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>were adamant that your second amendment was there to protect free speech I've gotten into arguments with people (usually non Americans who tend to have an Ame

• matwood 1y ago
  At an individual level you are correct, but that's not what the 2nd amendment was about. An armed populace can stand up to a government. All you have to look at are the wars that the US has lost - Vietnam and Afghanistan come to mind. With that said, it's moot since a large portion of the population wants an authoritarian dictator/king. I'm not sure if the founders addressed the issue of the people possibly wanting a king again.
  • rgblambda 1y ago
    I don't believe either of those examples are appropriate. The U.S military is never going to withdraw from the U.S due to the public growing weary of the war. The opposite would happen. The insurgency would surrender. Also in the case of Vietnam, it's worth noting that the Viet Cong for all intents and purposes lost the insurgency. The war was won by the conventional forces of North Vietnam after the U.S ceased military aid to the south. I also missed the most important point. Neither country had a 2nd amendment and both insurgencies imported arms illegally. And actual military hardware at that, not revolvers and sporting shotguns.
    • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > U.S military is never going to withdraw from the U.S due to the public growing weary of the war But the military may turn on its commanders if forced into a guerilla war against Americans. The point is to draw out and make more difficult the oppression. There is a massive difference between pacifying a city with a couple of Marines and National Guardsmen and calling in air strikes on the homeland.
      • rgblambda 1y ago
        >But the military may turn on its commanders if forced into a guerilla war against Americans. You mean a counter-terrorism operation against "Unpatriotic terrorists"? >The point is to draw out and make more difficult the oppression You can achieve that more effectively with a general strike, without alienating those who aren't willing to fire on their own countries military. Legally purchasable firearms would be more of a nuisance than a threat for a modern army.
        • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
          > a counter-terrorism operation against "Unpatriotic terrorists"? Yes. The traditional framing is riot or rebellion suppression. > can achieve that more effectively with a general strike This is civil action. If protests and strikes work, the point is moot. Where weapons and training have historically made a difference is when the army is sent in to quell a strike.
      • _DeadFred_ 1y ago
        That was a different America. This America would rather alienate Canada and push for them to be the 51st state than keep their friendship. This America is fine with the things in the linked article, torturing people legally in this country, solely because it makes removing illegals from the country a little easier. American's are buying merch for alligator Auschwitz.
        • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
          > That was a different America To be clear, I believe we need stronger gun-control laws in America. And I think the current crop of J6 militias are the most potent terrorist threat this country has faced since Al Qaeda. But the logic of the 2A in making a military coup more difficult is sound. Even if the rest of the argument is not.
  • js8 1y ago
    > With that said, it's moot since a large portion of the population wants an authoritarian dictator/king. I'm not sure if the founders addressed the issue of the people possibly wanting a king again. You're wrong, twice. Most population doesn't want a dictator king. And founders actually put protections against such scenario, in the form of supreme court. The actual scenario you're facing is the majority of supreme court (and congress) wanting (or willing to bend a knee to) a dictator king.
    • magicalhippo 1y ago
      > Most population doesn't want a dictator king. He didn't say "most" he said "a large portion", which is definitely correct since he got almost half of the votes. And he's been very clear about wanting to be a dictator, so it should come as no surprise to his voters.
      • js8 1y ago
        If an idea can win despite it being opposed by majority, then the system is not very democratic. (But US is a plutocracy, so it's not surprising to me.) But if the system is not democratic, how is what a large portion of people think even relevant? Under such circumstances, people are not voters, it's a sham. Blaming them for the outcome is at best unhelpful and patronizing.
    • matwood 1y ago
      I said a large portion and not most. Trump was very clear what his intentions were and people voted for him anyway. SCOTUS has zero ability to execute on their decisions - that's up to POTUS. Congress is also voted on by the populace, and most GOP not towing the MAGA line have been primaried because once again, a large portion of the population wants exactly this.
    • ethbr1 1y ago
      > the majority of supreme court Pointing out that if Ruth Bader Ginsburg had retired under Obama the SC wouldn't now be as extreme. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
  • yread 1y ago
    I don't think you can draw conclusions from wars us lost if you cite such different examples as Afghanistan and Vietnam. By that measure US lost also in Korea and Iraq
    • SauciestGNU 1y ago
      Is that not the case? The North Korean government is still in power and Iraq, while not under Saddam, turned into a power vacuum that eventually gave rise to ISIS and various other regional instability.
  • throw0101b 1y ago
    > An armed populace can stand up to a government. All you have to look at are the wars that the US has lost - Vietnam and Afghanistan come to mind. The US did not 'lose' Vietnam to a bunch of citizens/people: it was fighting a proxy war against China and the Soviet Union. Further, South Vietnam existed for many years and when the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973, and for a further two years. When the South fell in 1975 it was not because the US was beaten, but because it had moved on in its priorities. The Vietnam theatre achieved its larger goal of driving a wedge between the Soviets and Chinese in the Cold War. See this lecture from Sarah Paine of the US Naval War College, "Who Lost the Vietnam War?": * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjXlvIBQmU0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjXlvIBQmU0
    • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > US did not 'lose' Vietnam to a bunch of citizens/people: it was fighting a proxy war against China and the Soviet Union You really can’t imagine an American insurgency finding sympathy among foreign powers?
      • matwood 1y ago
        Or sympathy among the US military itself.
  • mdhb 1y ago
    The balance of power hasn’t made that a logical argument for a long time now. Compare and contrast say the provisional IRA fighting the Brits to a stalemate in Northern Ireland for 30 years from the 70s-90s and then look at a modern equivalent in Palestine. The idea of a “well trained militia” doesn’t work when they can bomb you from the skies.
• shiroiuma 1y ago
  >I always ask "How do you destroy an M1 Abrams or F-35 with a licenced hunting rifle?" The same way the Taliban forced the US military out of Afghanistan, despite not having an air force or any tanks of their own.
  • rgblambda 1y ago
    As I've said in another reply, the U.S public growing weary of the war would not result in a U.S military withdrawal from the United States, but instead would likely result in a surrender of the insurgency. And the Taliban had Soviet era military weaponry, not legally purchasable under the 2nd amendment firearms.
    • spwa4 1y ago
      I would argue that the taliban's scorecard in Afghanistan is pretty good. Taliban insurgency vs USSR (technically vs "People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan", who, one might add, killed more people in peacetime than the Taliban did in wartime). They had the support of the entire population, because, frankly, the Taliban are an improvement over these communists. Communists left to make the terror attacks stop, and because the USSR collapsed. Taliban insurgency vs US/International Coalition. They certainly did not have widespread support, with constant claims that it's much less than 50% (in an election, not that 50% of the population was prepared to fight). Essentially the coalition left and the Afghan government surrendered to make the terror attacks stop. There's 2 lessons here. First, what matters is who's willing to fight (and equipment, to a lesser extent). Afghans are willing to vote against Taliban, but that's just not enough. The Taliban are some 10-20% of the population, and have since betrayed part of their own groups, so it's less now. Part of the problem is that nobody sees a future in Afghanistan under a decent government (or under the Taliban, but that doesn't matter, it's mostly people who can't leave). Two: terror and destroying everything and everyone until you're the only option left ... at least that can work. Communists demonstrated it doesn't work if you keep killing everyone but the Taliban don't do that. Life is terrible under the Taliban, but they don't kill large amounts of people, or at least not quickly. And the UN doesn't mind working with the Taliban, they're even prepared to exclude women from UN departments that work with the Taliban, so I guess that means they're "accepted". I believe it's fundamentally an economic problem. Either there is some way to give Afghanistan a decent economy that depends on it's people, at which point the Taliban will have to make big concessions, or everyone basically "exchanges terror" with Afghanistan (not the Taliban, the entire population, the same problem as in Gaza if you will) to maintain some kind of balance. They kill/attack/kidnap/... people around the world, effectively in schemes to get money. The rest of the world attacks Afghans and Afghanistan to keep their terror below a reasonable level.
• hyperliner 1y ago
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• throw0101b 1y ago
  > I always ask "How do you destroy an M1 Abrams or F-35 with a licenced hunting rifle?". They usually say "Well at least they have that" then quickly move the discussion on to something else. In a historical survey of ~600 movements between 1900 and ~2010, researchers found those that used violence succeeded in their goals ~25% of the time, while those that did not use violence succeeded ~40%: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44096650-civil-resistance https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44096650-civil-resistanc... You almost double your chances by eschewing violence. Further, they found those movement that used violence tended to then enact authoritarian structures (perhaps thinking that someone will come along later and do what they did in the same way).