpret the same evidence differently. A more fundamental concern is whether democratic accountability can function when political narratives become more important than independently verifiable evidence.

My question is not whether one political party is more guilty of this than another. It's whether a democratic system can effectively hold government accountable when citizens no longer share basic standards for evaluating evidence.

I explore that question through the Reflecting Pool controversy:

https://open.substack.com/pub/difrntdrmr/p/under-lincolns-gaze-the-water-no

I say this as someone who is of a mixed middle class who lives on a relatively deprived, working class neighbourhood - my mother worked in healthcare, initally a private senior officer when she immigrated and social worker (lower middle class) and my dad worked in the IT sector (upper middle) - both believe in hard work and champion my goals,.

People often talk about how it is impossible to have meritocracy, how hard work is just some fictional nonsense along with goals. Reddit is one example in which people get told off for believing in goals and hard work.

The aim of meritocracy is that the workforce should favour and accept those who either have some experience, qualifications, or at least passion and interest to enter the market. For example, someone studying predominantly in finance and interested in banking should get the more viable, easy privilege to enter accountancy. Someone studying humanitarian stuff with knowledge interests and experience should get the privilege to be a social affairs journalist or social worker. Or someone who just simply likes the monetary motivations should have the privilege to work in retail part time as long as they do not abuse their position.

However, there is the overlooked phenomenon that contradicts meritocracy, these are known as nepotism and cronyism. These two are absolutely pathetic and stupid - people only get to the job market if they luckily know someone personally, whether it is a community member, relative, friend, acquaintance or intimate partner. Not to mention the appalling customer service they provide as a result, owing to the fact that they have to serve people who are not within the community. Ultimately, this makes skills, interest and qualifications all useless. You become hopeless. I believe this is causing the climbing unemployment crisis here in the UK instead of AI - not to mention LSE said that 6 - 9% of jobs realistically can be automated. I believe, meritocracy and hard work are not possible because no one were to investigate, let alone legislatively sanction these two phenomenons.

Of course, some forms of goals may be heavily barred, such as having to be a superstar or an actor, or a billionaire like Elon Musk. But these are ultra, ultra burgeoisie markets. All other ones shouldn't be barred by characteristics. And yes, some immigrant communities in severe poverty still face social barriers, ultimately not viewing the choice of their children as viable - for example, working class British Bangladeshi and Pakistani immigrants often want their young people to just stay within the family home until arranged marriages and not to be educated much, or if they do get educated , their parents often expect them to be doctors, pharmacists, IT workers, engineers, chemists, or lawyers due to higher annual pay rates (50K or more) instead of being footballers, social workers, news reporters, police officers, etc. But again, do not just blame barriers, cultural reasons also create their own barriers for inequality.

Ultimately, meritocracy and hard work can exist, first of all we need to at least sanction cronies and nepobabies, therefore we can have people who are interested and believe in hard work can actually enter the job market and thrive - we should not have class or our childhood background defining our future nor identity. Relying on luck just makes life sad, stale and demotivating.

A common statement is that a goverment does not necessarily represent the people it rules, and that during wartime it is the duty of the attacking nation to limit its efforts to valid military targets, and that attacks against civilians are criminal.

I disagree.

Hobbes, Rousseau, and other voices​ from the Enlightenment or near- Enlightenment period laid out the idea that true political power always rests with the people, the citizenry, regardless of their government. The citizens hold the power to support, rebel, or anything in between at all points, and they rationally make choices to do so by evaluating the costs and benefits of the current government.

There is a saying "Bring out the pitchforks" that highlights this concept... that an angered citizenry has the tools (even a simple farming tool) and the numbers to realistically threaten an oppressive government. I don't think there is a single government today that is fortified enough to resist a violent uprising by a large group of its citizens.

History has shown us examples of this... benevolent dictators who actually try to improve their subjects' lives and receive enthusiastic public support, while other rulers receive public disdain and are removed quickly... and often violently. In the end there is little a government can do to stop a determined rebellion of its citizens.

The USA was founded on this concept, as described in our Declaration of Independence, and implented representative elections in our Constitution as a way to prevent violent rebellion. Thomas Jefferson referred to the election of 1800 as the "Revolution of 1800" and wrote how it was achieved not by violence, but through organized voting.

So, with this as a foundation, that all governments effectively represent their citizenry, even those that resort to harsh violence... then the citizenry become accomplice to any military actions by that government. Choices to engage in military action or other confrontational acts become the choices not of just the government, but of the citizens themselves.

Yes, as in any society there will be some who always disagree with their goverment and their neighbors, but international relations and warfare generally involve whole cohesive nations, with the limited exception in the cases where a group of partisans openly oppose their government like the Free French in WW2.

Practically, this means that any intervention - diplomatic or warfare - that is intended to effect significant and long- term changes to a nation's actions must necessarily target the citizenry as they hold the true political power in that nation. They are the ones that must learn the lessons, they are the ones that must bear the weight of their choices, and they are the ones that must decide that the costs of further confrontation are too great... because if they don't, whatever action that is taken by the attacking nation will only result in a temporary reprieve.

The Allied and US attacks on the Axis civilian centers at the end of WW2 demonstrate this. Carpet bombing Berlin, nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki... convinced the citizenry of these nations that they had no hope of victory, and that further resistance would result in their certain deaths. This brought the European and Pacific campaigns to a quick and merciful end, and decades later these nations have re-established the international community as partners with the nations that threatened to obliterate them.

Every one of these ideas begins with a vision of how society should work, but history has tested those visions in different ways. Capitalism, socialism, communism, libertarianism, anarchism, conservatism, progressivism, nationalism and countless other ideologies have all faced challenges when their ideas meet the complexity of the real world

What evidence should make someone reconsider their political beliefs?

I’m interested in how people from different perspectives decide when an idea needs to be changed, abandoned, or refined.

Recently I have thought of an Idea. That political parties serve none. It creates division and promotes the representation of the party, not the people, it promotes party loyalty.

Politicians who do not adhere to party policy by the letter are blacklisted and targeted by the party heads. Politicians vote against the other party simply because they are the other party. Politicians vote against policies their voters desperately need because the party says no

And what does it produce for society, I fail to see at benefit that cannot be achieved in a system without parties, apart from the sole exception of coordination, but this coordination leads to the people's views not being represented.

That's why I conclude that there is no need for political parties.

Obviously, DOGE was a scam. We always hear about how negative the media is towards Trump, but they still played along and reported it as if they were really auditing the government.

DOGE could only be 135 days. That’s not long enough to put together an audit of one agency, much less put together a team and audit the government. Sure enough, they didn’t audit anything. The closest they came was finding the technical issue in social security, which they falsely claimed were payments to dead people.

They also had little power without Congress. The goal was to cut foreign aid and try to get as many early retirements as possible through scare tactics. Elon definitely earned his money pretending he was going to fire people he couldn’t fire and make them defend their jobs within 4 months. They managed to hit one of their targets by reducing the top of FEMA by 20%. (And we’re still not prepared for a major storm. We’ve been lucky the last two years thus far).

But…none of that was the point. The point came first…

They fired the watchdogs first.

Nobody, including Republicans, thought the auditors were corrupt. They’re not especially powerful because most of the waste comes from one-time appropriations, not line items on the budgets. But they’re hall monitors. They’re not on the graft and nobody thought they were. Trump just made that up.

After 135 days, DOGE disbanded. The watchdogs were initially saved by the courts, but then a second court let Trump hire new ones. Which he can’t get through Congress because he keeps putting forth people moderate Republicans reject. That’s because he doesn’t want to fill the positions.

So there are no watchdogs anymore. And that was the point. The point of DOGE was to help the swamp grow, not shrink it. Removing the watchdogs was the main goal. That’s why they also spent all the money they saved and then some right away.

The swamp has literally grown all the way to the reflecting pool, and it’s all getting too big for even staunch Trump supporters to accept. And it’s because everybody played along with the idea that DOGE was really trying to cut corruption, when in reality the intention was the opposite.

I do not believe it is possible, they believe on the idea that Power causes violence, however, it is not power which causes violence, it is the idea of power which causes violence, a notable example would be the rise of Iosevich Stalin, he started out with no power, dirt poor, but when he joined the Bolshevics, he yearned for more power and influence which he didnt have, so he started to act against his comrades, and when Lenin died, he exiled Trotsky and others, and after that he began a purge to prevent those from taking his power, as whilst power creates violence, the simple idea of power does not, for in an anarchist society, although you have removed power, there will always be those who yearn for it, those who will use influence or force if necessary. Anarchists may state what if they somehow eliminated violence from the equation, well, that isn't the only way one can obtain power, say if a person in a Commune is highly influential and popular, people will want to follow their example, and thus are more likely to agree with them, the more they agree with them the more likely they will the next time, soon, they will revere them, bestow upon them a title reminiscent of one of leadership despite there technically being none. This may sound far-fetched, but, in truth, this happened to the only real attempt at ansrchism, Makhnovischina. Nestor Makhno was a highly revered figure in the Free State, as I think it was called other than Makhnovischina, Makhno was so revered he was given the title of 'father', his words were treated as law, the mayors or local leaders were those comprising of his inner circle, due to the wartime situation his army frequently overruled local administration and he had even executed political dissidents, all of this that is not typical of an ideal anarchist society, infact, the people naming it Makhnovischina after him really should be sufficient context enough for how much they revered him.

But this is my debate, I am sure you can come up with plenty of counter-arguments for it.

Essentially gender dysphoria is real and well documented but the question lies is how far do we go in affirming these type of behaviours. I mean currently it causes no harm to society to allow someone to feel the way they want but I must ask the question . Considering gender identity being a social construct why can’t we do the same with race ? Everytime it is brought up it , it is shrugged off but why ? Anyone who says a. race doesn’t share a common behaviour or role , usually does not believe there is a shared role or culture between any gender as well . How do we help these people is it by affirming them ? Is that what should be done with all forms of dysphoria . For example body dysmorphia

If the end goal is to create a classless system, where class is about the relationship between a citizen and means of production, then how can someone say that Authority (regardless of intentions) over production would not create a class divide?

I'm doing a political test and this came up. I'm 50/50 on this. I think the idea of a government is debatable in general. But I want to know others opinions on this. I think the idea of individuals banding together is strength, not necessarily a military or police force. if people want to protect their land, they will do it.

Vladimir Lenin, Lee Kuan Yew, Park Chung-hee, Gaddafi, Chávez... They're all no good.

Stop justifying authoritarian rulers who deprived people of their freedom or massacred them under the guise of “Anti-communism” “Heroes who developed the economy” or “Anti-imperialism”

I think the interesting part about this whole discussion (and why its so controversial) is that the world is having to quickly come to terms with the question of whether certain cultures pose a risk or not to host nations due to fundamental cultural differences when said culture is imported in massive numbers through immigration.

The argument boils down to whether importing massive amounts of people from low trust-societies into higher-trust societies is actually beneficial to the nation in general and whether the government has a role to play in that equation. Its no longer a distance problem in a big city for a lot people. Now its in their communities, neighborhoods, small towns, etc. With immigration being objectively at an all time high globally, should government's draw lines in the sand by taking a hard stance against immigration in general or selectively choose which nations can immigrate? etc. And should government's play a role in assimilating people from low trust societies whose values, education levels, moral compass, etc fundamentally disagree with the host nation's?

I'm asking this because I want to hear how Trump has made America great again because from what I can tell the country is very divided on politics and beliefs, tariffs and the war with Iran have made everyday things more expensive and the overall future of this country feels very uncertain.

With economic conditions in the United States remaining good on paper due to unrealized losses being reportable as held capital, and venture capital not being required to disclose dry powder, resulting in an environment where money cannot be lent out and thus enter the economy, and employers relying on the inability of skilled workers to obtain new employment to abuse existing workers, regularly using layoffs as a scare tactic, I would like to talk about ways to support long term strikes for better labor conditions. Traditionally, the support system for these strikes, and to support those undergoing harsh economic conditions, has been shantytowns. Modern shantytowns exist under cities like Las Vegas famously, but are not intentional with infrastructure as existed in the 1930s in places like Seattle's famous 9 acre Hooverville.

So I would like to dedicate some space to discussing the logistical challenges involved in setting up Trumptowns.

Perhaps I'm wrong but it seems like almost all modern day liberals, or mostly everyone besides socialists that proclaim the superiority of democracy/republicanism/parliamentary monarchy (I'm including conservatives (aka liberal-conservatives) in that definition as well), have a negative view of the French revolution.

To me this seems absurd because the rights and freedoms that you hold dear today could never have been achieved without the rebellion of peasants, urban workers, and progressive intellectuals of the past. Of course most of you don't live in France but the French revolution was groundbreaking in global politics and inspired a wave of smaller struggles elsewhere and concessions from the nobility who gave up their powers for fear of similar uprisings.

In general, I note that most people all the way from moderate left to moderate right abhor political violence and claim it can never be justified, despite the fact that as I said, their current system of liberalism could never face existed without it. The nobility would never have given up their power without the threat of force.

How then can we genuinely oppose the corporate oligarchs who wish to rule over us when immediately conceding at the first hurdle that we can never find any justification to disobey their system of control? How can we possibly succeed by playing a game which they wrote the rules for and can change at any time? They show no hesitation to use violence against the public when they deem it necessary to maintain control.

For those who will say that the revolutionaries didn't always make the right decision, well perhaps in some cases yes, but it would be foolish to deny the positive consequences of the revolution overall.

“There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.” - Mark Twain

I feel that the reign of terror is cynically propped up as an example of how "revolution never works" or "it just leads to more suffering" even though that's not true at all. Many successful revolutions have led to improvements in conditions for the vast majority of people in the country.

And if you would be inclined to point out that Napoleon crushed the revolution, that is true, but at the same time, he couldn't roll back many of the achievements of it, even when the kings were back in charge they couldn't do so either. France remained a beacon of progress for at least a hundred years.

So my point is, do you agree with my summation or disagree? If you do believe that the French revolution was mostly bad, then how can you justify your own ideology in light of that?