36 ms·

The thing that worries me most about "Men Without Work" is that's one way civil unrest can break out and war start. If that sounds bizarre then you should come

The thing that worries me most about "Men Without Work" is that's one way civil unrest can break out and war start. If that sounds bizarre then you should come visit me in Texas. I'll show you a land where almost every man has 2+ firearms. Where they overwhelmingly voted Trump, and distrust the government. I'll show you a land where men are more aggressive in general and my county in particular where at one point there were more shooting deaths per violent arrest than anywhere else in the country. I don't want to live here when men reach unemployment rates beyond 25% (as the article and book suggest).

exclusiv 10y ago
Are you serious? You're giving them too much credit. They'd be squashed in two seconds if they ever organized. North Korea is a threat. Not some hillbillies in your neck of the woods with a few deer hunting rifles that don't have jobs. A larger threat locally that's been around forever and needs no speculation is inner city youths with no jobs, no education and guns. They started calling Chicago "Chiraq".
- stale2002 10y ago
  Well, those Texas/southern hillbillies are the ones running the US military. Military workforce by state: http://www.governing.com/gov-data/military-civilian-active-duty-employee-workforce-numbers-by-state.html http://www.governing.com/gov-data/military-civilian-active-d...
  - ryanmarsh 10y ago
    Yah, imagine everyone at Fort Hood being ordered to invade Dallas and half the tanks driving off in the night to go protect the neighborhood they grew up in.
    - devonkim 10y ago
      Which is why if such orders were being issued it'd be more like blue state stationed divisions sent to quell uprisings in red state areas and vice versa. This is a huge part of why I think a growing political divide is such a problem - we can be easily persuaded to attack each other when the problem isn't each other but the ones issuing the orders.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        Texas is split inside itself: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/texas http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/texas (The map is even still a lie; there are large counties that voted Republican, but the majority of the red by area is tiny little county populations.) I also don't think that people are particularly stationed by their home state.
      - ydt 10y ago
        Or Blackwater (Xe) mercenaries.
        ryanmarsh 10y ago
        There just aren't enough.
      - coredog64 10y ago
        A division stationed in a blue state isn't going to be made up of locals. It's going to have the same mix as the US military in general (read: Mostly southern states). The National Guard will be more representative of their home base, but that is going to be smaller forces that complement active duty, not replace it.
        devonkim 10y ago
        I was meaning more of metaphorical constructs of blue and red rather than just the political jargon and probably should have used quotes. I'm an army brat and former DoD IC contractor and know very well how distributed personnel get.
      - 10y ago
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ryanmarsh 10y ago
  A lot of blood could be shed before anything was "squashed". Have you ever been in a civil war? I have. There are more guns in Houston, TX than there ever was in Baghdad. Local police/fire are cut from the same cloth as the locals, they'd be sympathetic to their neighbors. How do I know? They say so. Also, there is nothing more terrifying or effective in a civil war than a sniper. Source: been there done that. The U.S. has the largest standing army in the world on opening day of deer season, all with high powered rifles and scopes. Any uprising could be squashed eventually, but it would take a lot of ordnance, blood, and time.
  - exclusiv 10y ago
    Which civil war were you in? Where and when did this take place?
    - bigtunacan 10y ago
      I'm assuming op is a military veteran that was sent overseas to protect US interests in a civil war; one such example would be Somalia in the 90s.
      - ryanmarsh 10y ago
        Baghdad '04 and '05.
        exclusiv 10y ago
        Ok so how does Iraq apply to your suggestion that a civil unrest and civil war in our country could easily break out when Texans with guns hit high unemployment? You also cited Houston which is the 4th largest city that has a crime problem not due to deer hunters, but of inner city folks and saw a crime rate explosion from an influx of people post-Katrina that had lost everything and had little job prospects. You didn't see country people from the gulf area bringing deer rifles into the city shooting people up and starting civil war. EDIT: to JakeTheAndroid - the parent mentioned as part of their fear - "The U.S. has the largest standing army in the world on opening day of deer season, all with high powered rifles and scopes." There's no evidence to suggest that those deer hunters would organize in the event of high employment to incite civil unrest which would result in civil war. We saw a rise in crime but did not see civil war when people lost everything with Katrina. And the rural people feared the most didn't do what was suggested. The crime I'm talking about in the cities, esp. Houston, has existed for a long time. Rising unemployment does lead to more crime in the inner city, primarily by inner city people. I don't see deer hunters organizing and posing a threat. In fact, I'd guess they'd hunker down and protect their property and community and probably assist in any local response to the civil unrest if necessary, not the other way around, posing a threat to other citizens and the government itself as the OP speculates.
- kzrdude 10y ago
  North Korea isn't really a threat. Not such a one that the rusty superpower should obsess over it and follow it on evening news.
  - exclusiv 10y ago
    Any country with nukes and a disdain and distrust for both its own people and any country not like them is definitely a threat. Look back at history - the biggest threats were the ones that did terrible things to their own people. We're talking about a country with 100k+ CCTVs monitoring their own people, loaded with anti-US and anti-South Korean propaganda, forbids internet usage, starves its people, has a top 5 military while being the size of Pennsylvania, and enslaves 200k+ of their own people falsely. What evidence do you have that they are not a threat?
    - kzrdude 10y ago
      The context is the USA. They are not a threat to them. North Korea is a despicable concentration camp of a country, but not a threat to the U.S.
      - exclusiv 10y ago
        You responded with no argument or evidence. Glad you at least acknowledged they don't care about their own citizens and have a terrible human rights record.
        therealx 10y ago
        In what scenario is North Korea a threat to the US? Their ICBMs can't reach the US, and their military is similarly unequipped to be mobile.
        exclusiv 10y ago
        Depends who you ask. They either already have the capability now or will in the near future. Hawaii is much closer anyway. Remember what happened when Hawaii was last attacked? We've already deployed radar out of Hawaii earlier this year so we believe it's a threat [1]. "North Korea is now in possession of a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the US mainland, according to a senior US military official." [2] "Despite Pyongyang's apparent progress on a warhead, it doesn't have good enough missile and rocket technology to deliver a nuke -- at least not yet, says Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corporation think tank." [3] [1] http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/11/politics/north-korea-icbm-us-radar-detection/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/11/politics/north-korea-icbm-us-r... [2] https://sputniknews.com/asia/201612111048412314-north-korea-icbm-us-mainland/ https://sputniknews.com/asia/201612111048412314-north-korea-... [3] http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/01/asia/north-korea-kim-jong-un-speech/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/01/asia/north-korea-kim-jong-un-s...
cbanek 10y ago
While I feel unrest could start there, I doubt it would persist. The army and national guard are just too well equipped and organized to deal with the problem. I'd put my money on 1,000 national guard troops vs 10,000 random Texans with guns. This doesn't even get into larger military hardware, such as planes and drones with missiles. Sure, people will die, and it would be a tragedy. It may move the political needle, but I doubt it would be some kind of meaningful uprising. As a larger point, I think this diminishes the chances of a "french revolution" style revolution in general, where the huge masses of poor people revolt against the rich. The poor are not well equipped or organized in general, and military technology is increasingly becoming more powerful and longer range. Just think if the richest people were protected by working ED-209's that responded to their command. Even if we had the other 99% fighting them, could they really win?
- makomk 10y ago
  Guess which communities the national guard and the army recruited those troops from. If it ever comes to that, you're expecting soldiers to shoot and kill people just like them, people whose friends and family they may well have served with, people who - if things had gone a little differently - could have been them or their friends and family. This would likely not end well.
  - bookmarkacc 10y ago
    Hey would do it. Soldiers are not trained to think about how they are similiar to their enemies.
    - 67726e 10y ago
      They're also not trained to fight their neighbors.
  - cbanek 10y ago
    It's true, it wouldn't start well or end well. But using military equipment at a long range, like a drone, does add a dehumanizing component. And killing people that are just like you is really the nastiest part of any civil war (since both sides are very culturally similar), but it doesn't seem to stop the killing.
myegorov 10y ago
The military and prisons to the rescue. Think Detroit.

exclusiv 10y ago

Are you serious? You're giving them too much credit. They'd be squashed in two seconds if they ever organized. North Korea is a threat. Not some hillbillies in your neck of the woods with a few deer hunting rifles that don't have jobs. A larger threat locally that's been around forever and needs no speculation is inner city youths with no jobs, no education and guns. They started calling Chicago "Chiraq".

stale2002 10y ago
Well, those Texas/southern hillbillies are the ones running the US military. Military workforce by state: http://www.governing.com/gov-data/military-civilian-active-duty-employee-workforce-numbers-by-state.html http://www.governing.com/gov-data/military-civilian-active-d...
- ryanmarsh 10y ago
  Yah, imagine everyone at Fort Hood being ordered to invade Dallas and half the tanks driving off in the night to go protect the neighborhood they grew up in.
  - devonkim 10y ago
    Which is why if such orders were being issued it'd be more like blue state stationed divisions sent to quell uprisings in red state areas and vice versa. This is a huge part of why I think a growing political divide is such a problem - we can be easily persuaded to attack each other when the problem isn't each other but the ones issuing the orders.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Texas is split inside itself: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/texas http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/texas (The map is even still a lie; there are large counties that voted Republican, but the majority of the red by area is tiny little county populations.) I also don't think that people are particularly stationed by their home state.
    - ydt 10y ago
      Or Blackwater (Xe) mercenaries.
      - ryanmarsh 10y ago
        There just aren't enough.
    - coredog64 10y ago
      A division stationed in a blue state isn't going to be made up of locals. It's going to have the same mix as the US military in general (read: Mostly southern states). The National Guard will be more representative of their home base, but that is going to be smaller forces that complement active duty, not replace it.
      - devonkim 10y ago
        I was meaning more of metaphorical constructs of blue and red rather than just the political jargon and probably should have used quotes. I'm an army brat and former DoD IC contractor and know very well how distributed personnel get.
    - 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ryanmarsh 10y ago
A lot of blood could be shed before anything was "squashed". Have you ever been in a civil war? I have. There are more guns in Houston, TX than there ever was in Baghdad. Local police/fire are cut from the same cloth as the locals, they'd be sympathetic to their neighbors. How do I know? They say so. Also, there is nothing more terrifying or effective in a civil war than a sniper. Source: been there done that. The U.S. has the largest standing army in the world on opening day of deer season, all with high powered rifles and scopes. Any uprising could be squashed eventually, but it would take a lot of ordnance, blood, and time.
- exclusiv 10y ago
  Which civil war were you in? Where and when did this take place?
  - bigtunacan 10y ago
    I'm assuming op is a military veteran that was sent overseas to protect US interests in a civil war; one such example would be Somalia in the 90s.
    - ryanmarsh 10y ago
      Baghdad '04 and '05.
      - exclusiv 10y ago
        Ok so how does Iraq apply to your suggestion that a civil unrest and civil war in our country could easily break out when Texans with guns hit high unemployment? You also cited Houston which is the 4th largest city that has a crime problem not due to deer hunters, but of inner city folks and saw a crime rate explosion from an influx of people post-Katrina that had lost everything and had little job prospects. You didn't see country people from the gulf area bringing deer rifles into the city shooting people up and starting civil war. EDIT: to JakeTheAndroid - the parent mentioned as part of their fear - "The U.S. has the largest standing army in the world on opening day of deer season, all with high powered rifles and scopes." There's no evidence to suggest that those deer hunters would organize in the event of high employment to incite civil unrest which would result in civil war. We saw a rise in crime but did not see civil war when people lost everything with Katrina. And the rural people feared the most didn't do what was suggested. The crime I'm talking about in the cities, esp. Houston, has existed for a long time. Rising unemployment does lead to more crime in the inner city, primarily by inner city people. I don't see deer hunters organizing and posing a threat. In fact, I'd guess they'd hunker down and protect their property and community and probably assist in any local response to the civil unrest if necessary, not the other way around, posing a threat to other citizens and the government itself as the OP speculates.
kzrdude 10y ago
North Korea isn't really a threat. Not such a one that the rusty superpower should obsess over it and follow it on evening news.
- exclusiv 10y ago
  Any country with nukes and a disdain and distrust for both its own people and any country not like them is definitely a threat. Look back at history - the biggest threats were the ones that did terrible things to their own people. We're talking about a country with 100k+ CCTVs monitoring their own people, loaded with anti-US and anti-South Korean propaganda, forbids internet usage, starves its people, has a top 5 military while being the size of Pennsylvania, and enslaves 200k+ of their own people falsely. What evidence do you have that they are not a threat?
  - kzrdude 10y ago
    The context is the USA. They are not a threat to them. North Korea is a despicable concentration camp of a country, but not a threat to the U.S.
    - exclusiv 10y ago
      You responded with no argument or evidence. Glad you at least acknowledged they don't care about their own citizens and have a terrible human rights record.
      - therealx 10y ago
        In what scenario is North Korea a threat to the US? Their ICBMs can't reach the US, and their military is similarly unequipped to be mobile.
        exclusiv 10y ago
        Depends who you ask. They either already have the capability now or will in the near future. Hawaii is much closer anyway. Remember what happened when Hawaii was last attacked? We've already deployed radar out of Hawaii earlier this year so we believe it's a threat [1]. "North Korea is now in possession of a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the US mainland, according to a senior US military official." [2] "Despite Pyongyang's apparent progress on a warhead, it doesn't have good enough missile and rocket technology to deliver a nuke -- at least not yet, says Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corporation think tank." [3] [1] http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/11/politics/north-korea-icbm-us-radar-detection/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/11/politics/north-korea-icbm-us-r... [2] https://sputniknews.com/asia/201612111048412314-north-korea-icbm-us-mainland/ https://sputniknews.com/asia/201612111048412314-north-korea-... [3] http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/01/asia/north-korea-kim-jong-un-speech/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/01/asia/north-korea-kim-jong-un-s...

cbanek 10y ago

While I feel unrest could start there, I doubt it would persist. The army and national guard are just too well equipped and organized to deal with the problem. I'd put my money on 1,000 national guard troops vs 10,000 random Texans with guns. This doesn't even get into larger military hardware, such as planes and drones with missiles. Sure, people will die, and it would be a tragedy. It may move the political needle, but I doubt it would be some kind of meaningful uprising. As a larger point, I think this diminishes the chances of a "french revolution" style revolution in general, where the huge masses of poor people revolt against the rich. The poor are not well equipped or organized in general, and military technology is increasingly becoming more powerful and longer range. Just think if the richest people were protected by working ED-209's that responded to their command. Even if we had the other 99% fighting them, could they really win?

makomk 10y ago
Guess which communities the national guard and the army recruited those troops from. If it ever comes to that, you're expecting soldiers to shoot and kill people just like them, people whose friends and family they may well have served with, people who - if things had gone a little differently - could have been them or their friends and family. This would likely not end well.
- bookmarkacc 10y ago
  Hey would do it. Soldiers are not trained to think about how they are similiar to their enemies.
  - 67726e 10y ago
    They're also not trained to fight their neighbors.
- cbanek 10y ago
  It's true, it wouldn't start well or end well. But using military equipment at a long range, like a drone, does add a dehumanizing component. And killing people that are just like you is really the nastiest part of any civil war (since both sides are very culturally similar), but it doesn't seem to stop the killing.

myegorov 10y ago

The military and prisons to the rescue. Think Detroit.