5 ms·

It’s almost like the state has a monopoly on force.

by storf45 3y ago

seanw444 3y ago
It's almost like the founders knew this was going to happen, and gave us an advantage.
- bitcharmer 3y ago
  What kind of advantage? Unrestricted access to firearms? Hows that playing out for you in the USA?
  - seanw444 3y ago
    Not well. We haven't had unrestricted firearms access since the beginning of the last century!
- mplewis 3y ago
  Great, you can carry a gun. How does this help you deal with cops?
- kristopolous 3y ago
  Individual consumption won't help you solve structural problems Institutional restructuring is the solution, not private stockpiles of ordnance Erica Chenoweth did a fascinating quantitative study of this a number of years ago. Kinetic strategies faired markedly poorer than collaborative reform efforts. https://cup.columbia.edu/book/why-civil-resistance-works/9780231156820 https://cup.columbia.edu/book/why-civil-resistance-works/978... I remember reading something from a UCLA military science guy who approached it another way and independently came to the same conclusion. I forget the name. He also did propaganda and disinformation studies. Can't seem to find him. Maybe it's like UCL and I'm misremembering something foundational.
  - seanw444 3y ago
    I find it interesting that everyone immediately assumed I was talking only about guns. The advantage includes the right to peaceably assemble and speak freely, and petition the government for a redress of grievances. But to think that will always work out without a too-significant crackdown by the government hampering the process, is totally utterly ridiculous. It continues to fascinate me that people have already forgotten, or never heard, the stories of the foundations of the country. We asked the existing government multiple times to allow us to handle ourselves, and give us more autonomy. They outright said no. And what was one of their first actions in response? Go take the plebs' guns. Now, if controlling the arms, ordnance, and munitions isn't important, why is that? And no, our government being a republic rather than a monarchy does not make this time any different than the last. It should be evident by now that all it does is slow down the inevitable, and prevent us from pointing the finger at any one specific person. Which is to say, it'll be even harder this time. And that is not an excuse to give us less advantages. It is a reason we need more, or our future generations are more doomed than we already have allowed ourselves to be.
    - kristopolous 3y ago
      > It continues to fascinate me that people have already forgotten, or never heard, the stories of the foundations of the country. You can't transpose the context of colonial america to contemporary life. Even nearly 200 year old inventions like the gatling gun, professional policing, penny press, telegraph and car dilute the predictive power of conflict analysis of the 1700s to apply it to the 21st century. Yet alone say, apache helicopters and SAMs. > And what was one of their first actions in response? Go take the plebs' guns. The volumes that chronicle these histories are deeply ahistorical. Every one I've seen is actually about arming favored groups and disarming unfavored ones. It's not about taking away guns, it's about making them plentiful for a group driven by fear and anger and making them scarce for the designated scapegoat. Unless you think AR-15s and ammunition for homeless, pedophiles, illegal immigrants, and woke mobs is part of your strategy, you are in effect, doing exactly what you are accusing these other societies of doing because you are inherently carving out a group that should and a group that should not have access to guns - which is precisely what all those historical groups did.
- catlover76 3y ago
  That wasn't quite what the 2nd Amendment was originally about; nobody back then could foresee modern policing; if the police or the United States government have it out for you, good luck fighting them off with an M16 or AK-47 or even like an RPG. The most likely case is that they just kill you; the best case is, what, that you become a white Ahmed Shah Massoud, maintaining an insurgency in the Appalachias or something?
  - kristopolous 3y ago
    There was a lot of concern about slave uprisings and indigenous insurgencies and there were precedents in the laws of individual colonies, such as Virginia's, where white men were required to own guns for these purposes. Since armed Choctaw rebellions and plantation slave uprisings are of course still a very legitimate concern buying assault rifles at the gun store should be a sacrosanct holy right. We certainly don't want another Haitian revolution on our hands.
  - seanw444 3y ago
    Insurgencies have a recent track record of being quite effective. So, yes. Also, I never said you'd survive such a scenario. Not everyone survived the first revolution. Did that make it a bad idea? Also x2, why do people I speak to about this always get the impression that everyone in the military will unanimously agree that drone striking and nuking its land, resources, and people is a beneficial strategy? Not to mention the immorality of it. There will be splintering. It will be civil war. There's a great chance there will be two US armies, two presidents, etc. when the time comes.
    - catlover76 3y ago
      > Also x2, why do people I speak to about this always get the impression that everyone in the military will unanimously agree that drone striking and nuking its land, resources, and people is a beneficial strategy? Not to mention the immorality of it. There will be splintering. It will be civil war. There's a great chance there will be two US armies, two presidents, etc. when the time comes. Because we are thinking about randoms with guns and other weaponry, not organized rebellion/treason a la the Confederacy. edit: wouldn't, in the case of such a massive organized rebellion, engaging in even more brutal and aggressive tactics actually make more sense? The stakes are much higher in that scenario, and wouldn't the United States want to decimate the enemy's supply, etc., as it partly did during the original Civil War?

It’s almost like the state has a monopoly on force.

seanw444 3y ago

It's almost like the founders knew this was going to happen, and gave us an advantage.

bitcharmer 3y ago
What kind of advantage? Unrestricted access to firearms? Hows that playing out for you in the USA?
- seanw444 3y ago
  Not well. We haven't had unrestricted firearms access since the beginning of the last century!
mplewis 3y ago
Great, you can carry a gun. How does this help you deal with cops?
kristopolous 3y ago
Individual consumption won't help you solve structural problems Institutional restructuring is the solution, not private stockpiles of ordnance Erica Chenoweth did a fascinating quantitative study of this a number of years ago. Kinetic strategies faired markedly poorer than collaborative reform efforts. https://cup.columbia.edu/book/why-civil-resistance-works/9780231156820 https://cup.columbia.edu/book/why-civil-resistance-works/978... I remember reading something from a UCLA military science guy who approached it another way and independently came to the same conclusion. I forget the name. He also did propaganda and disinformation studies. Can't seem to find him. Maybe it's like UCL and I'm misremembering something foundational.
- seanw444 3y ago
  I find it interesting that everyone immediately assumed I was talking only about guns. The advantage includes the right to peaceably assemble and speak freely, and petition the government for a redress of grievances. But to think that will always work out without a too-significant crackdown by the government hampering the process, is totally utterly ridiculous. It continues to fascinate me that people have already forgotten, or never heard, the stories of the foundations of the country. We asked the existing government multiple times to allow us to handle ourselves, and give us more autonomy. They outright said no. And what was one of their first actions in response? Go take the plebs' guns. Now, if controlling the arms, ordnance, and munitions isn't important, why is that? And no, our government being a republic rather than a monarchy does not make this time any different than the last. It should be evident by now that all it does is slow down the inevitable, and prevent us from pointing the finger at any one specific person. Which is to say, it'll be even harder this time. And that is not an excuse to give us less advantages. It is a reason we need more, or our future generations are more doomed than we already have allowed ourselves to be.
  - kristopolous 3y ago
    > It continues to fascinate me that people have already forgotten, or never heard, the stories of the foundations of the country. You can't transpose the context of colonial america to contemporary life. Even nearly 200 year old inventions like the gatling gun, professional policing, penny press, telegraph and car dilute the predictive power of conflict analysis of the 1700s to apply it to the 21st century. Yet alone say, apache helicopters and SAMs. > And what was one of their first actions in response? Go take the plebs' guns. The volumes that chronicle these histories are deeply ahistorical. Every one I've seen is actually about arming favored groups and disarming unfavored ones. It's not about taking away guns, it's about making them plentiful for a group driven by fear and anger and making them scarce for the designated scapegoat. Unless you think AR-15s and ammunition for homeless, pedophiles, illegal immigrants, and woke mobs is part of your strategy, you are in effect, doing exactly what you are accusing these other societies of doing because you are inherently carving out a group that should and a group that should not have access to guns - which is precisely what all those historical groups did.
catlover76 3y ago
That wasn't quite what the 2nd Amendment was originally about; nobody back then could foresee modern policing; if the police or the United States government have it out for you, good luck fighting them off with an M16 or AK-47 or even like an RPG. The most likely case is that they just kill you; the best case is, what, that you become a white Ahmed Shah Massoud, maintaining an insurgency in the Appalachias or something?
- kristopolous 3y ago
  There was a lot of concern about slave uprisings and indigenous insurgencies and there were precedents in the laws of individual colonies, such as Virginia's, where white men were required to own guns for these purposes. Since armed Choctaw rebellions and plantation slave uprisings are of course still a very legitimate concern buying assault rifles at the gun store should be a sacrosanct holy right. We certainly don't want another Haitian revolution on our hands.
- seanw444 3y ago
  Insurgencies have a recent track record of being quite effective. So, yes. Also, I never said you'd survive such a scenario. Not everyone survived the first revolution. Did that make it a bad idea? Also x2, why do people I speak to about this always get the impression that everyone in the military will unanimously agree that drone striking and nuking its land, resources, and people is a beneficial strategy? Not to mention the immorality of it. There will be splintering. It will be civil war. There's a great chance there will be two US armies, two presidents, etc. when the time comes.
  - catlover76 3y ago
    > Also x2, why do people I speak to about this always get the impression that everyone in the military will unanimously agree that drone striking and nuking its land, resources, and people is a beneficial strategy? Not to mention the immorality of it. There will be splintering. It will be civil war. There's a great chance there will be two US armies, two presidents, etc. when the time comes. Because we are thinking about randoms with guns and other weaponry, not organized rebellion/treason a la the Confederacy. edit: wouldn't, in the case of such a massive organized rebellion, engaging in even more brutal and aggressive tactics actually make more sense? The stakes are much higher in that scenario, and wouldn't the United States want to decimate the enemy's supply, etc., as it partly did during the original Civil War?