Rebellion

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

The military is normally a great source of pride and has an important role in protecting the people and the country from harm.

If a state is peacefully seceding from the federation, the military has a duty to refuse involvement in preventing a peaceful separation through violence. The military would have a clear and unfair advantage over a state’s militia in that situation, and the use of force to prevent separation means the people in that state would no longer be free.

If a majority of people are in dissent against the government because it is violating people’s rights and attempting to silence dissenters, the people have a duty to rebel and overthrow its government to install a new government that will protect the people’s rights instead of violating them. This should be declared in the Constitution itself. In the United States, this principle is stated in the Declaration of Independence: “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”. When a majority of people are in rebellion, the military has a duty to refuse involvement in quashing the rebellion. This is because an unpopular government using the military to suppress dissent is an authoritarian government, not a democratic government. The military must not allow itself to be used to oppress the people.

However, people who want to overthrow the government merely to install themselves as the government, and not because the government oppresses the people, and especially if the people who want to overthrow the government are themselves likely to violate people’s rights, they are enemies of the people and the military must protect the government against them.

[Author]

Posts