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Correct me if I'm wrong: a revolution could not actually happen, right? The militarization of law enforcement and advanced weaponry of our government would pre

Correct me if I'm wrong: a revolution could not actually happen, right? The militarization of law enforcement and advanced weaponry of our government would prevent the people from rising up. I find this discouraging, because I do see this as a last resort if inequality continues at this rate.

hga 11y ago
One could certainly happen in the US, for the people are very well armed and are continuing to arm themselves at a rate I find alarming, even if, or because, I'm one of them. The militarization of law enforcement doesn't mean much, e.g. look at how they completely loose there shit in the face of one disturbed, not very clever or effective assassin like Christopher Dorner [ADDED: there's a lot of cargo culting here; giving 10 police officer M16s/M4s, SAWs and grenades does not magically turn them into an US Army infantry squad]. At the other extreme, we the people can completely swamp them in a matter of hours, but of course motivating us to do that would be quite a trick. "Advanced weaponry" is of no use without the will to use it. As an extreme example, a few nukes could terminate ISIS with extreme prejudice and collateral damage, but I don't know of any serious "hawk" even suggesting [WAS: advocating] their use. I have grave doubts about your closing point, "a last resort if inequality continues at this rate"; is that so bad it's worth killing millions of people to merely attempt to fix it, with many and perhaps the most likely end results further emphasizing it? For that matter, who/what groups are going to start pulling triggers?
- joshuapants 11y ago
  > "Advanced weaponry" is of no use without the will to use it. As an extreme example, a few nukes could terminate ISIS with extreme prejudice and collateral damage, but I don't know of any serious "hawk" even advocating their use. Very good point. Air support of any kind would be unhelpful in a revolution because the government would, understandably, be reluctant to bomb the hell out of its own population/economic centers.
- scottwhudson 11y ago
  I don't understand why the pro-gun community doesn't take a stronger stance against mass surveillance, "swamping" a group of law enforcement requires communication that can't be deciphered, and the general public has little interest in that. History tells us that communication wins wars (think cracking the enigma machine), but we're losing the ability to communicate privately at an alarming rate. How do you plan to "swarm" when the safest method of communication is the carrier pigeon?
  - hga 11y ago
    What "harder stance" would you suggest we take??? We don't exactly view mass surveillance with approval (note how that first vote in the House didn't break along any obvious lines), and I'll attest that, when not legally required, many companies in the guns and ammo business are dreadfully bad at keeping long term records.... The "swamping" concept I was referring to was something of a thought experiment, e.g. imagine an out of science fiction effective speech broadcast to enough people that it doesn't matter that the police know "the people" are coming right now. As for your general point, people who think about this sort of thing often focus on the old techniques like cells, one time pads, etc., subverting those listening in, etc. etc. Plus I'd add, just how effective do you really think governments are, especially against "non-crazy" people. That's the real danger I see, that "middle class" or thereabouts people like me get upset enough to take up arms, instead of the usual suspects like the Weather Underground. Note our "revolutionary" Founding Fathers, especially apropos this day after the anniversary of Declaration of Independence. And there's a relatively new "leaderless resistance" concept where individuals not in close communications nonetheless take effective action. Again, see how "effective" for some value of effective Christoper Dorner, working alone, was. One man, or a small group, can be dreadfully effective nowadays.
    - reagency 11y ago
      Relatively new? Guerilla war and resistance is centuries old.
      - hga 11y ago
joshuapants 11y ago
> The militarization of law enforcement and advanced weaponry of our government would prevent the people from rising up. Not necessarily. The police are vastly outnumbered. Military technology only gets you so far (see: General Custer, Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq part II) and both military and police might find themselves disobeying orders or even switching sides.
majormajor 11y ago
Part of that would depend on how many people in military/police roles saw the unrest as riots/protests to be squashed versus a revolution to be joined. And political will for even the current level of police force against protests is showing some signs of turning, let alone for massive use of force against citizens. Even on foreign military missions, we (the US) can certainly take over territory quickly, such as the invasion of Iraq, but we aren't willing (or possibly able) to be despotic all-powerful overlords after "bringing freedom" didn't end the way we wanted. That aside, a situation has to get really bad before revolution, and all its associated costs and bloodshed, would be a net positive. And that's for successful revolution, historically the results have been more spotty.
angrybits 11y ago
You say that as if all LE would be on the same side. They wouldn't. The military is another factor altogether. Depending on the circumstances, it's fairly likely that some fraction of both LE and military would be on the revolutionary side of the matter. Civil war is a complicated matter. Another poster already covered the heavily armed citizenry so I will defer on that one, except maybe to say that I don't find it alarming.
enlightenedfool 11y ago
You're right. Occupy movement is an example. It was so effectively quelled. $15 or $30 minimum wages can't change the divide. It's just a ploy to keep the masses happy in the matrix.
angersock 11y ago
The old joke: "They're prepared for class warfare--are you?" Let's set aside the technical issues involving revolution; weapons, tactics, whatever. Let's just look at the basic philosophical points and high-level problems. What exactly would be revolted against? Is one revolting against shitty local/state/federal government that they themselves (statistically) continued to vote in, either directly or through inaction? Is one revolting against poor treatments of minorities, especially since they've (statistically) shown themselves incapable of interacting with people whose political views they disagree with (much less people with obvious differences in skin color, economic class, or some harder-to-overlook uniqueness)? Is one revolting against the centralization of capital? This, despite the fact that that person is (stastically) unlikely to have any of the basic but essential skills required to grow food, mend equipment, slaughter animals, write books, orate effectively, organize teams, balance checkbooks, run businesses, or write programs? Is one revolting against the loss of control one has over their own affairs? A loss of control literally begged for every time they've let slide a "think of the children" argument or repeated some other form of fear mongering? America today has the government and economic distribution of wealth that it deserves. ~ The only revolt that really makes sense is one purely out of spite, pure juvenile hatred and rage and desire to see the nice things these folks have turn to ash because "fuck you that's why". Anything more highbrow is just trying to dress things up.
hackuser 11y ago
We have revolutions regularly, the first Tuesday every November. Be sure to show up. No guns needed. The reason we don't have armed revolutions is that we have a better mechanism for replacing the government and expressing political desires.

hga 11y ago

One could certainly happen in the US, for the people are very well armed and are continuing to arm themselves at a rate I find alarming, even if, or because, I'm one of them. The militarization of law enforcement doesn't mean much, e.g. look at how they completely loose there shit in the face of one disturbed, not very clever or effective assassin like Christopher Dorner [ADDED: there's a lot of cargo culting here; giving 10 police officer M16s/M4s, SAWs and grenades does not magically turn them into an US Army infantry squad]. At the other extreme, we the people can completely swamp them in a matter of hours, but of course motivating us to do that would be quite a trick. "Advanced weaponry" is of no use without the will to use it. As an extreme example, a few nukes could terminate ISIS with extreme prejudice and collateral damage, but I don't know of any serious "hawk" even suggesting [WAS: advocating] their use. I have grave doubts about your closing point, "a last resort if inequality continues at this rate"; is that so bad it's worth killing millions of people to merely attempt to fix it, with many and perhaps the most likely end results further emphasizing it? For that matter, who/what groups are going to start pulling triggers?

joshuapants 11y ago
> "Advanced weaponry" is of no use without the will to use it. As an extreme example, a few nukes could terminate ISIS with extreme prejudice and collateral damage, but I don't know of any serious "hawk" even advocating their use. Very good point. Air support of any kind would be unhelpful in a revolution because the government would, understandably, be reluctant to bomb the hell out of its own population/economic centers.
scottwhudson 11y ago
I don't understand why the pro-gun community doesn't take a stronger stance against mass surveillance, "swamping" a group of law enforcement requires communication that can't be deciphered, and the general public has little interest in that. History tells us that communication wins wars (think cracking the enigma machine), but we're losing the ability to communicate privately at an alarming rate. How do you plan to "swarm" when the safest method of communication is the carrier pigeon?
- hga 11y ago
  What "harder stance" would you suggest we take??? We don't exactly view mass surveillance with approval (note how that first vote in the House didn't break along any obvious lines), and I'll attest that, when not legally required, many companies in the guns and ammo business are dreadfully bad at keeping long term records.... The "swamping" concept I was referring to was something of a thought experiment, e.g. imagine an out of science fiction effective speech broadcast to enough people that it doesn't matter that the police know "the people" are coming right now. As for your general point, people who think about this sort of thing often focus on the old techniques like cells, one time pads, etc., subverting those listening in, etc. etc. Plus I'd add, just how effective do you really think governments are, especially against "non-crazy" people. That's the real danger I see, that "middle class" or thereabouts people like me get upset enough to take up arms, instead of the usual suspects like the Weather Underground. Note our "revolutionary" Founding Fathers, especially apropos this day after the anniversary of Declaration of Independence. And there's a relatively new "leaderless resistance" concept where individuals not in close communications nonetheless take effective action. Again, see how "effective" for some value of effective Christoper Dorner, working alone, was. One man, or a small group, can be dreadfully effective nowadays.
  - reagency 11y ago
    Relatively new? Guerilla war and resistance is centuries old.
    - hga 11y ago

joshuapants 11y ago

> The militarization of law enforcement and advanced weaponry of our government would prevent the people from rising up. Not necessarily. The police are vastly outnumbered. Military technology only gets you so far (see: General Custer, Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq part II) and both military and police might find themselves disobeying orders or even switching sides.

majormajor 11y ago

Part of that would depend on how many people in military/police roles saw the unrest as riots/protests to be squashed versus a revolution to be joined. And political will for even the current level of police force against protests is showing some signs of turning, let alone for massive use of force against citizens. Even on foreign military missions, we (the US) can certainly take over territory quickly, such as the invasion of Iraq, but we aren't willing (or possibly able) to be despotic all-powerful overlords after "bringing freedom" didn't end the way we wanted. That aside, a situation has to get really bad before revolution, and all its associated costs and bloodshed, would be a net positive. And that's for successful revolution, historically the results have been more spotty.

angrybits 11y ago

You say that as if all LE would be on the same side. They wouldn't. The military is another factor altogether. Depending on the circumstances, it's fairly likely that some fraction of both LE and military would be on the revolutionary side of the matter. Civil war is a complicated matter. Another poster already covered the heavily armed citizenry so I will defer on that one, except maybe to say that I don't find it alarming.

enlightenedfool 11y ago

You're right. Occupy movement is an example. It was so effectively quelled. $15 or $30 minimum wages can't change the divide. It's just a ploy to keep the masses happy in the matrix.

angersock 11y ago

The old joke: "They're prepared for class warfare--are you?" Let's set aside the technical issues involving revolution; weapons, tactics, whatever. Let's just look at the basic philosophical points and high-level problems. What exactly would be revolted against? Is one revolting against shitty local/state/federal government that they themselves (statistically) continued to vote in, either directly or through inaction? Is one revolting against poor treatments of minorities, especially since they've (statistically) shown themselves incapable of interacting with people whose political views they disagree with (much less people with obvious differences in skin color, economic class, or some harder-to-overlook uniqueness)? Is one revolting against the centralization of capital? This, despite the fact that that person is (stastically) unlikely to have any of the basic but essential skills required to grow food, mend equipment, slaughter animals, write books, orate effectively, organize teams, balance checkbooks, run businesses, or write programs? Is one revolting against the loss of control one has over their own affairs? A loss of control literally begged for every time they've let slide a "think of the children" argument or repeated some other form of fear mongering? America today has the government and economic distribution of wealth that it deserves. ~ The only revolt that really makes sense is one purely out of spite, pure juvenile hatred and rage and desire to see the nice things these folks have turn to ash because "fuck you that's why". Anything more highbrow is just trying to dress things up.

hackuser 11y ago

We have revolutions regularly, the first Tuesday every November. Be sure to show up. No guns needed. The reason we don't have armed revolutions is that we have a better mechanism for replacing the government and expressing political desires.