4 ms·

> Does anyone really want to fight that? The answer is probably No. You won't be fighting the US military. Many of them will join with you. They are people,

by pdx 10y ago

> Does anyone really want to fight that? The answer is probably No. You won't be fighting the US military. Many of them will join with you. They are people, not killing machines. They are your neighbors and the sons and daughters of your neighbors. They will not fire on their countrymen because a politician told them to. The men and women in our military swore to uphold the constitution. They did not swear to be the thugs for a group of elites who got elected only through virtue of millions upon millions of dollars of campaign contributions from organizations that do not have the best interest of this nation as their goal.

afarrell 10y ago
Okay, so you're fighting half of the US Military. A civil war in the US isn't going to be against some mustache-twirling cartoon villain that everyone recognizes is the greater evil. It will be a complex conflict where the participants don't even agree on the facts behind things. Add to that the various identity groups who all vary widely in how much they trust the government... Rather than Tiananmen square, we would get Syria.
Swizec 10y ago
Hahahahahahahahaha. Sorry but your naivete is amusing. Sure, I may have been 5 years old when I went through a [very short] civil war, but I still remember the news. Many soldiers didn't even know why they were being asked to shoot this or that. While in the barracks they were kept under strict radio silence from outside and most had no idea a civil war had started. They were just told to go there and shoot over there. They didn't know if they were shooting at their neighbors from back home, at somebody they hate, or what.[1] Eventually news spread and the war got very very bloody as people who used to be comrades became personally involved in drinking the kool-aid. Luckily the bloody parts were removed from where I lived, but a lot of my classmates in elementary school were refugees. Civil war ain't nothing to sneeze at. It is the worst type of war. [1] There's a video from a private telling all of this to a news crew. Seeing it on TV is one of my earliest memories. It's in serbocroatian and I don't know if there's a version with English subtitles. -> https://www.facebook.com/zetraprojekt/videos/865414093588116/ https://www.facebook.com/zetraprojekt/videos/865414093588116... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia
- curried_haskell 10y ago
  I think what he's getting at is a valid point. It won't just be rebels against the military. If the rebellion or revolution picks up enough steam, significant elements of the military will likely defect to the other side and in a very real way the war would be the US military vs itself. Ex-US soldiers, officers, generals, with clandestine support from foreign powers like China and Russia, would be taking on the remaining part of the US military. Or the US splits and the revolution is turned into a North vs South, East vs West, type of civil war.
  - Swizec 10y ago
    I agree, eventually the military breaks up and starts fighting itself. But you're still essentially fighting the US military. The biggest baddest military in the world. Surely the US military agrees that fighting the US military is a Bad Idea (tm). Point is, civil war is messy. There's no clear right or wrong, good guy or bad guy, it's by definition neighbor killing neighbor, friend against friend, sibling versus sibling. Everyone thinks they are protecting the One True Way Forward to make the country great again.
    - pm90 10y ago
      The US military is a highly sophisticated war machine but ultimately it requires resources to support its operations. No military can ignore the cold hard facts of logistics, something that many armies have done to their own demise. If there is no continental US to provide the food, materiel or the money to pay for it, I doubt the machine could last very long.
      - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
        If the entire continental US rebels, who exactly are they fighting against? If there is a civil war, you kind of have to assume that each side is going to have access to some of the US's resources.
superuser2 10y ago
Can you find any cause of action against the government that you feel is worth dying for, which is not actually a complaint about a majority-ish segment of the population? I don't believe you'll find any rallying cry for "the citizens" vs "the government," just opposition among citizens that gets expressed in government.

by pdx 10y ago

afarrell 10y ago

Okay, so you're fighting half of the US Military. A civil war in the US isn't going to be against some mustache-twirling cartoon villain that everyone recognizes is the greater evil. It will be a complex conflict where the participants don't even agree on the facts behind things. Add to that the various identity groups who all vary widely in how much they trust the government... Rather than Tiananmen square, we would get Syria.

Swizec 10y ago

Hahahahahahahahaha. Sorry but your naivete is amusing. Sure, I may have been 5 years old when I went through a [very short] civil war, but I still remember the news. Many soldiers didn't even know why they were being asked to shoot this or that. While in the barracks they were kept under strict radio silence from outside and most had no idea a civil war had started. They were just told to go there and shoot over there. They didn't know if they were shooting at their neighbors from back home, at somebody they hate, or what.[1] Eventually news spread and the war got very very bloody as people who used to be comrades became personally involved in drinking the kool-aid. Luckily the bloody parts were removed from where I lived, but a lot of my classmates in elementary school were refugees. Civil war ain't nothing to sneeze at. It is the worst type of war. [1] There's a video from a private telling all of this to a news crew. Seeing it on TV is one of my earliest memories. It's in serbocroatian and I don't know if there's a version with English subtitles. -> https://www.facebook.com/zetraprojekt/videos/865414093588116/ https://www.facebook.com/zetraprojekt/videos/865414093588116... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia

curried_haskell 10y ago
I think what he's getting at is a valid point. It won't just be rebels against the military. If the rebellion or revolution picks up enough steam, significant elements of the military will likely defect to the other side and in a very real way the war would be the US military vs itself. Ex-US soldiers, officers, generals, with clandestine support from foreign powers like China and Russia, would be taking on the remaining part of the US military. Or the US splits and the revolution is turned into a North vs South, East vs West, type of civil war.
- Swizec 10y ago
  I agree, eventually the military breaks up and starts fighting itself. But you're still essentially fighting the US military. The biggest baddest military in the world. Surely the US military agrees that fighting the US military is a Bad Idea (tm). Point is, civil war is messy. There's no clear right or wrong, good guy or bad guy, it's by definition neighbor killing neighbor, friend against friend, sibling versus sibling. Everyone thinks they are protecting the One True Way Forward to make the country great again.
  - pm90 10y ago
    The US military is a highly sophisticated war machine but ultimately it requires resources to support its operations. No military can ignore the cold hard facts of logistics, something that many armies have done to their own demise. If there is no continental US to provide the food, materiel or the money to pay for it, I doubt the machine could last very long.
    - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
      If the entire continental US rebels, who exactly are they fighting against? If there is a civil war, you kind of have to assume that each side is going to have access to some of the US's resources.

superuser2 10y ago

Can you find any cause of action against the government that you feel is worth dying for, which is not actually a complaint about a majority-ish segment of the population? I don't believe you'll find any rallying cry for "the citizens" vs "the government," just opposition among citizens that gets expressed in government.