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[techieyann]

You should read this.
Seriously.

Comments

[protolawyer]

Fantastic rhetoric. Unfortunately, he's empirically wrong on the "ready to revolt" theory and normatively wrong even if we were. Nations don't go into the streets for blood based on poll numbers indicating they don't like leadership and they don't like where the nation is going. Sorry, but they just don't. Instead they replace. It's called regime change, and in America we do it through voting. We consider it fair. In his mindframe, though, it is best described as a safety valve built into the system to give the populace the illusion of choice (see John Gaventa - Power and Powerlessness). And it works really well - how many in-the-streets popular revolutions have we seen with governments that function through regime change? Relatively few, especially if you discount the Eastern European post-WWII revolutions, as those were generally a combination of democratic failure (refused to allow Communist candidates) and orchestrated by the Soviet Union as a check on U.S. power in Europe

My response

[holy_empire]

Yes and no.