There is a lesson in here for all individuals and nations. All governments exist only with the consent of the governed. That consent does not have to be "withdrawn" via unlawful force at-arms or even via the ballot box.
Indeed, it is most-effectively withdrawn when the citizens refuse to go to work!
The Beast of Government exists on tax revenues. ALL governments share this fundamental reality. ALL governments fail when the economic capacity to tax is destroyed. ALL citizens give their consent to their government each and every day by performing economic acts and thereby exposing that activity to taxation.
That taxation forms the essence of the functional capacity to govern. Period.
The people in all nations, at all times, reserve the right and the ability, through peaceful and lawful action, to destroy any government should it fail to comply with their demands and act in a sufficiently-onerous manner, and a minority of the population is all it requires to effect this change. The Soviet Union fell via this mechanism, East Germany fell via this mechanism, and now Egypt has fallen via this mechanism.
The war between liberals and conservatives is a false divide-and-conquer dog-and-pony show created by the powers that be to keep the American people divided and distracted.
