AFAIK wrote:Did you think I was referring to individuals? When I said people I meant the population at large. Society, communities, nations.
Vietnam had a massive army at it's height. The society wasn't coerced by one lunatic with a gun. You can't control a society just be waving a gun around anyway. That's an oversimplification. How do you think Ho Chi Minh convinced millions of people to aim their guns at the same target?
Would be nice if you could quote or mention me if you want to keep chatting with me about this.
Society and communities are made of individual people. You can't decouple individuals and communities and talk about them as though these are mutually exclusive things.
Anyway, most individuals just get swept up by things that are larger than themselves. Be it wars or political/religious/ideological/etc. movements. When this happens, most people simply try to figure out how they can eek out their personal existence and well being. This should not be equated to consent/agreement/support with the particular war/movement they just happened to get swept up into (this is what I'm calling bullshit on with "self-determination"). Given this truth, all it takes, is a relatively smaller group of people with enough guns, will, and propaganda (guns may not always be required) to get what they want. The rest, are just along for the ride for better or worse, doesn't necessarily mean they are in support of the war/revolution/movement/whatever. That should not be assumed, and anyway, the victors always write history no? Of course every current regime in existence is going to say and claim that they can rule because they have consent from the entire population. Reality is, lots of people kind of don't give a shit. It's why staging a coup isn't too hard of a thing to do and is common around the globe. You don't have to fight/convince entire populations to take over a government; they just kind of go with the flow most of the time. Sure there is anxiety/worry/etc, but they do not tend to intervene, and that should not be taken as consent.
I can think of 11780 reasons Trump shouldn't be president ever again.