Hello Internet - and welcome back to the most inquisitive channel on YouTube, Life’s Biggest
Questions - the place where we advocate for socioeconomic change without the causation
of violence.
As always, I’ll be your disembodied narrator Jack Finch - as we hit the panic button, watch
the titanium shutters unfold, kick up our feet and wait for this whole thing to blow
over - as we timidly ask the question, What If The Purge Was Real For 7 Days?
Now we’ve already proposed the question of The Purge being real - twelve hours where
all crime is legal across a dystopian United States of America.
You know the drill and how it all plays out - but what if we stick you one further?
What if we stretch that out to an entire week of Purge-iness?
Well, let’s find out.
Before we jump into that car crash of complete carnage, though - make sure to hit that thumbs
up button if you’re a fan of this video, LBQ - or just dystopian hypotheticals in general.
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On with the question.
In the real world - as you know, The Purge was a 2014 dystopian horror film that went
on to spawn a four film franchise, as well as a hotly controversial new Netflix series
that debuted this month.
While in no way being a franchise held in fond regard by the modern world - it still
delivered itself to be an interesting concept with some surprisingly intellectual foundations.
Particularly in the climate that we live in today, we often find ourselves thinking how
society would react to such visceral complications.
These violent delights have violent ends - and all that.
Although we’ll approach this question with a light-hearted mentality - the truth behind
this question is ultimately a tragic reality.
In other words - we only need to briefly look back through several decades to see what happens
when a lawful society breaks down, and starker still - that a lot of chaos can happen in
just a week.
Countries that have next to nothing in terms of criminal justice - and countries that are
torn apart by civil war and international conflict waged by modern superpowers - where
every day is a struggle without the support of police safety and law enforcement.
So what if that occured in the United States?
Not just for twelve hours under the 25th constitutional amendment - but an entire week of lawlessness,
murder and criminal rampage.
Well for one - you can safely say that this would be the last ever Purge under a government
sanction, purely for the fact that a weeks worth of carnage and lawless destruction would
be the undoing of the Purge itself.
But that doesn’t mean we’d be in for a golden age of prosperity and mutual cooperation,
nope - far from it.
The United States has a population of 325.7 million people, as of the 2017 census - and
that’s a hell of a lot of people to put through severe emotional and physical trauma,
prolonged for an entire week - and that’s only considering the people that survived
such an onslaught.
And once it’s all over, you just sound the buzzer and hope everything will be fine again?
Not a chance.
Twelve hours is tentative enough, but entire empires can crumble in less than seven days
- even without half its population being armed to the teeth with military grade weaponry.
But - and a huge but - granted, this is all under the assumption of a defiant population.
Because if we have a complicit population, then it’s a completely different story.
Before we dive into that can of worms though, let’s wind it back a little bit - at what
point would we find ourselves with a seven day purge?
Is this the reward for several decades worth of successful purging, and a government that
somehow managed to cling onto such a model?
Or is this the product of a Purge that got out of hand, and a government that couldn’t
keep a lid on it.
If we take our first possibility - then we need only to look toward instances such as
the Milgram Experiment and the Zimbardo Prison Study to understand that the likelihood of
it happening is an entirely possible scenario.
History has tragically shown us so - The Holocaust, The Red Terror and the Stalinist Purges, Tiananmen
Square.
As both studies ultimately found - a malevolent authority can accommodate psychopathic and
sadistic tendencies - and a week long celebration Purge could be implemented as part of - say
- a 10th, 25th or 50th anniversary of the Purge, under a completely complicit - yet
twistedly murderous society that would be met with thunderous applause.
Put your Hunger Games hats on, I don’t know.
But the thing with these things is - there’s always a resistance of some sort.
I’m an optimist, and I believe in the infallible nature of the human spirit - joy as an act
of resistance - and undoubtedly, however small and defeated - there’d be a number of people
in the United States who were sick and tired of the murderous Purge - and all it would
take is a period of time where they could get things rolling, and seize back control.
Let’s say - oh I don’t know - a week?
Say that this week long anniversary Purge is even after ten years of purging.
That’s ten years of training for a disgruntled resistance force - enough time to formulate
a more than competent plan of attack.
After 25 years?
This becomes a life-long dedication to over throwing the Purge.
50 years?
That’s some pretty hardened, grizzled old purge veterans with a vendetta to boot.
Let’s take into account foreign involvement, too.
Through the Libyan Revolution that began in February 2011, we saw an entire nation mobilise
and take back their country - where rebel forces coordinated with NATO backed operations
to siege Colonel Gaddafi's corrupt regime.
Reportedly, the rebels orchestrated this via Twitter, directly messaging airstrike coordinates
to NATO forces.
There’s no saying what would ignite under a week-long purge with a dedicated resistance
force that had foreign backing.
Let’s say they mobilised their forces to one specific area on the first day - Austin,
Texas.
Tactically speaking - Texas is close enough to Mexico to support foreign involvement,
and strategically spaced to launch into the rest of the country - with coastal access
and strategic passage through the Rio Grande.
By Tuesday - the entire state has been taken under rebel control - serving as a springboard
for other resistance forces across the country.
By Wednesday the majority of the west coast has fallen in line - with Canadian backing
through British Columbia and the pacific northwest.
By this time - the New Founding Fathers of America realise that their own undoing comes
in the form of the 25th amendment - and attempt to scramble the military to take back control
of the rebel states.
Too late, after a series of rebel led coups in the United States Marine Corps the military
falls out of the commander in chief's hands.
Purge loyalists race back to Washington D.C from across the country - while the rebel
states slowly march forward.
On the sixth day, the capital is under siege - and on the seventh day, there was no resting
- only revolution.
Maybe it would take longer than a week to topple the New Founding Fathers of America
- but with the majority of their assets seized by a foreign backed revolution, it’d only
be a matter of time before the Purge was a bloody stain on a dark, dark history book.
Either that or they’d just carry on murdering each other for another hundred years.
Well - what do you guys think would happen if the Purge was real for 7 days?
Why don’t you leave your thoughts in the comment box down below.
If you’d like to continue on with your questioning binge, why don’t you go ahead and hit that
playlist floating shortly above.
As always, I’ve been your host Jack Finch - you’ve been watching Life’s Biggest
Questions - and until next time, take it easy.