mixedmedia

There's been a lot of supposition on the current "gun control thread" (the one started by shani) by pro-gun advocates about the unrestricted right to keep and bear firearms based on the circumstance that one day we, the people, may need to to take them up to defend ourselves against our government.

And it's gotten me to wondering...what exactly does that mean?

Is there a plan? Is there some kind of comprehensive, yet secret, society that is prepared with strategies and registries and organized hierarchies and, most importantly, a follow-up plan?? (Ya! Gotta have one of those! Trust me!)

Or is it just a vague idea? A picture in the mind of defending your family with your trusty rifle through the broken-out window in your living room while a US tank rolls up into your front yard?

I'm really curious to know. And, in fact, in order to buy this idea I need to be sold on it as one that is grounded in rational, practical thought.

...and I just don't see it.

To steal a cue from shani, educate me.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

shakran

Well that's the dirty little secret isn't it. Despite the obvious fact that a bunch of yahoos with rifles wouldn't be able to stop the government's weapons of war, the pro-gun crowd continues to insist that personal firearms are necessary to keep the government in check. If you want good evidence of why that's crap, go look up the video of the nut that stole a tank several years back. We had an untrained man in one tank rampaging through a city, and the cops were powerless to stop him. ONE TANK. And he didn't even fire the gun. The ONLY reason the rampage ended was because he screwed up and got his tank stuck on a concrete divider. Now multiply that by an entire tank company, with tanks driven by trained men and women who won't make mistakes like that, and who by the way know how to fire the tank's weapons instead of just driving over stuff, and tell me how a pistol or a rifle is going to stop them.

We haven't even discussed bombers.



Plus, despite the fact that the government has been systematically and deliberately stripping us of our rights for the better part of a decade now, the pro gun crowd still hasn't taken up arms and done anything about it.

So their entire argument is theoretically and in practice, bullshit.

filtherton

I think the idea is that if you want to get slaughtered wholesale by the u.s. military, it's better to do so fully armed than unarmed.

mixedmedia

And why is that?

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

dksuddeth

it's no wonder democracies and republics fail

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

shakran

Ya know dk, you can sit there and crack off pithy little phrases all you want, but you still have NEVER managed to logically address my two points, in ALL the threads on this over the years.

I admit that this tactic often works - when you can't come up with real answers, spew out snarky one-liners. That fools a lot of people, but the folks around here are a lot smarter than the average guy. It isn't going to work.

mixedmedia

Which brings to mind...

Say there was a people's revolution and (let's stretch it) say it was successful. What sort of a society do you suppose we might have then? What are your thoughts on the inevitability of tyranny, dksuddeth?

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Cynthetiq

I don't agree that tanks and bombers are the end all be all answer to stopping the people that live within the cities. If that was the case then Afghanistan and Iraq would have been much shorter. We'd just pull up in our tanks and the people would just kneel down and say uncle.

No, it goes beyond that since the war there isn't over.

Self appointed militias which exist from Texas to Montana, they are the ones that have the plans A and B, possibly C.

I'd agree that it is better to go down fighting than to be kneeling in subservience.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

dksuddeth

and that's fine. One thing i've learned over the last couple of years is you can't fix stupid, which tells me that nothing I say to half the people on this board will ever change anything. I'm now firmly convinced that there will be another civil war over ideologies so far away from what the founding fathers envisioned and it really doesn't matter to me. I'll die free, you can live as a slave to government. I really don't care anymore. This is a land that has been dominated by communists and socialists for the last 70 years. congrats.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

mixedmedia

Maybe it's because I reject most of the macho John Wayne bullshit - not just because I am a pain in the ass, but because it is a mythical misrepresentation that has prompted men to have irrational expectations of themselves, often to the detriment of many others - but, maybe it's because of that that I don't see those as the only two options.

Violence or subservience.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

dksuddeth

violence or subservience, because it's never happened before. how did this country come about again?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

roachboy

the militia set has a real problem with the modern state.
rather than outline that problem--you know, make it coherent--they prefer to fetishize the founders and on that basis to pretend that they are the new minutemen conducting preparations for the rerun of the american revolution/tax revolt. so it seems to me that the "get a gun and get freedom" folk simply retreat from a complex world into a make-believe 18th century agrarian society made up of yeomen farmers. it is a projection, a fantasy of the type that could enable some among these folk to maybe even read tocqueville's democracy in america and overlook one of the central underlying arguments: tocqueville was writing about the early 1830s---and even then it seemed clear to him that the political space imagined by the founders was evaporating and that capitalism was the explanation for it--a fundamentally different mode of production was taking shape--at the time, it was primarily confined to the cities--but tocqueville was quite clear about what he saw--the writing was on the wall and this experiment in democracy in america was nearing its conclusion. what remained of it seems to me to have been wiped out by the american civil war. but because if your committment to hallucination is adequate, you can avoid anything, it follows that they could read tocqueville and leave out that part. if they read tocqueville.


what it seems like the militia set is doing politically is waiting for the existing order to collapse on its own.
they are quite sure it will any minute now...... any minute................any minute now..............there it goes--oops no, not quite yet.............soon though..............soon..............

when this collapse comes, it seems that a consequence of it will be the atomization of state power which would be reflected in the evaporation of its police and military functions.
they would just stop.
pfft. all gone now.

and into this imaginary vacuum the minutemen would stride wearing ten league boots and clutching a gun or twelve. the switching away from the capitalist mode of production would also take care of itself because it is all artificial and beneath the surface it is still 1797 pennsylvania somewhere really. we know this because other statements are obviously true, in the way that all such are true: the nation is a substantive entity, it has an internal logic and that logic will deploy automatically. that's why it is important that they claim to be "real americans" or "patriots" you see. they are Prophets awaiting the descent of the Society of Yeomen from where it is Presently Hidden.

meanwhile, in their incoherence and powerlessness, they imagine themselves to be the Only True Upholders of Democracy. that their understanding of history is surreal, their political vision loopy, their plan for the future a retreat into the past--none of that matters. they have guns so they are free. they have mystical insight which allows them Direct Communication with the Founders, who tell them Important Things like nothing ever really changes, all is illusion on the surface and that sooner or later Something Will Happen and that illusion will dissolve. like the air its made of.

they are revolutionaries who are afraid of revolution. they are afraid of the present and are afraid of the future so they run away from both. they have no politics of radical social transformation: they want only to restore the past, which they control since they made it up. there is no plan: none is needed. there are no coherent politics, then. they dont even like democracy particularly--democracy is unstable, it corrodes certainty. yeomen farmers as as they are because they own property--they are wholly adverse to uncertainty--so for them, the political process in any form is superficial and reality is primarily taken up with what you the isolated individual do on your private property. that is why they confuse locke's second treatise on government with a documentary. they think it really existed and that the vision expressed in it is therefore coherent.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dksuddeth

in other words, blah blah blah (militia, gun nuts, freedom fighters, revolutionaries, right wing nuts) blah blah blah.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

roachboy

nice dk: try taking on the arguments maybe. for once.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dksuddeth

what argument? all i've seen is how anything other than socialism (which is what everybody really wants, whether they know it or not) is not conducive to a productive society. That 'agrarian libertarianism' and conservative dictatorship capitalism is really nothing more than keeping everybody down while a select few have all the power. How most people are so distrusting of their fellow man that they would rather live without liberty and have the protection of a government than be free and responsible for themselves.

Again, you can't fix stupid and i'm done trying

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

QuasiMondo

Shakran, you're underestimating the effectiveness of guerella warfare. It's what those who don't have the firepower to match their enemy toe-to-toe will inevitably resort to. They resort to that because it works. Fighting an assymetrical war takes away the firepower advantage your enemy posesses.

__________________
Cameron originally envisioned the Terminator as a small, unremarkable man, giving it the ability to blend in more easily. As a result, his first choice for the part was Lance Henriksen. O. J. Simpson was on the shortlist but Cameron did not think that such a nice guy could be a ruthless killer.

-From the Collector's Edition DVD of The Terminator

The_Dunedan

One man, no. Give me twelve trigger-pullers behind .30 calibre semi-autos, and you've got a trashed convoy. Urban, rural, doesn't matter; twelve people, perhaps just six for a smaller setup, and groundpounders are toast, armor included. The trick is to play to the aggressor's weakness. Here's what it looks like.

Convoy Alpha is driving through, say eastern Kentuckey. The roads are narrow and full of switchbacks in the mountains, and as they come around one of the curves, the come face-to-face with a rockslide that has covered the road several feet deep in stones ranging in size from golfballs all the way up to one big ol' sucker almost as big as a Humvee. Around-about the time the CO figures out how sucky this is about to get, 200 gallons of ANFO buried 100 meters behind the rockslide explodes. This does several things: it destroys any vehicle in the neighborhood, it cuts the convoy in half or isolates it entirely (preferably the latter), while creating a deep, steep crater that even tanks will have a hard time traversing. The poor ol' CO's ears have just started ringing when a .30 bullet smacks him in the left lung from 600 yards out. Several other people unfortunate enough to be sticking out or obvious targets (ossifers, gunners, radiomen, drivers) suffer the same fate at about the same time. Everyone scrambles to button up or get behind cover as a three-man enemy fire-team opens up on the convoy. In less than fifteen seconds, the shooting stops. A moment later a second enemy element, also a three-man team using .30 rifles, opens fire from the opposite direction. The guys who were behind cover or at least concealment from Bandit Alpha are now sitting ducks for Bandit Bravo. Bandit Alpha is, meanwhile, relocating and reloading. Each team, Alpha through Delta, fires one 20-round magazine apiece, then falls back to a secondary position. Ideally, they would be pre-ranged from both positions. In addition to exposed personell, the enemy would also target the viewing periscopes and thermal optics of tanks and APCs, and the engines of trucks and Humvees. If one of the insurgents is fielding a 12.7mm rifle, which is possible, this anti-materiel work could be done from a mile away.

The poor Federales would be having a -very- bad day by this point. Assuming even 25% hits by the insurgents (and I've met many who were -much- better), that's 15 casualties every 15-30 seconds. Meanwhile, the tankers are going blind as their scopes keep getting shot, and the crew-served weapons are doing little good because every time somebody gets up to use one of the damned things, he gets shot. If he gets shot by that 12.7mm gunner, he makes a -big- mess. From 500-600 yards away, it's difficult to determine with any accuracy where the shots came from; lack of visible smoke and muzzle-flare means that the enemy riflemen are almost impossible to spot without magnification. If this is going down at night, everybody has muzze-flares to shoot at, but the insurgents are pre-ranged if they're half smart.

In less than three minutes, the shooting stops. It takes awhile before the survivors stick their heads out, possibly several minutes before communications are re-established. If there are any survivors, that is. The insurgents, of course, have either moved into the kill zone and secured it, or retreated into "the bush." Assume the insurgents have retreated. Three minutes of fighting at about one hit every two seconds comes to a lot of dead, wounded, screaming men who have just been shot to ribbons and know it. Trucks and Humvees are immobilized; engines shot through and/or set on fire. Tanks and APCs are stuck driving "hatches open" because some asshole insurgent with a sub-MOA competition rifle kept shooting out the 'scopes every chance he got. The survivors are pissed. They call for air-support, ASAP, Napalm, the works.

The brass, however, have a problem. Identifying the insurgents is difficult. People are disinclined to discuss the issue, even with significant "help" from their interrogators. And ever mistake, every instance of "collateral damage" breeds more insurgents. It breeds more of that uniquely American species of insurgent that's capable of hitting a man from 600 yards away. If this sounds like Iraq Squared yet, there's a good reason. The US is losing in Iraq, to a bunch of mostly untrained fanatics and nationalists who can't shoot and don't grok small-unit tactics very well. And only 20,000 of them.

Assume, if you like, that 1% of America's 85,000,000+ legal gun-owners decide to resist the Gov't by violence. That gives you roughly 850,000 combatants.

Assume further that the 1% who decide to resist retain posession of 1% of the US's 270,000,000 known legal firearms. This leaves you roughly 2,700,000 firearms; enough for each insurgent to field two rifles and a sidearm each.

Assume finally (because it's true) that a large portion of this 1% is composed of people from military backgrounds who have spent the past decade or more passing on their knowledge and training to their counterparts.

If this isn't turning into a very, very ugly picture yet, check your pulse. 850,000+ insurgents operating on their own ground from within their own communities would be a nightmare for both sides. The casualties would be murderous. But the Gov't would lose, because no Gov't has ever won a guerilla war fought on their enemy's home soil and terms. It took 800 years for the British to finally get the hint, hopefully the US will have a sharp enough learning curve to avoid provoking such a thing.

roachboy

dk: that's funny.
so what you are saying is that one either agrees with you or one is a pinko.
"so dont even try to work out what my politics actually are: if you try, you're a pinko: if you weren't you'd agree with me."
so if i understand this correctly, you are saying the same thing that jesus said: you are either for me or against me and those in the middle i will spit from my mouth i come to bring the sword and not the one you see sticking out of a hunk or red meat in a steakhouse but the Big Sword, the Mighty Sword....
now that's some sophisticated shit.

i prefer the church of the subgenius.
they say everything you do, dk, but unlike you they *know* it is a joke. so step on up and meet Bob, dk:
he'll help you find slack.
if you have slack--which is what we all want---then you will be a bystander when the stark fist of removal comes and takes care of all the pinks.

http://www.subgenius.com/index.htm

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

The_Dunedan

You know, Roachboy, I'm truly beginning to get tired of your relentless ad-hominem attacks upon the militia movement, both as a group and as individuals. You have pretty obviously never actually listened to any; I'd be very surprised if you'd even -met- any. Your screeds sound like something cut-and-pasted from a vitriolic mixture of Morris Dees, Ward Churchill, and Rosie O'Donnel. Kindly refrain from putting thoughts in people's heads and words in people's mouths. If you want to ask questions, groovy. Ask away. I'm setting myself up here, but go ahead. But kindy remember to ask someone what they think instead of -telling- them what they think. If you bothered to do this on occaision, you might find yourself having an easier time dealing with people who, beleive it or not, are your natural allies. All the "militia set" want is to be left to Hell alone. You can establish all the Communist paradises you want and, as long as you don't try to force them to join up or support you, they'll leave you completely to yourselves. Libertarian ideaology does not demand that everone be libertarian; all it demands is that people respect the rights of others to do as they like as long as they are not harming other unconsenting parties. And the militiamen would defend your right to set up a Commune with their lives; indeed, they would be doing just that if their fight ever got started to begin with.

So please, lay off the scientifically-worded smears on these people. It's nothing but a way to discount their perspective by marginalizing them internally and externally, particularly their mental capabilities and rationality. Sound familiar?

dksuddeth

thank you dunedan, for saying that more eloquently than i've been able to.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

shakran

No I'm not. Guerella warfare works only in cases where the "tyrannical" government isn't as tyrannical as you'd like to believe. Guerellas in LA? Nuke the city. Poof, no more resistance.

My entire point is that 1) this right to bear arms crap is NOT supported in the constitution unless you're in a well-regulated militia, and a bunch of jackholes stockpiling shotguns is not well-regulated. 2) If the government REALLY got tyrannical and wanted to abuse their power, those shotguns won't stop them and 3) the government is ALREADY abusing their power, flagrantly, and no one's shooting at it.

The whole argument that this well regulated militia of freedom-loving dksuddeth clones is ready to stop the big bad government is total bullshit because they're not doing what they claim they're ready to do.

What this really boils down to is that they want their guns, dammit, and they'll make up any excuse for being able to have them. Slowly but surely those excuses are disappearing. No one needs to hunt for food anymore, we aren't at war with the Indians anymore, the days of Billy the Kid are long gone, and we certainly don't need a citizen's auxilliary militia to fight off foreign invaders, because if they manage to get through the Armed Forces, a bunch of untrained landowners with rifles don't stand a chance.

The only thing left for them is to claim they're here to defend us against an abusive government. But they (ahem) have just shot themselves in the foot over that one, because they aren't doing anything to stop this abusive government that we're enduring right now.

Even if you discount the fact that a rebellion will NOT work, you cannot discount the fact that the rebellion they claim to be preparing for is not happening despite the fact that the government is, according to them, doing things that require that rebellion.



As for Afghanistan and Iraq, Cynthetiq, when an outside country funds and arms the rebels/insurgents, the equation changes. What country out there is going to fund and arm dksuddeth's rebellion? To do so risks total war with a military that has the capability of wiping out all life on the planet. Dksuddeth's rebellion, if they ever decide to actually stage it, will be entirely on its own.

roachboy

look, dunedan, it is not of a whole lot of consequence whether you like those posts or not--i object fundamentally to the politics behind right libertarian positions, some of which are embodied in militia people and it is my prerogative to go after the politics. if you object to the chararcterization of those politics, take it on--show how it is wrong, in your view.

where's the problem? that conservative liberatarians subscribe to a political worldview that is deeply shaped by a misreading of john locke? try to demonstrate how that is wrong, if you can: i think it obvious and everwhere. conservative liberatarians talk about democracy but they dont like what it brings with it, so they emphasize private property and when they make that last move, we are in lockeworld, pure and simple.

but let's not play silly games like trying to collapse what i write into an ad hominem as if there is no distinction between a general political logic and what individual people might think. i responded specifically to dk's nos.13 and 15 with a bit of escalating sarcasm directed at what he said. but my main post above (no. 12) is not an ad hominem. look at the pronouns for example. pronouns help to distinguish one mode of address from another. it is by looking at pronouns that we distinguish an ad hominem from other types of argument.
you can do it.
i have faith.

besides, i am sure that there are nice militia people--i dont doubt it--the folk i know who are of militia groups are variously nice i guess--but even if i knew no-one who participated in this bizarre-o political formation, i would assume that there are nice people involved, just as i do not doubt that there were nice brownshirts in the germany of the 1920s. i dont doubt that poujade was a nice fellow. i am sure that having a drink or two with jean-marie le pen would be fun. there are nice people everywhere, dont you find?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

flstf

That's a good point. Those who win the revolution are not always the best suited to form a new government. When the failed government becomes so corrupted that overthrow is necessary one can only hope that the result is close to the following:

filtherton

I don't know, i don't subscribe to the idea myself.

flstf

A significant number of people will probably only revolt when things become much worse then they are today. It will probably take some sort of economic collapse along with a corrupt government intent on suspending rights in an effort to stay in power.

seretogis

Right...

If the US government nuked LA because of a separatist movement springing up there, you would see similar movements spring up in every state immediately afterwards -- not to mention the foreign aid those resistance movements would get from many countries you would not expect it to come from.

__________________
seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

host

Will you still be our allies when we come to collect an intensely progressive income tax from those among you with top tier incomes?

....and....."Never say never"....it could get a lot of people needlessly killed:

Willravel

Guns can't stop the government. That's silly and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

IEDs stop the government. It's really that simple. Untraceable, easy to create and implement, and you don't even need to be anywhere near the bomb when it goes off. I dare someone with a shotgun to do as much damage to and instill as much fear into the government as a man that can blow up a building. Even with 100 guns, you can't do that. Explosives are the way to keep a government in check through violence.

Here's the big thing: violence is fucking wrong. It fascinates me how many people think that fighting our own military or police people with guns or anything for that matter is a good thing. It's almost as if it was just an excuse to be John McClane or Rambo, which is childish and disgusting. The only way to control your government is by not allowing them to control you. Grow a pair and start a fucking movement if you feel you're not being represented. Gandhi was able to defeat the occupying Brits through totally nonviolent means. That's how you do it. You don't pull out your glock and walk into the White House.

I used to play with toy guns when I was younger. It was fun to pretend I was a sheriff or policeman or military officer. I know better now what guns can and cannot do. Not only that, but I understand what it's like to be shot by a member of my community.

Edit: Imagine that everyone in the US was few up with the Iraq war and wanted it to end tomorrow. Imagine that a very charismatic anti-war leader spoke up and was able to convince 60% of the population to stop paying taxes as a form of nonviolent civil disobedience until the government developed and passed a set of definite deadlines for pulling out. That's the best way to defend yourself from the government: use the power of the people. We are a big, big population and as much as the government would like us to think otherwise, they are almost completely dependent on us. We hold power over them.

Cynthetiq

No they aren't the only two options. My grandfather's eldest brother was killed in WWII after being found out as being a key to the resistence in the Philippines. He did not fight but provided intelligence and arms to those that would. But that particular war stripped our family of many of it's resources like land, cattle, property, and livelihood. I'm sure that there are similar stories in Iraq and other wartorn countries.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

joshbaumgartner

Well I don't know that I'm a good source for rational, practical thought, but I will say this: I have a plan. Myself and some close friends have a plan to deal with a situation that requires action (not necessarily armed). I myself don't own a gun, and I'd have to say I have limited experience firing one, though I wasn't half bad when I did.

No, our plans don't assume it will be the US government or anyother entity, but whatever it might be, Andorra invading, Aliens landing, the installation of an absolute monarchy... The plan would be to impede any efforts to subjugate the country, and the goal would be restoring a sovereign constitutional US government.

But there is nothing secret about it. I am very above board in standing by the oath I took to defend the country against all comers, foreign and domestic. I don't remember '...until my four years are up.' being part of it.

At the risk of romanticizing too much:

mixedmedia

No one has illuminated for me how guns being easy to obtain and freely carried has any bearing on the need to perhaps, maybe, sometime, one day, fire them upon our own government.

Nor are any of those who support these ideas willing to elucidate on the idea that in overthrowing a tyrannical government, they run the risk of becoming tyrants themselves. You can find this in history books, as well.

But that's beside my point...I do digress.

You own guns because you want them. Because it's gratifying to know you have them, to hold them, to use them. Same as millions of other objects out there. For me, it's books and paper.

I've no interest in prohibiting people from buying and using guns (in a legal manner). I've even no particular problem with some people owning semi-automatic weapons. What I have a problem with is reactionary gun owners who don't believe that their hobby should be regulated in any manner being that guns are so often used in the commission of criminal acts. Reactionaries who insist that their hobby should be a (somehow) untouchable right. As if their guns were an extension of their own body.

I am an American I have rights, too. Reasonable gun control is the only reasonable solution in my estimation.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

pan6467

This is the most important and truest statement I have seen on this Politics forum in awhile.

People complain but they don't change anything except to take rights away (i.e. smoking in public, that's a business owners decision).

Somewhere, we decided to give the government the power to control our lives. We did so in the name of "for the good of the public". But what we have done in the long run is stolen rights from our children and named them "priveleges", taken choices away, played partisan politics, acted as selfish 2nd graders, sued and demanded government do things that we ourselves can do..... we don't have to demand Imus be fired, we don't need an FCC to step in and fine CBS for Janet Jackson's tit... we can just change the channel write letters to the stations, etc. But it is easier for us to sit on our asses and let the government do it for us.... or complain that the government is doing something instead of standing up and demanding government get the fuck out of it and let the people FREELY decide.

All the while we have truly ignored Rome burning.

If people put forth the effort to stop the war, to rebuild our educational system, to make this country great again, to close the economic gaps, to maintain a healthcare system that works, to demand the end of fossil fuel needs and to get things moving forward rather than stay the same and not so much as rebuild what is falling apart.... that they do in complaining over how others live, what rights they want to name as "priveleges" so they can regulate them and take them away because they offended ...... we would live in a much better, freer, happier country.

Aw well I ramble.... good post Will.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Willravel

TY, Pan.

seretogis

This post reads as two posts. The first half, I agree with -- we are giving away our rights by meant of silent obedient consent. The second half, I disagree with -- we need not wrestle our rights back from the government only to give them away again for free healthcare, corn subsidies, and a socialized education system. You have the first part right, but I don't think you realize how the second leads to the failures in the first.

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seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

Willravel

They can work in tandem if we are able to put a leash on them through step one. The idea is to scare them into serving the country's interests again, and then quickly set up good systems before they start treating us like crap again.

pan6467

The second part is quite simple, we learn from our mistakes. We've tried a socialized/subsidized system.... it became corrupt and bureaucratized (is that a word), then we tried and are in the greed/everyone out for themself fuck everyone else system and it has led the way to poor schools, a healthcare system that is broken, huge gaps between classes with the middle class being squeezed into nothingness.

There has to be a middle ground where we can help farmers make a profit without having to charge $4.00 for a gallon of milk, the average household making roughly $35,000, college tuitions becoming outrageous with very little government help, and so on.

What do we pay taxes for, if not to build a social safety net so that others may succeed? However, one needs to be accountable.

I see at detox people coming in that could work but are on disability because they had good lawyers and families with money and I see people who need disability, that are truly fucked up and can't get a penny because they don't have the money for a lawyer.

I see tremendous waste and abuse in the college I go to, but then when the money is needed for the students who are truly there for the rights reasons, it's gone.

I believe we can have a slimmer more efficient government but we need to get rid of the abuse and waste and put in controls so those that need the services and can get them, not just the people who know how to play the game or have money somewhere to get the lawyers to abuse the system.

Those that abuse should be forced to pay back with heavy fines that which they took.

Give more money back to the community from which the taxes came and let THE PEOPLE in those communities decide what needs they want taken care of, where they want to put the money, who they believe needs the funds.... not an out of touch Congress and President bought and paid for by big business and special interests.

Give the power back to the people and let the people decide. I believe that the people can decide and will do so more efficiently and recieve better results.

Step one is getting enough people to want the power back and being informed enough.... which we gravely lack because we don't educate our kids to know they have voices and need to stand up and be heard. Instead we were given greed and nice toys and Anna Nicoles and Paris Hiltons to take our sights off that which we need to see.

Step two is demanding and getting the power back.

Step three is giving honest and open debates, trying to find compromise, tearing down what doesn't work and rebuilding a more responsible, responsive, system that gives back to the whole not to the few.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

roachboy

i like the thoreau idea, will....but i dont see why it requires a "leader" at all, much less a "charismatic" leader. all it would require really was a webpage with a coherent, clear message and a bit of tactical thinking about how to get that website out there into the virtual world. set the page up either as or with a flyer (a pdf) with interesting layout/graphics and encourage folk to print them and put em up. why not? a political action does not require a top-down structure. it does not require a unified voice: the action itself is all that is required. and an action like that one would bring the current system to its knees quite quickly. a decentered action would pose real response trouble for the state as well: who are you going to go after? everyone?

let the idea circulate and acquire a life of its own.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

As host was pointing out in another thread, things like this work better with a figurehead. If you get an email, who do you ask if you have questions? The person who sent it probably only knows what was in the email before him or her. A figure head, who can go on Letterman and explain things in detail and maybe answer emails seems like it might be something people can relate to, and a better way to get information out.

Eventually, without a figurehead, information would crop up on website, but a website can't sit before congress and scream at them in their comfortable seats for not doing their jobs. I'm not sure if this is just a fantasy, where I get to call them all out on their BS, but it seems like it may be more likely to work.

Either way, the information has to get out there, and places like TFP are a great start.

joshbaumgartner

This is actually very true. I don't know if its just a matter of human nature or what, but the majority of us need people to look to as an embodiment of the movement. Obviously there are a lot of dangers in this, but it is the reality. In a perfect world, if we really all believed in something we'd spontaneously act to enact that belief, but this is harly a perfect world.

We need leaders, for better or for worse, as a part of any movement that is going to get anywhere.

Willravel

Right. Don Cheadle has been an amazing figurehead for Darfur lately, for example. He's used his stardom in order to bring attention to stopping genocide. He has earned my permanent respect. I don't think the Darfur peace/intervention movement would have anywhere near the exposure with Don Cheadle.