I rode United Airlines from Washington Dulles to London Heathrow a couple nights ago. I wound up sitting next to an Irish guy who works for the State Department. He was nice and talkative. It didn’t take long for the topic of conversation to turn to government. The next night, I sat in the boarding area for my flight to Abu Dhabi with a Navy programmer who, again, seemed eager to talk politics.
They are illustrations of what appears to me to be a paradox: government workers who don’t like government. On one hand, that seems entirely natural. The closer you get to the government, the less a sane person will like it. On the other hand, people are loathe to dis their source of income for fear of losing it. Usually the latter wins out, but apparently not in these cases, and many others I’ve run into.
As the conversation with the Irish guy progressed, we got to talking about revolution. Though I shouldn’t have been (given the fact he’s Irish originally), I was quite surprised at his interest in discussing both the idea of an American revolution and the history (especially recent) of revolutions in general. Without any input from me, he observed that the nature of revolutions has changed over the last 50 to 100 years.
I explained to him an idea I’ve had about revolutions as of late. This idea came to mind maybe a few years ago (2-4?) in the course of listening to media reports about various conflicts around the globe, many of which are somewhat revolutionary in nature. A high profile example is the current Iraq war and regime change, but there are others (the former Soviet Union, many eastern European nations, etc.). There are even media reports (usually around July 4th) about our own revolution from time to time.
My observation about those reports led me to divide the reasons or characteristics of revolution into two broad categories: structural, and ideological. There are really other types of revolution, but I’m referring to ones leading to changes in government.
The media reports focus almost exclusively on the structural aspect of revolution, whether they be reports about America or other nations (nearly all of them) who have been through revolution. For example, they discuss deposing rulers, changing ruling parties, becoming ‘independent’, and so on.
The media rarely reports on the ideological changes that are sometimes present in revolutions. In some cases, that may be because there are really no significant ideological changes. Russia, for example, underwent a structural revolution (throwing off the USSR and becoming ‘independent’), but the test of time has shown that it did not undergo a significant ideological revolution. The ideas of communist imperialism are not only still alive, but seemingly still dominant in Russia today.
That very same revolution, however, produced Estonia, who not only underwent a structural change (independence), but simultaneously experienced a dramatic ideological revolution. Estonia has cast off communism and exchanged it for substantial freedom, especially economic freedom.
This brings me back to the conversation with the Irishman. He seemed to think that we might be closer to revolution in America than is commonly thought. Again, I found it odd that he would blurt out such a thing, especially given my discovery that he’s essentially not aware of who Ron Paul is or what is happening with Paul’s campaign.
Recent news articles, like this MSNBC article and this Time Magazine article get right to the issues – the ideas. The Time article is even titled “The Ron Paul Revolution.” The articles don’t hide the fact that it is Paul’s ideas, not him as a person, or some desire for structural change, that his supporters are interested in. They also observe that many of his supporters are young (typically probably younger than me), which is very encouraging. For at least 10 or 15 years, I’ve observed that people in each successive generation have understood and wanted freedom less and less. This is the first indication I’ve seen of that trend changing and I’m very happy to see it. Could it be a revolution in progress?
My earlier observations, though, gives me cause for concern. While the passion of Paul’s supporters, and their clear interest in his ideas is encouraging, I’m concerned about their stamina and resistance to being influenced by the media and other more-big-government lovers. The whole pro-liberty movement’s portrayal by the media is likely to change if this ideological revolution really takes off. As soon as it becomes about something other than liberty, it will be lost. Frankly, I’m surprised to see a report about ideas over structure even at this stage in the game.
If this libertarian ideological revolution gains sufficient traction, will it be recast by the media as simply a revolution of structure? Will a Paul Presidency be just another changing of the guard? Will the people in America get distracted by the details of campaigns, elections, and government structure and forget to relentlessly pursue the ideas of freedom? In fact, is America even truly ready for liberty?
Only time will tell, I suppose. I know where I stand, though. I stand with the founding fathers who, though they took the time to pen the U.S. Constitution and found our (structured) government, made it crystal clear that their reason for doing so was to protect individual liberty.
V-