The Right of Revolution

In political philosophy, the right of revolution (or right of rebellion) is the right or duty of a people to "alter or abolish" a government that acts against their common interests or threatens the safety of the people without cause. Stated throughout history in one form or another, the belief in this right has been used to justify various revolutions, including the American Revolution, French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Iranian Revolution.

Right versus dutyEdit

Some philosophers argue that it is not only the right of a people to overthrow an oppressive government but also their duty to do so. Howard Evans Kiefer opines, "It seems to me that the duty to rebel is much more understandable than that right to rebel, because the right to rebellion ruins the order of power, whereas the duty to rebel goes beyond and breaks it."^[34]

Morton White writes of the American revolutionaries, "The notion that they had a duty to rebel is extremely important to stress, for it shows that they thought they were complying with the commands of natural law and of nature's God when they threw off absolute despotism."^[35] The U.S. Declaration of Independence states that "when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government" (emphasis added). The phrase "long train of abuses" is a reference to John Locke's similar statement in the Second Treatise of Government, where he explicitly established overthrow of a tyrant as an obligation. Martin Luther King Jr. likewise held that it is the duty of the people to resist unjust laws.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution#:~:text=In%20political%20philosophy%2C%20the%20right,of%20the%20people%20without%20cause.

Watch "V for Vendetta - final revolution scene" on YouTube

https://youtu.be/_-gHVGOoE48