<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=3>My original:
<BR><< There is a point, certainly, where a government clearly does not rule by
<BR>the consent of the governed, and at that point, the government no longer has
<BR>the claims upon individual citizens that a democratic government does. >>
<BR>
<BR>Todd:
<BR><< What point is that Leo? It's a thorny question, I know, to ask on a
<BR>Monday morn, but please indulge my desire to know. >>
<BR>
<BR>My original:
<BR><< That is where a right to revolution kicks in. >>
<BR>
<BR>Todd:
<BR><< "Rights" is a word with which I have lots of trouble. As it appears to
<BR>work in practice, a right is an "allowance" in the stictest sense of the
<BR>word: what someone else allows another to have. Rights can be made
<BR>constitutional and thereby given an air of permanence, but they can still be
<BR>modified, superseded, or abolished. A right is granted to a person or class
<BR>of persons or people in general by those who also have the power to take it
<BR>away. It can be granted out of fear for or fear of those who don't have a
<BR>particular right or rights, but it is always granted by someone else, who may
<BR>not feel it is in his/her/their best interests or even the best interests of
<BR>the one petitioning for rights. If there is such a thing as a "right to
<BR>revolution," it exists entirely within the mind of the petitioner for that
<BR>"right", who then has to convince others that this "right" should be
<BR>exercised while all the while those who insist there is no need for this
<BR>"right" (either innocently or with an ulterior motive) loudly proclaim the
<BR>insanity and/or diabolism of the petitioner (Ohh . . . . There's a fantastic
<BR>quote from the preface to Joanna Russ' The Female Man that speaks exactly to
<BR>what I am saying. I wish I could remember it!) and the benefits/beauty of
<BR>the present. I'm all for peaceful and democratic (radical) changes to
<BR>societies/governments, but to assume that it can come about simply by obeying
<BR>what the majority says and tacking on a rider for minority rights is, to my
<BR>mind, only a flea's-step above "micro-resistance" techniques in efficacy.
<BR> Even if the present First-World Governments were informed by Marxism, I
<BR>still would be leery of "majority right."
<BR>
<BR>I will grant you that democracy is great for preventing one individual from
<BR>running roughshod over people for his/her own benefit (this is the historical
<BR>milieu it grew out of), but it does nothing to prevent a class of people from
<BR>running roughshod over other classes or individuals.
<BR>
<BR>Todd >>
<BR>
<BR>Todd is right that the question of the precise point at which a government
<BR>becomes illegitimate is a rather thorny and difficult question. It is easy
<BR>enough to point out instances of clear illegitimacy [the slave South
<BR>vis-a-vis African-Americans, apartheid South Africa, Nazi Germany, Stalinist
<BR>USSR], but the question of the line of demarcation between a legitimate and
<BR>illegitimate government is heavily debated.
<BR>
<BR>But I don't think that it is necessary, in this context, to carefully draw
<BR>that line of demarcation. My point was that democrats recognize, as a matter
<BR>of principle, that the line exists; anarchists, also as a matter of
<BR>principle, do not recognize it. For them, the state is always illegitimate,
<BR>democratic or not. The democratic theory of civil disobedience allows one to
<BR>break a specific law, while still recognizing the legitimacy of majority
<BR>rule, and of a state based on majority rule and the consent of the governed.
<BR>
<BR>Rights discourse is a discourse with all sorts of contradictions and
<BR>paradoxes, but it is also the dominant political discourse in the US, the
<BR>discourse in which political projects and efforts to transform the boundaries
<BR>of political subjectivity are expressed. I do not think that one can step
<BR>outside of rights discourse, pace the communitarians, and have much practical
<BR>impact on American politics. Anarchism is a species of rights discourse --
<BR>but it see rights as extra-or pre-political, as natural.
<BR>
<BR>The right to revolution is a right unlike the ordinary species of rights. In
<BR>a constitutional democracy, rights are claims that one has on the government,
<BR>either to refrain from limiting one's freedom in some respect or to enforce
<BR>one's freedom against interlopers in another respect. The right to revolution
<BR>is clearly a right that exists outside of constitutional government; it is
<BR>the right, if you will, that comes into effect when other rights have been
<BR>violated. It is more of a justificatory concept for a certain species of
<BR>political action than it is a legally enforceable claim on the government.
<BR>
<BR>The combination of majority rule and democratic rights is not a recipe for
<BR>radical democratization. But it is not meant to be. It is a concept for
<BR>understanding one part of what a democratic government might be, one set of
<BR>the tensions it embodies. Radical democracy builds on it, but it can not,
<BR>IMHO, transcend it.
<BR>
<BR>Leo Casey
<BR>United Federation of Teachers
<BR>260 Park Avenue South
<BR>New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
<BR>
<BR>Power concedes nothing without a demand.
<BR>It never has, and it never will.
<BR>If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
<BR>Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who
<BR>want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and
<BR>lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
<BR><P ALIGN=CENTER>-- Frederick Douglass --</P></FONT></HTML>