Popular rebellion, state response and our failure to date: a debate

[TheCurmudgeon]

Europe has a history of hundreds of years of rebellions based on ideas (even as simple as the idea that you have hunger), not organisations. We certainly didn't enter anything like that.

At the risk of discussing areas of agreement, I agree that Europe, in particular, has a longer history of ideas being central to rebellions and revolutions (although to me, hunger is a lot more than an idea, or at least it is an idea with a much higher likelihood to motivate people to take risks to satiate it). However, in the good old days the king of England was probably not going to call for the ouster of the King of France because he decided to torture, kill off or banish all the Huguenots. Today, with the idea that legitimacy comes from the people it has become harder (although certainly not impossible) for a dictator to take repressive action against his people to suppress an idea.