At what point do people, as a collective, decide that the only option is violence and turn on their leaders?
I always wondered this in class when we'd talk about Communism or the Third Reich, or really any other kind of monarchy or government overreach. It was easy to explain how a country go to that point and how a ruler or leader was able to easily usurp rights away from the people. But the part I never understood was how it always happened and was allowed to happen, and then one day everyone just decided they weren't alright with it. It's the middle area between the two events that I'm asking about specifically. When is everyone suddenly in agreement that it's gone too far. That's the answer that seems to vary from every tyranical situation, and why the answer "look at history" never sits well with me. The history doesn't look to be entirely consistent on that point.
It's easy to answer how much it takes for one person to break. I think all of us could answer that question. But at what point does an entire country break? Is it when everyone's family and friends starts disappearing in the night? When money dries up? When the streets are lined with poverty? When promises of the rich and powerful to the poor and starved stay unfulfilled? When your kids are taken as property of the ruler and turned into workers/drones/tools? Is it when the missles start falling on your neighborhood? Is it when the tanks roll down your city block? When air raid sirens become another day that ends in "y"? When your church is targeted? When your politics are targeted? When your guns and weapons are taken?
All of this stuff still happens in the modern day. We can look to any country in the world and see some enactment of the same things playing out that have played out throughout history. Not to sound condescending, but this is why the "look to history" answer bothers me and comes off as a non-answer. It implies that we solved the issues of the past and that we need only look to them for answers on how to prevent them in the present day. Except that isn't true at all; they're all still happening. Looking to history didn't prevent anything.
Maybe that's the answer right there. Maybe everyone is always thinking the same thing, but they're waiting for someone else to fire the--metaphorical--first shot, and after that is when everyone unifies. I think that's honestly why there's an increase in fed-posts on every board and thread I've been in (aside from the standard edgy teens and actual glowniggery). I think there is a contigient of people on the internet that are venting what they can't say in public. In my personal life, many people have said the words "(x) needs to be hung/shot/guillotined," over the last couple of years. They're at the point of violence, but won't be the ones to start it. I don't think it's presumptuous to say that there's probably a lot of people that feel that way.
So I guess in summation, what I'm asking is: in the modern age of tyranny, what is the final push before the inevitable violence? And...Are we living at the boiling point, or are we living in the hyphonated part of an reign of terror in someone else's text book; you know, those middle years that aren't worth remembering between the starting year and ending year where everyone went along with everything. Or are we finally at the end? Which part of the future children's history book are we?
