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> For instance: someday, the enemy may be the US military itself. That's exactly what I mean when I say "if you let it happen then you have already failed to d

> For instance: someday, the enemy may be the US military itself. That's exactly what I mean when I say "if you let it happen then you have already failed to defend your freedom." The US military is not a band of invaders, it's made of your fellow Americans. What were you doing while it turned into your enemy?

tablespoon 5y ago
> What were you doing while it turned into your enemy? You seem to be assuming that someone could have done something and been successful, which I think is assuming too much. But like I said before: the key point is defense in depth. It's stupid to put all your eggs in one basket for something so important. Conventional democratic process and personal firearms are both baskets in the analogy.
clairity 5y ago
> "What were you doing while it turned into your enemy?" netflix and facebook apparently. my whole lifetime has been a slow-motion monopolization of power and money, and we've yet to resist/deter/reroute any of it meaningfully. power has been slowly turning against the populace, and we're not paying any attention to it. rather, we're debating distracting culture topics like abortion, racism, and even covid mandates.
- majormajor 5y ago
  This is the kind of mindset that, in a country with a lot of guns, could lead people to start taking up arms against a government that most of the population doesn't want to overthrow, a population that largely thinks here-and-now topics like abortion or the everyday effects of racism or the public health effects of COVID are more important than ideological claims about how the country is now more "against the populace" than it supposedly was 50, 100, etc, years ago. This is not a good thing. Are you really suggesting you might use a gun to force your fellow citizens to care about the same aspects of government that you do, instead of the ones they're currently focused on? When convincing your fellow voters and elected officials fail, you believe you have a right to resort to violence?
  - clairity 5y ago
    well yes, just as humans have for our whole history. but you’ve framed it as a false dichotomy, that i mean we must revolt at any slight, but that’s a disingenuous framing. it should be a last resort, just as our government should resort last to force, whether internally or externally.

tablespoon 5y ago

> What were you doing while it turned into your enemy? You seem to be assuming that someone could have done something and been successful, which I think is assuming too much. But like I said before: the key point is defense in depth. It's stupid to put all your eggs in one basket for something so important. Conventional democratic process and personal firearms are both baskets in the analogy.

clairity 5y ago

> "What were you doing while it turned into your enemy?" netflix and facebook apparently. my whole lifetime has been a slow-motion monopolization of power and money, and we've yet to resist/deter/reroute any of it meaningfully. power has been slowly turning against the populace, and we're not paying any attention to it. rather, we're debating distracting culture topics like abortion, racism, and even covid mandates.

majormajor 5y ago
This is the kind of mindset that, in a country with a lot of guns, could lead people to start taking up arms against a government that most of the population doesn't want to overthrow, a population that largely thinks here-and-now topics like abortion or the everyday effects of racism or the public health effects of COVID are more important than ideological claims about how the country is now more "against the populace" than it supposedly was 50, 100, etc, years ago. This is not a good thing. Are you really suggesting you might use a gun to force your fellow citizens to care about the same aspects of government that you do, instead of the ones they're currently focused on? When convincing your fellow voters and elected officials fail, you believe you have a right to resort to violence?
- clairity 5y ago
  well yes, just as humans have for our whole history. but you’ve framed it as a false dichotomy, that i mean we must revolt at any slight, but that’s a disingenuous framing. it should be a last resort, just as our government should resort last to force, whether internally or externally.