Sowell's Coup

This is interesting. Utterly without further context or elaboration, Thomas Sowell writes:

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.

I could feign outrage, but I've got to admit that, I, too, have had this thought from time to time especially during moments (see, e.g., 2005) when my political preferences weren't faring well (I never said "decadence," though, it seems to me that only real extremists worry about decadence). That said, even though I write a ton of words every day, I've always had the good sense to not actually write it because even bloggers know that you shouldn't publish every random crazy thought that pops into your head. What was Sowell thinking? More to the point, how is it that nobody at Creator's Syndicate or National Review Online stopped this from going to press?

Comments

Always had the good sense not to write it until just now, it seems.

Posted by teofilo | May 2, 2007 12:34 AM

Well, perhaps because you thought it but didn't write it because you are a half century younger than Sowell, who was born in 1929. My wife calls it Elderly Tourette's Syndrome -- it's harder to control your utterances when you are older.

Here's a classic example from Lee Iacocca on the Bush Administration.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/04/joys-of-elderly-tourettes-syndrome-lee.html

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 2, 2007 12:36 AM

The home run records that made Babe Ruth famous have been broken but one of his records will probably never be broken — pitching the longest shutout in World Series history, 14 innings. Few pitchers go even nine innings these days.

Did you notice this passage?

I'm at a loss for words. Is he saying that liberals and the media are to blame for pitchers not pitching deep in games?

Posted by goosen | May 2, 2007 12:38 AM

Sowell's favorite manager is Dusty Baker.

Posted by blah | May 2, 2007 12:43 AM

"More to the point, how is it that nobody at Creator's Syndicate or National Review Online stopped this from going to press?"

My assumption is that the people at National Review Online are thinking about a military coup as well.

I posted on Slate's Fray for years and liberals on the Fray have been wondering about the possibility of a right-wing coup since before 2004.

The American right doesn't like democracy, doesn't like the United States, and hasn't been comfortable in this country for years. That's the background informing Newt Gingrich's talk about changing the First Amendment, right-wing views on torture, and the constant bubbling of "treason" talk focused on the Democrats. Sowell's military coup talk is just one more step in that direction.

Posted by Ric Caric | May 2, 2007 12:50 AM

He said degeneracy, not decadence. Or am I missing something.

Posted by anon | May 2, 2007 12:54 AM

I guess that's a difference between right and left. When I reflect on the degeneracy of our society, I tend to fantasize about a new pansophic Renaissance in which all of the ignorance, stupidity and brutishness are swept away by the awesome and glorious advance of the arts and sciences. Military coups just seem like more degeneracy to me, and don't attract me in the least.

But I don't fault Sowell for seeing degeneracy in our media, politicians and educators. He's right - this place is increasingly a barbarous basket case.

As for our "intelligentsia", someone will have to point out to me where this hidden intelligentsia lives, so I can go visit them and find out whether they are degenerate or not.

Posted by Dan Kervick | May 2, 2007 1:01 AM

Last time I heard this kind of crazy talk (outside libertarian circles) was back in the heyday of the Clinton Presidency. Perhaps Sowell has a very palpable sense of the next election's outcome.

Or maybe Sowell is planning on skipping the AM radio pundit career move, and going straight to shortwave.

Posted by shecky | May 2, 2007 1:04 AM

Conjecture:

They're letting the black guy be the fall guy, expressing something they all feel, but only he will catch shit for it?

Posted by sherifffruitfly | May 2, 2007 1:08 AM

Thomas Sowell lamenting the rise of intellectual corruption is a bit like a pig lamenting the onset of filth. Perhaps when the coup comes he'll volunteer himself for "re-education".

Posted by Mark | May 2, 2007 1:50 AM

If it came down to revolution or fuzzy kittens, I'd have to opt for revolution-- but only because then, I could ensure a kitten in every lap. By 2012, they'd be field mice. By 2016,a paper cut-out of a cat. By 2026, fleas.

Posted by Gregorio | May 2, 2007 1:50 AM

Mark-- Pigs are remarkably clean. You must be thinking of kittens. I don't blame you-- who could deny their filth-matted fuzziness?

Posted by Gregorio | May 2, 2007 1:52 AM

You expect anything less from Sowell? If he thinks it is bad now, just wait till John Edwards or Barack Obama become President with a Democratic Congress. Sowell and his ilk will have to find somewhere besides Canada to move to.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | May 2, 2007 1:56 AM

So, Steve, how old are you?

Posted by Toadmonster | May 2, 2007 2:11 AM

I realize talk of coups is a bit of throwaway nonsense, but since you're bringing it up, I'm wondering how anyone expects it to work logistically.

The U.S. is not some third world backwater. In order for a coup to stick, it would need to be supported by military and police forces all across the country, including state National Guards, Highway Patrol, municipal police, etc. These forces would need to not only get behind the coup, they'd need to be ready to coordinate to put down what would almost certainly be massive unrest and civil disobedience. Would they? I highly doubt it.

The most important engine for any coup is the main strength of the regular national armed forces. Would the rank and file of the Army be willing to use deadly force against U.S. citizens on behalf of either Bush, or whatever military leaders were running the coup? Even if they were, would they be in any position to fan out across this quite large country in force? Most are either already deployed to the sandbox, or are recuperating from previous repeated deployments. Even if they weren't exhausted, they are simply not numerous enough to enforce an unpopular martial law decree.

The long and the short of it is that for the present, this country is structurally coup-proof. Worry about something else.

Posted by jimBOB | May 2, 2007 2:13 AM

The military can't even control Iraq and now you want them to control a country the size of the US?

Posted by Rob | May 2, 2007 2:32 AM

Maybe Sowell meant to write military soup.

Navy Bean can solve many problems.

Posted by alphie | May 2, 2007 3:12 AM

I must admit, I have been having some fits, with some variant of a soft Fracoist or Peronist type coup. Would people really get out in the streets?

Anyways, I can blame Billmon for that little post he did on Spanish Civil War...

Posted by shah8 | May 2, 2007 4:07 AM

Sowell writes this because he is as much a stranger to fear as you are to excercise. I for one agree with him, and have assembled a small arms cache in anticipation of the glorious day when the socialists shall be driven into the sea.

Posted by pimp hand strikes! | May 2, 2007 5:14 AM

Don't kid yourselves. If the military really thought that it would be a good thing to seize power, it would do so. The National Guards would go along with whatever the Joint Chiefs of Staff told them to do, and as for the police departments, if I were a cop I wouldn't want to argue with an Abrams, not on my salary. As for the military not being prepared to kill civilians -- EVERY [first] military coup has been preceded by people saying "oh, they wouldn't be prepared to kill civilians". Soldiers learn quickly to do what they're told. It's kind of fun to kill people who can't shoot back. OK, sometimes you feel a bit of guilt over the women and children in the mass graves, but you learn quickly to suck it up or you become a target yourself.

The reason why the US isn't likely to have a military coup is simply that it has no tradition of the military dominating politics, which is, I gather, what that amendment about well-regulated militias is all about.

Posted by MFB | May 2, 2007 5:28 AM

jimBOB,

I can imagine how an American coup could occur. The basic point at which an American coup is possible is when a majority of the population trusts and respects the military more than it does civilian leaders (politicians, journalists, judges, etc.). It would also take an unaddressed crisis of legitimacy, some situation where there were reasonable grounds for impeachment of the President and/or a sizable number of Congresspeople, but it was clear that nothing would be done under normal procedures.

Then, at some point during a large amount of civil unrest and controversy, a military or police group refuses to follow orders. Rather than being denounced and punished, others members of the army/police tacitly agree that the people in charge do not deserve to give orders. The disobedient faction increases by example and sympathy, and eventually gains an official or unofficial leader in the form of a respected officer in uniform.

The transfer of official political power could happen like this: A majority of the public agrees that the system is apparently broken and something must be done. By some means, a convention of untainted politicians and grassroot agitators meets and agrees to hold new elections to replace the disgraced elements of the government...

... and the biggest winner is the aforementioned officer who led the disobedient soldiers. As a patriotic American, he probably plans to serve his term and step down once it is over... but he has a proven ability to work outside the system, and his election shows that people had more trust in perceptions of his honesty and integrity than they did in the honesty and integrity of the old democracy itself. When he hits the campaign trail, how many other men of honesty and integrity - or "honesty" and "integrity" - might ride on his coattails?

As you can see, the problem with this scenario is not logistics, but probability. It's quite possible for a coup to take along all of the local police forces, National Guard, etc. - there just has to be the right mixture of electoral legitimacy and disgust with the old leaders. If enough people truly believe in the failure and unworthiness of the current government, and the new government is anointed by some measure of democracy and public agreement, it is possible for power to be transferred to someone else, someone who might prove surprisingly adept at holding on to power and influence afterwards.

What makes an American coup impossible - or at least one-in-a-billion unlikely - is that it would require a chain of extremely rare events. Although nothing that I listed is explicitly impossible, the chance of having the government's legitimacy and approval ratings go down the tubes in that extreme a manner is unlikely to begin with, and each successive event in the narrative decreases the chances. It's kind of ridiculous to "predict" what 300 million people would do in a never-before-seen situation, but I'm sure somebody else can still come up with convincing educated guesses that contradict the above coup narrative.

With that said, trust in politicians and civilian public leaders is at an all-time low, while the self-sacrificing nature of a volunteer army has put respect for the military and the perceived legitimacy of uniformed opinion at a historical high. I think I recall reading a poll which stated that if asked whether they trusted a given person's public statements, Americans were about twice as likely to trust a Pentagon general as a network pundit. It might be time to downgrade my one-in-a-billion chance to one-in-999,999,999.

Posted by Evan | May 2, 2007 5:54 AM

I think that the US military's rather apolitical tradition is the major barrier against coups in the US in the current state of things. That's one of the reasons that I look with great concern upon It's Ok If You're A Republican bending of the codes regarding when it's appropriate to appear in uniform at political functions. The second barrier, I think, is that ever since the '60s, political violence in the US has been 110% discredited. We can thank Martin Luther King, Jr. for that. Which is why I look with great concern at the resounding silence with which our mass media responds to events like attempted terrorist bombings of abortion clincs.

Posted by NBarnes | May 2, 2007 5:57 AM

Evan,
You're basically talking about Hurricane Katrina. It wasn't until General Honore stepped in that people began to think things were under control. The real difference will be the same thing it always is, the military can *do* things, and the politicians can only *say* things. Where their is no trust, the politicians perish.

Aside from all that, conservatives speculate about worst case scenarios because we don't believe that people or institutions can be perfected, whereas liberals expect them to 'evolve'. We call it realism, you call it authoritarian fantasy.

Posted by Cobb | May 2, 2007 7:22 AM

Don't forget what General Tommy Franks said about a militarized government (if not a coup) in that "Cigar Afficionado" interview.

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Tommy_Franks

"According to Time magazine, on November 21, 2003, Tommy Franks said that in the event of another terrorist attack, American Constitutional liberties might be discarded by popular demand in favor of a military state. His quote:
Discussing the hypothetical dangers posed to the U.S. in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Franks said that “the worst thing that could happen” is if terrorists acquire and then use a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy casualties.
If that happens, Franks said, “... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy.”
Franks then offered “in a practical sense” what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack.
“It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution."

Posted by namo | May 2, 2007 7:24 AM

"The last time I saw a Republican express outrage was 1991, when Clarence Thomas told the Senators what he thought of the smear tactics used against him."

I'm speechless.

Posted by jonathan | May 2, 2007 8:10 AM

Sowell's "Random Thoughts" would be laughable if they weren't being published in what was once the flagship of conservative thought.

No matter how disjointed the column or how doddy the columnist, the notion that America could somehow be saved by a military coup begs this question: Saved for whom and to what purpose?

Posted by cp | May 2, 2007 8:41 AM

Perhaps the Repugs fear that all of the people they despise and demonize don't think very highly of them, either.

Posted by clb72 | May 2, 2007 8:46 AM

Sailer's right, even if his contract apparently forbids him from telling the truth without using it to accuse someone of flagrant and unprovoked liberalism. Take out that single sentence about a military coup, and you're left with a boring, cliched geriatric rant. Babe Ruth? Complaining about politicians being self-serving? People aren't religious enough these days?

Tenured pundits indeed. If I had written that, my editor might not even accept it because half the readers would think I was mocking old people and the other half would think I was one. If he did accept it at all, he'd edit out half of all those random thoughts in there.

Posted by Cyrus | May 2, 2007 9:03 AM

Back in the early 60s, Kirk Douglas saved us from a military coup led by Burt Lancaster. As near as I can tell, that sated American appetite for military coups. Similarly, the American appetite for a betrayed insider assassinating the politician who disappointed him was topped off with the original All the King's Men. The re-make sank with fewer ripples than a Chinese woman Olympic diver. There are no mobs of peasants brandishing pitchforks and torches outside the White House though that used to be standard operating procedure for dealing with monsters.

Sowell lamented the decline of politicians, but he ignored the parallel decline in irate sufferering humanity. And the decline in pundits.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 2, 2007 9:13 AM

"...even bloggers know that you shouldn't publish every random crazy thought that pops into your head."

6 years in the nets, and now he tells me.

If we are into crazy-think, one could imagine Bush ordering Petraeus to march toward Tehran, and sticking with the order thru sucessive resignations. Or Bush ordering a massive nuclear attack. But forms of mutiny with the help of Congress & the media are more likely, and I think it would be very public. Very very uncomfortable, 1968 France or Yeltsin or whatever, but we would survive it.

But shecky at 1:04 has it right. You cannot overestimate the rage in the Right over a lost war and a Democratic ascendancy. Politics has been very peaceful in this country for 40 years. And political violence is never discredited, merely dormant. Dormant, IMO, because the Left has lost its nerve and the Right has gotten its way.

Posted by bob mcmanus | May 2, 2007 9:41 AM

Is he saying that liberals and the media are to blame for pitchers not pitching deep in games?

No, he's saying that watching the execution of liberals under martial law might help him get it up again.
.

Posted by Grand Moff Texan | May 2, 2007 9:49 AM

I never said "decadence," though, it seems to me that only real extremists worry about decadence

Right-wingers worry about "decadence". Left-wingers worry more about "fascism". Shows where the priorities lie, I suppose.

Posted by NonyNony | May 2, 2007 9:49 AM

Somewhat interesting, because I have thought for a while that Robert Kaplan's series of "the US Army really runs the world, and does a great job" articles in The Atlantic are intended in part to prepare the intelligentsia for a military coup.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | May 2, 2007 9:50 AM

I think NonyNony's binary schema of 'rightists fear decadance, the Left fears fascism' is overdrawn. Going back to a Whig tradition extending to the American Revolution and even to the Glorious Revolution, the English-speaking left has expressed deep fear about decline in what might be called 'public virtue.' This has resurfaced at various points in U.S. and U.K. History, e.g., the Jeffersonian agrarian fear and hatred for the commercial, urban world of Hamilton; or the contempt for bourgeois mores (construed as decadent) in the late 1960s. Indeed, Marxist propaganda commonly denounced "decadent capitalism."

On the other hand, it is interesting that what might be labeled the 'decadence' of Weimar Germany was quickly followed by bona fide fascism.

Posted by Ben Cronin | May 2, 2007 10:16 AM

If a military coup replaced the federal government what would happen to state and local governments? Would they continue on as democratic institutions? Either that would have to be the case or you'd need 50 military coups in all 50 states, and some sort of military governance at the county and city level too. The functions that state and local governments perform are not vital and crucial for the country and you couldn't just dismiss them or the country would fall apart no matter how many generals thought they were running things in Washington.

Posted by Jonf | May 2, 2007 10:30 AM

I have lost the ability to read one of these right-wing crackpots without viewing it as pure projection. So, when Sowell says degeneracy, my first thought is of the stunning lies with which the extreme right-wing has climbed to power and led the entire United States to the brink of calamity. Politics in the U.S. are (is?)degenerate, and people like Sowell are prime examples of the degeneracy--even sources of it.

Posted by Baldrick | May 2, 2007 10:34 AM

The actual danger here isn't really a coup, per se. To get that, as has been pointed out, the entire machinery of State and local government would have to go along with it. The last time that happened was in 1861.

The danger is that returning vets from a lost war (lost because they were withdrawn, not lost because the war was lost) will take matters into their own hands and start eliminating those they think are responsible.

One is more likely to see assassinations.

Sailer is right though, there are to many geriatrics blathering out there that need to be in a rest home someplace. Several are in the US Congress.

Posted by Ludendorff's ghost | May 2, 2007 10:49 AM

The home run records that made Babe Ruth famous have been broken but one of his records will probably never be broken — pitching the longest shutout in World Series history, 14 innings. Few pitchers go even nine innings these days.

FACT CHECK! Ruth holds the record for longest complete-game victory, this 14 inning game which he won 2-1. He gave up a run in the first, then threw 13 shutout innings; he continued his scoreless streak in his subsequent appearances and eventually set a record (since broken) with 29 scoreless innings.

And I know we all wonder who he beat - it was the Brooklyn Robins.

The rest of the column strikes me as comparably credible.

Posted by Tom Maguire | May 2, 2007 12:00 PM

Even Matthew Yglesias, who writes one of the most independent-minded revolutionary liberal blogs, confessed that he had soft-pedalled his opposition to a military coup. "I could feign outrage, but I've got to admit that, I, too, have had this thought from time to time," he wrote.

Posted by neil | May 2, 2007 12:23 PM

Sure, we all have weird thoughts at times- like, how strange would it be if pigs could fly?

But the fact is, the coup took place, and a lot of people are too young to remember life before it happened.

The War on (some) Drugs, for example, not only disenfranchises the minority populations, but can often turn a traffic stop into a major felony- something that was a very rare event before 1970. We didn't always have SWAT teams. There was a brief lull between the days of the Pinkerton armies and the emergence of the SWAT teams.

The big change is the use of the traffic police, who can stop you without a warrant, and increasingly sophisticated computer record-keeping and testing, to act as a sort of sieve or filter through which most of us must pass on an almost daily basis. Combined with huge fines and penalties for minor infractions, the poor can rapidly become mired, controlled and permanently impoverished from a dozen different directions, with no real hope of escape. Which makes the rest of us even more desperate to do what our rulers want so we won't become poor.

Relax. The coup already took place.

Posted by serial catowner | May 2, 2007 2:16 PM

Utterly without further context or elaboration,

What a wretched lie. The paragraph you quoted is the third last of a medium length opinion piece. The context you missed is the article up to that point and further elaboration is not really called for since it is almost time for the conclusion.

If you were my student you would get an F for this piece.

And shame on Steve Sailer. I can't believe that he bothered to read it either.

Posted by gh | May 2, 2007 2:40 PM

Yep, because the Republicans were unable to institute a 'one party state' under our democratic system, of course it would follow that the next step would be to do away with the system that so frustrated their attempts in the first place.

Posted by tontocal | May 2, 2007 2:42 PM

How interesting, GH. Maybe you can explain the context to us, because when I look at the Sowell column I see random assertions in no particular order. "Context" usually means that a larger idea or argument is being developed over the course of a piece of writing, with logical connections, structure, transitions, and so forth. The only larger point that emerges here is that Sowell has either lost the ability to write coherently, or has figured out that NR will run any random jottings he sends them.

Your "further elaboration is not really called for since it is almost time for the conclusion" is hilarous.

Posted by C | May 2, 2007 3:03 PM

Sowell has believed for a very, very long time that a perpetually foul temper is an adequate substitute for brains. This comment was entirely unsurprising from him.

However, Gen. Franks' comment -- at least when it comes to a nuclear terrorist attack -- seems to me entirely plausible. Something that horrific -- especially combined with a threat from the terrorists responsible to do it soon to OTHER unnamed cities -- would probably bring down not only American society but civilization in general. (After all, terrorists' sensible motto has always been: "Kill one, frighten a thousand." Now tack five orders of magnitude onto both numbers.) The one point on which he's wrong is his belief that a military dictatorship could hold the country together in such a situation, either. Which is why I've been repeating for years that preventing nuclear terrorism is America's, and civilization's, top priority by about 100 places at this point -- and why I think the worst consequence of the Iraq red herring is that it has disastrously drained our ability to do that.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | May 2, 2007 3:25 PM

If there really were widespread support on the right for a military coup, as some here have insinuated, wouldn't there have been an attempt at one after the midterm elections?

Posted by James Kabala | May 2, 2007 3:34 PM

Keep in mind that Ceasar kept the Senate. A coup wouldn't have to involve theatrics so much as a Congress which was intimidated into compliance or elections which were regularly stolen. Authoritarianism doesn't have to be hard.

This is the first time Bush is getting pushed hard since 9/11. Given his messiah complex and that of the folks who are following him, I'm more than a bit nervous about what happens next.

Posted by Kimmitt | May 2, 2007 5:46 PM

C.

The subtitle of the piece is "Random thoughts on the passing scene".

At least I can spell "hilarious".

Posted by gh | May 2, 2007 7:05 PM

If you now admit the column is just random jottings, then there's *no* context, and "utterly without further context or elaboration" is entirely correct, hardly the "wretched lie" of your extreme rhetoric. Logical linkage to other statements is what context *means*.

And of course if the piece is random statements then there's no "conclusion," and placement within the piece is irrelevant, so the rest of your first post is silly too.

Posted by C | May 2, 2007 8:53 PM

Re: However, Gen. Franks' comment -- at least when it comes to a nuclear terrorist attack -- seems to me entirely plausible. Something that horrific -- especially combined with a threat from the terrorists responsible to do it soon to OTHER unnamed cities -- would probably bring down not only American society but civilization in general.

For 40 years we were under the threat of nuclear annihilation (total annihilation, not just a city or two) from the Soviet Union. One can credibly argue that civil liberties were eroded by this threat. But civilization did not fall. Not even losing a city would do it. We lost New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina, we might well lose LA or SanFran to an earthquake (and with Bush still in office the aftermath would be botched just as badly, I don't doubt.) But our democracy would not collapse, and civilziation would carry on.

Re: Keep in mind that Ceasar kept the Senate.

Yes, but got rid of his enemies in the Senate, and emasculated the Senate's powers. And he could fall back on precedent (Sulla, etc.) and Rome's own laws which authorized the dictatorship in doing so. And Caesar was also wildly popular: his enemies were the equivalent of our rightwingers today. And that is why an unpopular Right could never pull off a coup. Caesar had the support of the people. Anybody think Bush would?

Posted by JonF | May 2, 2007 9:41 PM

What's so crazy about a right-wing coup?

Why dismiss the idea as if it were obvious that it could not possibly be anything but the unguarded product of Sowell's id?

These folks have a President who seems headed for jail as soon as he leaves office, at least in the daily ever more likely event that he is succeeded by a Democrat. The day he becomes ex-President his criminal immunity will lapse, he will stop being in charge of the dept (DoJ) that decides whether to prosecute criminals, and most importantly, he'll stop being in charge of deciding when to invoke Executive Privilege, and what information to classify and declassify. Given what has already come out just in a few months with just Congressional subpoena power, can anyone doubt that there's plenty enough info of criminal violations locked in the Executive Branch that when Bush has to hand over the keys to that informational kingdom, he will be signing, perhaps literally, his own death sentence? And the worst of that situation for the movement conservatives, as the DoJ scandals are making clear, is that he will bring a ton of movement plants into the federal bureaucracy down with him.

The worst of it is that a coup led by the President wouldn't even be illegal. The Military Commissions Act handed him the unanswered power to declare even citizens to be enemy combatants and whisked away to Guantanamo without habeas corpus. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that it was a bit stupid to hand someone with such a huge motive to not step down in January 2009 such a huge opportunity to not have to step down in 2009?

Posted by Glen Tomkins | May 2, 2007 10:36 PM

Very unfortunately, virtually every response here displays a very ANTI-American posture--the idea that the present behavior and power of government is legitimate, and that more of the same with merely a different perspective--including that of the military--is somehow a a legitimate solution.

One could rightly argue that the first "American" coup occured when the framers of the constitution rammed their document down the throats of the citizen soldiers who had beaten Great Britain and brought the Articles of Confederation into being to protect a free nation.

The constitution--rather than guaranteeing freedom in its essence, grants the political class the ability to rule OVER, and REMOVE freedom. Take careful note of the amendments--the originals were meant to protect freedom; the rest have served to allow the politicians to rule us, and remove freedoms.

America is not a "free" nation, nor has it been for many years. It is merely the most benevolent version of socialism (and mercantilism) to date.

Those who would argue to the contrary only prove their ignorance of the essence of true liberty. We are neither "democratic" (dear God, mob rule is a bitch!), nor republican as the constitutionalists hoped for--we are merely a polite version of the former USSR. The government will permit you to keep your money and property only if you pay it/they approximately/over 45% of every dollar you have.

That (this present mess) has nothing to do with the principles upon which this nation was founded.

Defending the political process as somehow able to solve the mess of which it is most guilty, is simply insane. That the military might take over is only proof that we are little but a very, very well-to-do banana republic.

Even that is a tad too optimistic.

Posted by jb | May 3, 2007 12:42 AM

Postulate simultaneous terrorist attacks on 6 cities, say, with nuclear weapons (or even 1, during Inauguration Day on Washington DC)

or say an oil embargo that plunges the nation into a severe recession, at the same time that a Bush-like figure is in the White House ,facing a completely opposed Congress.

Imagine President H. Clinton against a Republican-controlled House and Senate.

and the US could become a military dictatorship.

The military is one of the few genuinely popular public institutions in America. Remember when Chilean housewives threw rice at army soldiers, calling them to intervene against the Marxist PM, Salvador Allende?

Organisationally it would be trivial-- each state can be run by its State Troopers and National Guard under a 'state of emergency'. Maybe Vermont would still have habeas corpus, but I doubt say Alabama (to pick on a state randomly, rather than out of personal knowledge or understanding) would.

The surviving politicians would still issue orders from some military base in Virginia, but the orders would be aided and abetted by the Joint Chiefs, who would approve them.

David Drake and Janet Morris had a thriller about the US under military government, after Lyndon Johnson goes and invades North Vietnam, and gets bogged down in a full scale war with China.

Anyone see the new Orson Scott Card novel? Basically the military launches a counter-coup, after a liberal 'betrayal' of America, led by post modernist academics.

http://www.hatrack.com/osc/books/empire/empire.shtml

Posted by Valuethinker | May 3, 2007 5:36 AM

If there really were widespread support on the right for a military coup, as some here have insinuated, wouldn't there have been an attempt at one after the midterm elections?

Give 'em time! They are still busy trying to pack the military with authoritarian religious nutbags. Once they get enough "this is a holy war" idiots in high military places they can make a move to end the separation between church and state once and for all...and all under a "holy" military mantle.

Posted by Praedor Atrebates | May 3, 2007 4:18 PM

Re: Postulate simultaneous terrorist attacks on 6 cities, say, with nuclear weapons (or even 1, during Inauguration Day on Washington DC)

Sorry, that's not a credible scenario. It is barely conceivable that terrorists could get hold of one nuke, let alone six at once. And if they did get hold of nukes plural why would they use them all on the US? They have other scores to settle and other enemies, some of them much closer to home and in some cases easier to attack (there are some logistical challenges in smuggling a nuke to the other side of the planet after all). New York and Washington aren't the only cities at the top of their list: Tel Aviv, New Delhi (or Bombay, etc.), Moscow and St Petersburg, London and Rome are at least as high on that list. But if they use so much as one nuke, then I predict that within 24 hours they will cease to exist and have no chance to use another.

Re: or say an oil embargo that plunges the nation into a severe recession

Can't happen. Oil is fungible. Once it's sold on the world market there's no way to prevent it from being sold to America (see: the failure of the embargo of 1973), epscially since there are sources of oil (Mexico, Canada, Norway etc.) that would not agree to the embargo. And if the Arab oil producers tried selling no oil to anyone their own economies would collapse far sooner than anyone else's. They need to sell that oil even more than we need to buy it.

Re: Organisationally it would be trivial

Organizationally, it would be a nightmare. The US does not even have sufficient troops to control a middle-sized country like Iraq. Control the fourth largest nation in the world, one as diverse and anarchy-prone as the US? (Don't forget all those right-wing anarchist types, the militias, and black helicopter paranoids, and ZOG-fearers) And especially if major foreign commitments (of the sorts your scenarios involve) also required those troops to be active abroad?
One believable scenario, though, because it has happened before: if there's enough popular passion a president (with Congress' support) can get away with curtailing the civil liberties of unpopular minorities. Lincoln, Wilson and FDR all did exactly that during their wars. However civilian government was not abrogated, elections were still held and the Constitution, though fractured perhaps, still endured.

Posted by JonF | May 3, 2007 10:19 PM

Terrorists wouldn't need more than 2 Bombs to bring down the US (and probably the entire civilized world) -- to repeat, all they would have to do is set off one Bomb in one city and announce that they would be setting off others -- in unspecified cities -- in the fairly near future. They might or might not have to set off a second one to confirm this for the terrified stampede to begin of tens of millions of urbanites into a countryside unprepared for them. In a situation like that, it won't much matter whether the government tries to declare martial law or not.

Posted by BruceMoomaw | May 4, 2007 7:33 AM

Re: Terrorists wouldn't need more than 2 Bombs to bring down the US (and probably the entire civilized world) -- to repeat, all they would have to do is set off one Bomb in one city and announce that they would be setting off others -- in unspecified cities -- in the fairly near future. They might or might not have to set off a second one to confirm this for the terrified stampede to begin of tens of millions of urbanites into a countryside unprepared for them.

And why didn't we see a "terrified stampede into countryside" during the Cold War when not just vague threats of weapons that may or may not exist, but thousands upon thousands of real weapons, many vastly more powerful than any primitive fission warhead a terrorist might cobble together or sneak out of Pakistan, were aimed at American cities? Sorry, people just don't behave the way you suggest. Their response to danger is to fill teh gas tank then run to Walmart for supplies and hole up at home, and altogether too many people cannot afford to flee into the countryside and would have no where to go. Remember that with a very real and deadly hurricane bearing down on them, and with shelters prepared for them and transportation provided, large numbers of people refused to leave New Orleans, many for no better reason than they refused to leave their pets behind. Also, in todays America much of our business and economic activity takes places outside the major cities in smaller cities or suburban office parks. Losing New York or Washington would do major damage, but I suspect you could take out Detroit or even Phoenix (the core cities that is, with a circle of ruin equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb) and the economy would, after a nasty bump, continue right along.

Posted by JonF | May 4, 2007 2:01 PM