There's no doubt I don't know every detail of US politics. Nor care to for that matter. But that is true of everyone.
On the other hand, I know some. I might even have had American citizenship if I had wanted it. But happily for y'all, I did not.
Crazy as it seems, I was aware of Thoreau, but more as a guy who went into the woods and lived by a pond than as a political commentator. I thought he was known for environmentalism. But you are right that he didn't catch my eye and I haven't studied him. I did address the quote you shared, and I thought it was not a wise one, and it rather reassured me I hadn't missed out from a political perspective. I'm interested in people who say interesting things wherever they are from. Similarly, if they haven't something new or interesting to say on a subject, it doesn't much matter to me if they are American or English.
It sounds like you may believe that Americans are the only folks who might conceivably have worthwhile insights about American politics. Maybe you posted here because you were hoping clo would repond. I will leave that to her. My own view is that a dose or two of foreign perspective is useful in any conversation. After all, you might not exist as an entity without the immigration of folks from my country, or think of yourself as exceptional without de Tocqueville.
But just so you are aware of my position in this particular conversation. I think the worthwhile part of a discussion about insurrections and their justification is not so much the bit about where they occur, but the arguments for them and those against them wherever they are and whenever they occurred. And that is what I am addressing.
Can they be justified?
I left you some space to respond to my previous post.
My point about John of Salisbury begged the question of who might reasonably restrain a tyrant. Magna Carta helps answer it. Back then, it was the barons and the bishops.
My view is also that it's hard to understand the American constitution and its ideas of justice without a firm grounding in English history. From Englnd's Magna Carta, Americans have the rule of law and the fourth amendment. From John Locke, much of Jefferson's philosophy. Substantial contributions.
I also brought up Shakespeare and Wilkes Booth, but I didn't mention the play by the former that had an influence upon the latter. That would be Julius Caesar.
Wilkes Booth revered in particular the character of Brutus, the most famous of Caesar's assassins. Brutus was noble. He had a loyalty, which was to the Republic. “If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say, that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all freemen? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears, for his love; joy, for his fortune; honour, for his valour; and death, for his ambition.”
“Sic semper tyrannis!” John Wilkes Booth shouted as he shot Lincoln in the head. Ever thus to tyrants! It is a Latin phrase thought by some to have been said by Brutus over the wounded Caesar before he stabbed him. “The South is avenged,” he finished up.
Wilkes Booth is a good place to start when thinking about why arrogant men who believe themselves principled do foolish and sometimes wicked things. He might have got along with your Thoreau.
Shakespeare’s work, then, is an inheritance of both America and England. Nations aren't islands, culturally-speaking. Ours are entwined, one way or another. But it seems I have the advantage over you in having some knowledge of both.
I'm not as convinced as you are that the distinction between a republic and a democracy is particularly wide, unless you wish to define democracy narrowly, in the Athenian way, instead of broadly and inclusively, as the English language permits. My country is a constitutional monarchy and also a parliamentary democracy. Yours is a republic with a written constitution and you also vote using slightly funky democratic machinery for your representatives and your president. We are both democracies and we are also other things too.
It sounds like you believe Democrats are wicked cheats and Republicans are heroes defending Americans from them and their manipulation. I don't think you are right, but once a person goes down the deep state rabbit hole, there's no digging them out. So that ain't what I plan to do.
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