There are two kinds of people in the world: those who respect coercive authority and consider it legitimate, and those who do not. The former group is likewise split into two factions: a relatively small group that, for whatever reason, essentially worships power, and a much larger one whose members merely tolerate authoritarianism, either as a matter of expedience or habit. In the wake of the recent bombing at the Boston Marathon and subsequent military-style manhunt, it seems clear that the great majority of Americans may be categorized as either power-worshiping or power-tolerant.
To be sure, the police came in for a fair share of vehement criticism from a number of established commentators. Ron Paul, for example, stated flatly that the people of Boston had been given “a taste of martial law” and likened the situation to “a military coup in a far off banana republic,” while at the other end of the spectrum, the World Socialist Website denounced the tactics of the police as having “no precedent in American history,” compared Boston to “a city under occupation or in civil war,” and claimed that the news media had “fomented fear and hysteria, spread ungrounded rumors and justified the police state measures of the Obama administration.”
Yet to the great majority of Americans, as well as to most Bostonians, the authoritarianism of the police was fully justified by the extraordinary circumstances.....To Read More...My Take - I would love to know what most people would think of this article. Personally, my view is that a paradigm isn't created by one act or the act of a couple of people, but the acts of a number of people over time and space. The Bonnie and Clyde gangsters of the nineteen twenties forced everyone to see the need for an effective national police force transforming the FBI. If this happened fifty years ago it would have been a local matter. But we now face a clear international threat from Islamic terrorists, and it is obvious to the general population, even if the leadership fails the test of clarity. I find this article's logic a bit puzzling, yet compelling, because it forces you to think about what is said, and that's why I posted it. He does say one thing I agree with;
“In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn famously showed how new paradigms in science become accepted. Truly revolutionary ideas, he said, do not suddenly triumph when the scientific establishment becomes convinced of their superiority over existing doctrine, but rather take root slowly as the old guard retires and the torch is passed to the new generation of scientists. “Almost always,” Kuhn wrote, “the men who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigms they change.” He also offered an explanation as to what it is that induces the emerging generation to embrace fundamental cognitive shift: “The usual prelude to changes of this sort is … the awareness of anomaly, of an occurrence or set of occurrences that does not fit the existing ways of ordering phenomena.”
Scientific discovery doesn’t grow in a vacuum and neither does social change. The natural function of the human brain is to find patterns, and there are always a few that see them faster and more clearly than others. But just because a few can see clearly doesn’t alter basic reality. The rest don’t! That means those few must slowly lead the rest to their conclusion. That takes time, and it should. After all, the pattern those few see may be wrong and time will tell the true tale because it gives those who see a different pattern the opportunity to challenge what is being presented, and in the insuring intellectual conflict the truth will float to the surface. However, when those few insist that their pattern is the only pattern and reject any arguments to the contrary and decide to impose their view violently disaster will probably follow.
There was a difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The American Revolution promoted the rights of free individuals. The French Revolution promoted the rights of a few to create a collective to decide everything for the individual. The American Revolution created a society that allowed every individual to create his own utopia. The French Revolution created a society where the collective would decide what was utopia....and impose it.
That is the fundamental difference between socialism and capitalism, and socialism has been and always will be a failure because a few elitists, no matter how smart, are incapable of know more than everyone else in the world and incapable of making the billions of decisions that are made daily by the rest of humanity.
There was a difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The American Revolution promoted the rights of free individuals. The French Revolution promoted the rights of a few to create a collective to decide everything for the individual. The American Revolution created a society that allowed every individual to create his own utopia. The French Revolution created a society where the collective would decide what was utopia....and impose it.
That is the fundamental difference between socialism and capitalism, and socialism has been and always will be a failure because a few elitists, no matter how smart, are incapable of know more than everyone else in the world and incapable of making the billions of decisions that are made daily by the rest of humanity.
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