31 October 2025

On the Importance of Protest

It is an uncomfortable fact, throughout history, autocracy—tyranny, dictatorship or whatever we call it—has depended on people at all levels who accept it, who adjust to it, or even find it a comfortable system under which to live…. It is not violence or the secret police, it is collaboration and cooperation—knowing or naive, well-meaning or not—that keep autocracy going.

 

Mary Beard, Emperor of Rome, p.407.

11 comments:

  1. Social Contracts are not always nice or healthy.

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  2. Though conservatives may claim that protesting is pointless, the reality is that protests have achieved so much throughout human history. Take South Africa for example or Poland or Romania or the history of trade unions or the civil rights movement in America. WE SHALL OVERCOME! I applaud the recent "No Kings" protests in America.

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    Replies
    1. I'm pretty sure Marie-Antoinette also said that protests were pointless... but I could be mistaken.

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    2. Even Emperor Strumpet showed that he believed in the power of protests when he sent the MAGA mob to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6th 2021.

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  3. and the people who passively go along with it, or (worse) actively go along with it as it benefits them. He's a dictator but he's our dictator.

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