Bloomberg Leaves Republican Party

[brianeyci]

But you're forgetting one thing Mike. What good's freedom of the press without guns? I mean, militia can totally defeat army regulars, right? And a dictator can come to power without a significant portion of the population backing him, right? And the minority who are being oppressed can defeat said majority with personal firearms, despite the majority supporting the dictator, right?

I would be far more worried about anti-gay by stealth than anti-guns by stealth. I thought this "by stealth" argument was completely a left-wing one, but it seems the right has it too. Only their situation's entirely pie in the sky, while anti-gay by stealth or anti-minority by stealth or anti-civil liberties by stealth has actually happened. Guantanmo Bay, Patriot Act. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty is talking about real freedom, not guns.

[Dark Flame]

There is no real historical connection between gun ownership and individual rights

What the fuck? How many Jews in Germany in 1939 had guns? How free did they end up? How many Africans owned guns in the 1700-1800's? How many that owned guns were shipped to America as slaves? Look at any situation of genocide or slavery in history, recent or not, and you will see that the ones that were murdered or enslaved did not have the ability to fight back effectively.

The "canary in the coal mine" for social freedom is the loss of freedom of the press, not the loss of gun rights.

And when the populace have no ability to fight back, then what does the loss of freedom of the press mean? If the people can't talk, they can still fight. But if they can't fight, then the government can do whatever the fuck it wants, including taking away freedom of the press.

But you're forgetting one thing Mike. What good's freedom of the press without guns? I mean, militia can totally defeat army regulars, right? And a dictator can come to power without a significant portion of the population backing him, right? And the minority who are being oppressed can defeat said majority with personal firearms, despite the majority supporting the dictator, right?

If there were enough "militia" then yes, they could. A significant portion of the population, with weapons and rudimentary training can do quite a lot. Look at the French Resistance during World War 2. They caused a lot of problems for the occupying troops all on their own, with simple weapons like the Liberator pistol and homemade explosives. They even did the majority of the work of liberating Paris from the Germans.

As for dictators, even if he is voted into office, like Hitler, if people realized, eventually, that the dictator was evil, then they could fight back. If they did not have guns, then it would be too late.

[Darth Wong]

What the fuck? How many Jews in Germany in 1939 had guns? How free did they end up? How many Africans owned guns in the 1700-1800's? How many that owned guns were shipped to America as slaves? Look at any situation of genocide or slavery in history, recent or not, and you will see that the ones that were murdered or enslaved did not have the ability to fight back effectively.

You're a fucking moron. The Africans were defeated because their armies had inferior weapons, not just the individual citizens. Same goes for most other victims of national-level genocides. As for the Jews, those that managed to arm themselves and fight back suffered the same fate as those who didn't. Read your fucking history, dipshit. And how about the Rwandan genocide, which was carried out with machetes and clubs? The victims had the same access to machetes that the genocidal mobs did, but here's how genocides generally work, since you're obviously too fucking stupid to read your history and put two and two together: the victims are a minority, and hence they will always lose. Either that or the attackers arm themselves with vastly superior military weapons.

The "canary in the coal mine" for social freedom is the loss of freedom of the press, not the loss of gun rights.

And when the populace have no ability to fight back, then what does the loss of freedom of the press mean? If the people can't talk, they can still fight. But if they can't fight, then the government can do whatever the fuck it wants, including taking away freedom of the press.

Once again you demonstrate your ignorance and stupidity. Militias will never defeat armies, and if the truth is suppressed, then people don't even realize that they should fight back.

[Dark Flame]

[quote="Darth Wong]As for the Jews, those that managed to arm themselves and fight back suffered the same fate as those who didn't.[/quote]
And how many did manage to arm themselves? If a large enough group of Jews had been armed, they could have made it very costly for government to take them, and brought more attention to the fact that they were being taken.

And how about the Rwandan genocide, which was carried out with machetes and clubs? The victims had the same access to machetes that the genocidal mobs did, but here's how genocides generally work

I did not know about the Rwandan genocide. I stand corrected.

Militias will never defeat armies

This is why some backwoods guys with rifles were able to found the USA and fight off one of, if not the most powerful country in the world at that time. Most of those that did the fighting in the American Revolution were state militias. Even the Continental Army regulars were mostly just farmers that had armed themselves and fought back. And they succeeded.

[Cairber]

This is why some backwoods guys with rifles were able to found the USA and fight off one of, if not the most powerful country in the world at that time. Most of those that did the fighting in the American Revolution were state militias. Even the Continental Army regulars were mostly just farmers that had armed themselves and fought back. And they succeeded.

This is reaching way back in my mind, but, if not for the help of the French, wouldn't the revolution have failed?[/quote]

[Darth Wong]

And how many did manage to arm themselves?

You tell me, genius. You're the one who claims to have read his history.

If a large enough group of Jews had been armed, they could have made it very costly for government to take them, and brought more attention to the fact that they were being taken.

They fought hard, and the outcome was the same. The fact that you don't even know they existed speaks volumes.

I did not know about the Rwandan genocide. I stand corrected.

For someone who claims to read his history, you are remarkably unaware of world events.

Militias will never defeat armies

This is why some backwoods guys with rifles were able to found the USA and fight off one of, if not the most powerful country in the world at that time.

Pure flag-waving mythology. They needed French help to succeed, and they only succeeded even then because the British didn't think it was worth the bother.

Most of those that did the fighting in the American Revolution were state militias. Even the Continental Army regulars were mostly just farmers that had armed themselves and fought back. And they succeeded.

Against whom? Army units from across the Atlantic whose loyalty was so much in doubt that they would lock the fucking barracks from the outside so that soldiers couldn't defect or desert in the middle of the night? This has precisely NOTHING to do with a rebellion where the occupying force is local, and will not pack up and leave because it's not worth the expense of staying. They did NOT defeat an army; they only made it too expensive to bother continuing, especially when that army's home country was threatened by France at the time.

[Glocksman]

This is why some backwoods guys with rifles were able to found the USA and fight off one of, if not the most powerful country in the world at that time. Most of those that did the fighting in the American Revolution were state militias. Even the Continental Army regulars were mostly just farmers that had armed themselves and fought back. And they succeeded.

This is reaching way back in my mind, but, if not for the help of the French, wouldn't the revolution have failed?

[/quote]

Pretty much.
IIRC, they not only provided ships, guns, and advisors, they helped out with some cash as well.

[Stravo]

I'd like to point out that the militia example Dark Flame uses is absolute horseshit. Washington immediately called for the training of a regular Army because he knew the militias would be slaughtered by British Regulars.

Add to that the fact that the French jumped in and helped with aid, training - of a regular army NOT militia, and most importantly naval support was what really turned the tide.

I also would like to add that the Jews in the Warsaw Uprising had arms and revolted and they really made a dent in the Nazi war machine and saved many of their people - not.

Additionally anyone that argues that a bunch of good old boys with shotguns is going to give paused to 10th Mountain Division or 101st Airborne is smoking crack. The myth of the militia needs to die and die horribly. The FBI routinely busts and breaks up militias in the midwest and Utah. The FBI. Guys in suits with 9mm. Militias are the suck.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'd like to point out that the militia example Dark Flame uses is absolute horseshit. Washington immediately called for the training of a regular Army because he knew the militias would be slaughtered by British Regulars.

Add to that the fact that the French jumped in and helped with aid, training - of a regular army NOT militia, and most importantly naval support was what really turned the tide.

I also would like to add that the Jews in the Warsaw Uprising had arms and revolted and they really made a dent in the Nazi war machine and saved many of their people - not.

Additionally anyone that argues that a bunch of good old boys with shotguns is going to give paused to 10th Mountain Division or 101st Airborne is smoking crack. The myth of the militia needs to die and die horribly. The FBI routinely busts and breaks up militias in the midwest and Utah. The FBI. Guys in suits with 9mm. Militias are the suck.

A militia is a military body, Stravo. You're thinking about armed groups of irregulars. That is a subject which is only a subset of militia forces. Most of our troops in the revolutionary, War of 1812, and Civil Wars were militia forces, and to a lesser extent the Span-Am. They performed very well.

The key was that they were organized according to military principles and similarly equipped and trained. This was not even necessarily done by the state governments, however; in the Civil War for instance it was very common for rich men to recruit regiments on their own, which would result in their commission as the Colonel of the Regiment. Quite a nice thing to be, even though leading an infantry regiment was very dangerous--it wouldn't have been suitable for someone of your social standing to go to war as a private soldier, and contributing financially to the war effort was considered the only moral thing for the well-to-do. A lot of the state regiments were raised in this way.

The interesting thing is that by issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal the President can in fact still authorize private cititizens to operate in a military capacity, and bear heavy weaponry. It would seem that the formation of a modern militia would require the issuance of such a letter which would allow the force in question to buy modern arms.

I wouldn't completely rule out the success of a classic irregular force like you've been describing, however. Urban combat is very dicey, and the real value of insurgents isn't in a stand-up fight with regulars, but rather hitting their lines of supply. In a civil war situation, unlike the current conflict in Iraq, the insurgents have a chance to destroy the industrial facilities which produce arms for the Army, and armour, vehicles and equipment and so on. The loss of any of those facilities could be crippling to the edge of the Army in a stand-up arrangement. Loss of oil would of course also be a serious issue.

If such insurgent attacks in combination with the possibility of a General Strike by sympathetic workers were to take place, the army might eventually ground to a halt. It's wrong to look at invasions as an example of how this would play down; it is much more of a revolutionary conflict, and we know that many of those have succeeded given the right combination of circumstances. The main key is that the tactics are predicated on the fact that a stand-up fight is, at least initially, utterly impossible. But that is not the only way to confront a great military power.

[Battlehymn Republic]

What does everyone feel about Chuck Hagel, Bloomberg's likely running mate?

It'd be quite neat if Bloomberg turned out to be the rightish independent ticket, and Gore became the leftish indie runner.

[Darth Wong]

The key was that they were organized according to military principles and similarly equipped and trained.

Then they were an army. It's not as if a professional army is the only kind of army in history. Moreover, if you need to special-issue heavy weapons in order to make such a force competitive, then that proves the point; letting citizens have small-arms will not prevent dictatorship.

In a civil war situation, unlike the current conflict in Iraq, the insurgents have a chance to destroy the industrial facilities which produce arms for the Army, and armour, vehicles and equipment and so on.

Only if you subscribe to the wet-dream fantasy of the NRA where a substantial portion of the population actually rises up in revolt. If democracy was suspended tomorrow in the USA under the guise of some national emergency, I seriously doubt a huge insurgency would promptly spring up. In fact, I suspect that as long as the economy continued to run along at some reasonable clip, most people would just shrug and carry on. Hell, that's what they've been doing during the gradual erosion of individual rights in the US over the past 5 years.

As I said, the first thing that any would-be dictator does is seize control of the press. You can be a totalitarian dictatorship without taking away peoples' guns; look at Iraq under Saddam Hussein. But every totalitarian dictatorship seizes control of the press.

[Ace Pace]

I also would like to add that the Jews in the Warsaw Uprising had arms and revolted and they really made a dent in the Nazi war machine and saved many of their people - not.

I'll elaborate on that. During the runup to the final solution, 1933-1940, Jews did not fight back. There's a simple and rather stupid reason for that. They didn't see in Hitler the threat he posed to them, and for a long while they went quietly because they thought "just another anti semetic, let him die out and we'll be back to normal." By the time they realised otherwise, 1938-1940, it was far too late, most Jews were either already in concertration camps, or were rounded up as soon as they were captured.

The jewish rebellions that did occure, Warsaw Uprising being the most famous, but not the only example, completly failed. There's a story about a rather large bunch of Jews escaping from a death camp(the name escapes me), got weapons, etc. They ran into a forest. You can guess the rest. An SS brigade arrived and destroyed the forest and everyone inside it.

Armed resistence does not always work, not when it's an irregular band of soldiers versus the 10th mountain division.

Anyone who thinks that owning a shotgun somehow prevents him of being deprived of his rights, or safeguards his life, needs to read history.

[Jadeite]

Oh, for fucks sake!

Would all Americans GET THE FUCK OVER IT already? He can't take your guns away. The next president can't take your guns away, 100 presidents down the line won't be able to take your guns away. It's in your consitution, and the entire 'fly over states' would go on rampage if they tried.

Jesus.

But they can do this:

AWB

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Only if you subscribe to the wet-dream fantasy of the NRA where a substantial portion of the population actually rises up in revolt. If democracy was suspended tomorrow in the USA under the guise of some national emergency, I seriously doubt a huge insurgency would promptly spring up. In fact, I suspect that as long as the economy continued to run along at some reasonable clip, most people would just shrug and carry on. Hell, that's what they've been doing during the gradual erosion of individual rights in the US over the past 5 years.

As I said, the first thing that any would-be dictator does is seize control of the press. You can be a totalitarian dictatorship without taking away peoples' guns; look at Iraq under Saddam Hussein. But every totalitarian dictatorship seizes control of the press.

The United States is a nation filled with fat cowards who would surrender the moment someone closed down the McDonalds the block from their house. I have more respect for the combat abilities of the French Army right now than I do for the stomach of the average American to suffer anything. The population of this country is a collection of irrational fat goons waiting to be led by the most cunning man in the crowd.

I honestly expect that the most likely use for private firearms in this country over the next several decades will be in the brushfire war which is going to develop in the Southwest. Peak Oil will only accelerate the flood of immigrants, and with lunatic radicals on both sides, continuous low-scale bloodshed is quite likely (especially considering that political deadlock about how to deal with such migration is liable to keep the government from ever smacking the people around). I don't even particularly approve, of course; Mexicans are eminently western in their outlook, and my own solution is to simply integrate Mexico and the United States into one country, granting independence to the culturally distinct southern provinces which currently fight the Mexican central government, and drawing the line of the frontier at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

But men fight for their land, and that is what the ranches of the southwest feel is threatened. They will fight, when the political situation (as it surely will) has become deadlocked enough that nothing else is being done to deal with the situation, one way or the other.

Mind you, if there is a dictatorship in the United States as a result of economic collapse, I don't think it will even try to disarm the population--the armed part of the population is likely to be its largest supporters, by and large. Rightist paramilitaries would do most of the dirty work, which probably won't even involve firearms much. Taking truncheons to the heads of protestors is just as effective, but with less bad press.

[Darth Wong]

But they can do this:

AWB

And yet you can still buy high-powered rifles, so the ban does nothing. If you have some evidence of citizens with rifles rising up against the loss of civil rights and violations of the Constitution in the past 5 years, please produce it. Oh wait, most of the gun nuts have actually been chanting their support of these infringements. Oops, one more NRA mythology down the drain.

[Flagg]

But they can do this:

AWB

And yet you can still buy high-powered rifles, so the ban does nothing. If you have some evidence of citizens with rifles rising up against the loss of civil rights and violations of the Constitution in the past 5 years, please produce it. Oh wait, most of the gun nuts have actually been chanting their support of these infringements. Oops, one more NRA mythology down the drain.

The only time most of the fucknuggets like that would actually rise up is if the government tried to take their guns away.

[Battlehymn Republic]

I might as well feed the tangents.

The United States is a nation filled with fat cowards who would surrender the moment someone closed down the McDonalds the block from their house. I have more respect for the combat abilities of the French Army right now than I do for the stomach of the average American to suffer anything. The population of this country is a collection of irrational fat goons waiting to be led by the most cunning man in the crowd.

To be fair, doesn't the same criticisms apply to the affluent middle to upper middle class of any nation?

[wolveraptor]

I have more respect for the combat abilities of the French Army right now than I do for the stomach of the average American to suffer anything.

Wow, you have more respect for the combat abilities of soldiers than civillians! What a horrendous insult to the American people!

Of course the French army's going to be more accustomed to combat than US civilians. That's what they're fucking trained to do.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I have more respect for the combat abilities of the French Army right now than I do for the stomach of the average American to suffer anything.

Wow, you have more respect for the combat abilities of soldiers than civillians! What a horrendous insult to the American people!

Of course the French army's going to be more accustomed to combat than US civilians. That's what they're fucking trained to do.

Jesus fucking christ, do you realize how many French Army jokes there and how that's an OBVIOUS allusion to them?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I might as well feed the tangents.


To be fair, doesn't the same criticisms apply to the affluent middle to upper middle class of any nation?

Modern western nations. Seventy years ago the middle class could be reliably expected to die in action in disproportionate numbers. There's serious things wrong with the whole philosophy of the middle class in western civilization; it's a festering sore of consumerism, a boil on the surface of the world.

[SirNitram]

Do people ever actually beleive the Continental Army was a militia? Christ, what stupidity. It was led by a war hero and officer of the French-Indian War.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Do people ever actually beleive the Continental Army was a militia? Christ, what stupidity. It was led by a war hero and officer of the French-Indian War.

The problem is that before 1914 "State Militia" was used as a term for the armies of each state rather than "National Guard", because they were much more independent from the government then. The difference is that they were still armies run by organized governments; they were just under the total control of each state rather than integrated to the federal army command as they are now.

[SirNitram]

Do people ever actually beleive the Continental Army was a militia? Christ, what stupidity. It was led by a war hero and officer of the French-Indian War.

The problem is that before 1914 "State Militia" was used as a term for the armies of each state rather than "National Guard", because they were much more independent from the government then. The difference is that they were still armies run by organized governments; they were just under the total control of each state rather than integrated to the federal army command as they are now.

I doubt it has anything to do with the name, and everything to do with the Redneck-ification of America, where Good Ol' Boys with their shotguns on the porch and their coonskin caps will save the day against tyranny. It's the same model used by the 2nd Amendment shriekers most times(And since this topic has shown people are ridiculously oversensitive, I'm referring to those that freak out over the slightest gun control, not those who simply support the right to have a weapon), after all. Consider the documentary Red Dawn.

[Adrian Laguna]

Do people ever actually beleive the Continental Army was a militia? Christ, what stupidity. It was led by a war hero and officer of the French-Indian War.

Aside of whether the Continental Army counted a regular or militia army, it was certainly raised from militiamen, your logic here is flawed. A militia being lead by an officer of the regular military is still a militia.

[SirNitram]

Do people ever actually beleive the Continental Army was a militia? Christ, what stupidity. It was led by a war hero and officer of the French-Indian War.

Aside of whether the Continental Army counted a regular or militia army, it was certainly raised from militiamen, your logic here is flawed. A militia being lead by an officer of the regular military is still a militia.

If it's officer corps is from a regular military, it will hardly be acting in the same way as a militia. This is without getting into the fact that there were plenty of veterans in the Army, and of course, the fact they had the infrastructural support of a proper Army.