We tend to enjoy stories about outlaws, rebels, revolutionaries, and loose cannons who buck the system to do what they believe is right. We usually celebrate the people who threw off corrupt regimes or broke bad laws in myth and history alike. The US Founding Fathers, Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, the leaders of the French Revolution, Neo from The Matrix, Simón Bolívar, Robin Hood, and Martin Luther King, Jr. are just a few examples that come to mind. However, we easily forget the aftermath of most revolutions in our haste to produce our historical hagiography. Flowery words are easier to remember than concrete abuses committed in the name of liberté, égalité, fraternité.
Following the US Constitution, George Washington waged war against Americans who resisted his administration's corrupt whiskey tax, despite the fact that it was effectively an unconstitutional income tax on the people who used corn whiskey as money in the hills. Madison signed the Alien and Sedition acts into law with complete disregard for both the letter and spirit of the first amendment to the Constitution to use political power against his critics. Meanwhile, property taxes and devalued greenbacks were used to strip property from the very men who had fought for their liberty from a foreign regime's taxation. But this is hardly unique in US history.
In the aftermath of the French revolution, the reign of terror and other attendant purges were incredibly brutal, and the literal empire of Napoleon rose out of the movement to establish democracy, plunging most of Europe into bloody war.
The Haitian revolution resulted in numerous tyrants exploiting the Haitians and plundering incredible wealth from people held hostage on the island.
The Spanish-American revolutions resulted in unstable local regimes that tended to sow chaos and destruction before military dictatorships arose.
The Soviet revolution resulted in a brutal totalitarian state, mass starvations, and economic collapse that dramatically reduced the standard of living for the average citizen on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain compared to their Western counterparts.
The Maoist revolution in China resulted in a brutal totalitarian state for a massive percentage of the global population with adverse effects that are beyond calculation.
Nonetheless, many people applaud these revolutionary movements and advocate emulating them again in order to overthrow the current regimes. While I certainly cannot support the status quo, the serious revolutionary must study history, psychology, and economics to understand how humans are instead of trying to mold society to fit a grand new plan. It means humility rather than hubris, and wisdom rather than bravado, so it has little appeal. Any serious revolution must begin with sound principles rather than charismatic personalities. It does not require any storming of the Bastille. It requires an educated and principled minority withdrawing consent and compliance.
The underground cryptocurrency economy is a useful part of such revolutionary activity. Blogs and social media discussions about ideas are important. Videos depicting corrupt cops attacking minorities in New York or preventing people from expressing a desire to secede in Catalonia are useful because it is truthful propaganda against the State. Spread sedition and subversion while sabotaging the system. Reject the celebrity libertarians, self-aggrandizing civil rights activists, talk show idols, partisan political saviors, and other such false prophets. Instead, internalize the principles of liberty and remember to use the Golden Rule. Do not become the thing you hate, because that is the greatest danger to liberty.
Video credit: Flowers of the Night, by Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, and David Freiberg. From the album Baron von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun, 1973
