Gesture Politics and the Populi

Bill Losapio asks a relevant question and touches on an important idea-

I continue to contemplate how the movie “V for Vendetta” came to be released, indeed made, at all. The ideas in this movie resonate with freedom’s strings tuned throughout the centuries, from the Magna Carta, to the rise of English Common Law, to the fire burning in the bellies of American colonists raging against the Mercantilist Banker forces of the British Crown, to the modern American citizen awakening from his trance induced through a lifetime of propaganda, lies, and history rewritten into statist nonsense.

A lot of "conservative" folks dislike "V For Vendetta" for various reasons, you can probably find those poorly thought out objections for yourself.  Bill's thoughts mesh well with something I contemplated this weekend. My son and I watched a DVD series produced by PBS on the events leading up to the American Revolution (the series is hosted by Forrest Sawyer and it is produced by PBS but surprisingly it is not bad).

I was reminded of the critical contribution that populism and civil disobedience played in forcing the events that lead to the revolution. 

I am generally opposed to populism and democracy for they are dangerous.  The intellectual leaders of the revolution were opposed to these dangerous notions as well but they did recognize the power of the mob once stirred to action.  The committees that tarred and feathered tax men, the boycott of British goods, the refusal to submit to taxation via cheap tea - none of these could have occurred without the support of the populi.  In fact, there was a real danger that the people could have, in there fervor, gone too far.

Patrick Henry and Thomas Paine, specifically, and Benjamin Franklin in a more subtle way realized the utility of the general population and the critical necessity of feeding the right information at the right time. While most of the other founding fathers feared unleashing the moral indignation of the mob these two men saw the benefits of the act.

The simple, non-violent act of dumping tea in the Boston harbor was a masterpiece of "gesture politics" - an act that forced the Crown to submit to colonial insubordination or react in an unreasonable manner. 

I am not certain why Americans submitted to a direct tax in 1862 and again in 1913 without real resistance.  It seems to me that if every town ostracized every federal tax man in their midst, if every county sheriff refused to assist federal agents or allow them to operate in his jurisdiction, if every employer refused to take money out of the paychecks of their employees and if every citizen refused to pay taxes the entire system would have never taken hold.  Alas, our grandparents and great grandparents did not have the courage or foresight to resist - we cannot blame them, we ourselves have allowed usurpations of our liberty in our time without resistance.

The idea of true liberty that respects natural law and traditional associations and responsibilities is all that remains - just the idea. Ideas and symbols that represent those ideas can be powerful motivations for the populi.

(Bill) I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone raised the banner, donned the accoutrements, and stepped out before the mechanisms of power to be seen by all. Leave it to an unnamed volunteer at the behest of the courageous We the People Foundation to send the first shockwaves to the bureaucracy by using the character of V to present different arms of the Federal government with a communication on the government’s failure to address petitions for a Redress of Grievances....

And thus I return to “V.” This character represents a symbol… a rallying cry for the reawakening of the American patriot… a trigger for the tempest of freedom that lies dormant in every heart of every human being, American or otherwise.

It is time we employ gesture politics - enough with bashing the left/right ideological fools - paleoconservatives must serve the role that Jefferson and Washington filled in The Revolution - our Libertarian brethren must fill the role of Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry. It is not too late to fundamentally change the order of things without violence - but it must be done in this generation.