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In the past a dictator always had to depend on large numbers of other people to enforce his power. That means that if enough people are fed up with him, he will
by jules 14y ago
In the past a dictator always had to depend on large numbers of other people to enforce his power. That means that if enough people are fed up with him, he will lose his power. It is really scary to imagine a future where a handful of people or even a single person can physically control the entire population. This is of course not a binary change, but a gradual one. Before guns, a dictator had to keep perhaps 30% of the population happy. With guns a much smaller number of people could control a much larger number. Autonomous weapon systems like drones are just the logical conclusion.
- mseebach 14y agoWhich neatly sums up the argument for the second amendment.
- scarmig 14y agoSecond amendment remedies will be rather... lacking when it comes to 24/7 surveillance by armed drones flying above the sky. It's scary but increasingly inevitable that panopticon surveillance of all open physical spaces will happen. Having a rifle isn't going to do much to escape or counteract that.
- hindsightbias 14y agoMaybe you're trying to be ironical, but the 2nd Amendment reads "being necessary to the security of a free State" As in, "free to form militias to beat down slave rebellions" So unless you've got a problem with your slaves, not sure it's so neat.
- n3rdy 14y agoWas about to post what a perversion that interpretation is of the 2nd amendment, but holy cow can't actually argue with that. What a shame they wrote "free state", but then again, they were forming a new government, so what should we have expected? And if actions speak louder than words, most of the founders who served as presidents didn't exactly "walk the walk" constitutionally when they held that position.
- zzzeek 14y agowhat does, this? > It is really scary to imagine a future where a handful of people or even a single person can physically control the entire population. What weaponry do you think would be necessary for a civilian population to successfully repel a US Marine battalion? Is it even reasonable to expect that a civilian population would possess anywhere near the appropriate level of training for such a situation?
- ynniv 14y agoAll the guns you can hold aren't going to help when the only potable water is rationed. Historically, poisoning the public water supply was suicide. Now that we can efficiently distribute bottled water for weeks, it's a feasible strategy to break a resistance.