The RKBA v Tyranny

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

I have stated in the past that the individual RKBA is a safeguard against tyranny.

Some have suggested that US military strength negates any effects of private arms since a citizens' military victory would be impossible. What they don't see is that a military victory where a significant portion of the population is wholesale murdered isn't tyranny. It's just murder.

There are folks who would be examples of the truth of Churchill's statement: "If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be even a worse fate, you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."

[Girard442]

1. So, if Mueller gets fired, you got plans?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

2. Plans?

I'm not seeing him being fired. What would you suggest I do?

[friendly_iconoclast]

3. What are *your* plans in such a case?

[Paladin]

4. Yeah, one helluva job RKBA is doing, combatting the onset of tyranny in the U.S.

I don't see pro-gun militants willing to fight for jack shit, much less against the most tyranny-prone administration in this country's history. To the contrary---the RKBA crowd helped install the trump regime, and they seem content to see it play itself out, full-length.....

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

5. It sounds as if you're saying that pro-RKBA democrats voted for trump

I can't speak for others but I supported Bernie in the primaries and my family voted only HRC in the general.

That's a broad brush you have there.

[Paladin]

6. I stand by my comments. Nothing I can do about your interpretation of them. (nt)

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

7. Everyone has an absolute right to an opinion and to express it

I stand by that. Have good weekend.

[Paladin]

8. Best wishes for your weekend as well. (nt)

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

9. Thanks

[friendly_iconoclast]

11. Were I you, I wouldn't elaborate on my comments either, as they raise some inconvenient questions

I remind those reading that "anti-gun militants" at DU have urged people to vote for Republicans:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10028123984#post28

There's also Americans For Responsible Solutions endorsement of Republicans:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141556670

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1172198407

Not going to take your guilt trip

[friendly_iconoclast]

10. The US doesn't *quite* have a totally degenerate government (for now, anyway), so...

...what were those you dub "pro-gun militants" supposed to do? Be specific.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

12. I live in New Jersey

We now have a crank and bump ban. It's not like any of these things are a lot more complicated than a bicycle. I am getting tired of double secret bans and pre-crime persecution along with the whole civil forfeiture crock of crap.

Making the possession of what was legally acquired a crime should be a crime. CASE CLOSED/FULL STOP!

[yagotme]

13. They will be after your shoestrings, next...

After all, it's the device, not the intent.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

14. If only there was a rich high status individual...

...with the inclination to take on these bureaucratic ass hats.

If you grandfather the existing ones in, I'm okay with a law.
If you have to eradicate the possession of a class of items within the state, then the existing owners need compensation. I don't mean a token amount either.


On another topic referenced in the post to which you replied, civil forfeiture needs to be federally banned. There's a ban I can really get behind. Anyone who violates the ban needs to be deported to one of Norway's dependencies. (Peter I Island, Bouvet Island or Queen Maud Land) I'm good with any of those.

[yagotme]

15. Yep, if a state/local gov't wants to rake in some cash,

all they have to do is "confiscate" an "illegal" item, or "make certain items illegal", and auction it off to a non-local entity.

[Alea]

36. Good post. One of the best in this thread.

[Buzz cook]

16. I have never heard a convincing argument for the ops point.

I've read and heard the assertion many times, just never seen an argument with evidence that personal ownership of firearms prevents tyranny.

The American Civil War is an example of a civilian victory being impossible and being put down by over whelming military might. A very significant part of the confederate population was killed as well as many Union soldiers. I don't see this as murder by the government.
(The Confederacy had a larger number of private arms, but it was arms taken from the North and imported from Europe that made up the majority of its arms.)

Arms in the hands of private citizens enforced American slavery. So if we do lose everything, it'll be our friends in the NRA that will be most active in keeping us in our place.

[gejohnston]

17. Partly because,

the average Southerner didn't view the US as the oppressor and did not use his private arms against the US. The CSA soldier was typically "young, dumb, full of cum", needed the job, or was simply drafted and issued CSA government arms. Davis' War Dept had many closet abolitionists who provided intelligence to the North. Private citizens using private arms mostly fought against the CSA, especially in East Tennessee and the Texas Hill Country.

State governments enforced slavery and forced citizens to take part in slave patrols. State governments enforced Jim Crow. That is part of why the South had stricter gun laws on average than most of the US until the 1970s. In fact, the first handgun ban in the US was in Georgia in the 1830s (the state supreme court struck it down)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunn_v._Georgia

Ida Wells said it better than I could.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8406649-a-winchester-rifle-should-have-a-place-of-honor-in

[Buzz cook]

19. Sorry but that's revisionist history.

The night riders and the klan were not governmental agencies.
The average Southerner hated Northerners and Blacks much more than the Tea Party hates liberals. The election of 1860 would have shown at least some measurable support for Republicans if the average Southerner soldier was the simple draftee you claim they were.

Your attempt to elide personal responsibility from the enforcement of slavery and "negro" oppression is part and parcel with lost cause apologetics.

But at least you admit tyranny. To bad you can't show private ownership of firearms ending it.

[gejohnston]

21. no it isn't

The night riders were KKK, which had nothing to do with antebellum slave patrols (who were government agents). The average person in general identified with his state more than country. Also, lower class whites could not afford the poll taxes and support for the CSA eroded as it became more authoritarian.
http://historum.com/american-history/72595-vote-buying-planter-control-antebellum-south.htm

Mine is not "revisionist", yours is the Disney version.

I never said private ownership of guns ended tyranny, but you can't show the opposite either. If prohibition worked anywhere, there would be no pot industry since 1937, heroin overdoses since 1914, gun violence in Mexico (or biker gangs with homemade machine guns in Australia) or, abortion clinics in South Korea.

Speaking of Tea Party members hating liberals. They don't care for all conservatives either. One thing I noticed about the far right and the far left, that is the habit of connecting individuals with their ideas. Good people can have bad ideas, and visa versa.

[Buzz cook]

24. There was a positive claim made.

It is up to the people who support that claim (private ownership of guns stops tyranny) to prove it. I have not made the opposite claim I have no burden of proof in this.

There were more than just the KKK in the post war South and not all the slaves killed in the antebellum South were killed by governmental authority.

Good of you to stand up for the Tea Party.

[gejohnston]

28. I believe the claim is that

it is easier to resist tyranny, which is different. It is also impossible to prove a negative. The real burden is upon those who want to restrict any civil liberty or right to justify it using facts, evidence, and reason. The gun control/prohibition crowd's arguments are based almost entirely on logical fallacies, demonization, and disinformation.

I stand up for principle and treat ideologies as religion. I detest double standards and petty tribalism.
Demonization/one-dimensionality are propaganda techniques and distracts, at best, from the real debate. I dismiss such nonsense and the users out of hand because it shows that they lack the ability to engage in the ideas, or doubt the strength of their own arguments. When I debate a Tea Party person (or anyone else) I have confidence in my ability to debate the ideas, and that I have better arguments that can stand on their own merit.
As an individualist, I put the individual before any group and have no use for those who expect any individual to fit into any specific mold.

[Buzz cook]

29. There is no negative to prove

A positive claim is by definition not a negative.

Nice straw man you built there. Knock it over again.

I'm done with you.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

35. re: "...it shows that they lack the ability to engage in the ideas, or doubt the strength..."

"...of their own arguments."
See #32: https://www.democraticunderground.com/1172205349#post32

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

18. re: "I have never heard a convincing argument for the ops point."

The American Civil War is an not an example of a struggle against tyranny. Your mindset is too American to see the real point. The point of the Civil War is that civilians on both sides were sufficiently armed in order that neither the existing federal government was able to simply dominate the states in rebellion nor was the government set up by the rebellious states able to dominate the Northern Union. The result was the war not a state of tyranny.

Their are numerous examples domestic tyranny but the Civil War isn't one of them. For example:
Pequot War -

The Treaty of Hartford and was signed on September 21, 1638. About 200 Pequots survived the war; they finally gave up and submitted themselves under the authority of the sachem of the Mohegans or Naragansetts:
"There were then given to Onkos, Sachem of Monheag, Eighty; to Myan Tonimo, Sachem of Narragansett, Eighty; and to Nynigrett, Twenty, when he should satisfy for a Mare of Edward Pomroye’s killed by his Men. The Pequots were then bound by Covenant, That none should inhabit their native Country, nor should any of them be called PEQUOTS any more, but Moheags and Narragansatts for ever."

Other Pequots were enslaved and shipped to Bermuda or the West Indies, or were forced to become household slaves in English households in Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay. The Colonies essentially declared the Pequots extinct by prohibiting them from using the name any longer.

The colonists attributed their victory over the hostile Pequot tribe to an act of God: "Let the whole Earth be filled with his glory! Thus the lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their Land for an Inheritance."

This was the first instance wherein Algonquian peoples of southern New England encountered European-style warfare. After the Pequot War, there were no significant battles between Indians and southern New England colonists for about 38 years.

Second Seminole War -

Nobody kept a cumulative account of the number of Indians killed, or who died of starvation or other privations caused by the war. The Indians who were shipped west did not fare well either. By the end of 1843, 3,824 Indians had been shipped from Florida to what became the Indian Territory, but in 1844 only 3,136 remained. As of 1962 there were only 2,343 Seminoles in Oklahoma and perhaps some 1,500 in Florida.

There are so many examples with Native Americans.

The carpetbaggers and radical reconstruction folk were just older example of our orange plague in chief. The surviving Southerners weren't enslaved or resettled in camps. However, we did our best to assure that Native Americans wouldn't own proper small arms and they fought for a long time with pre-iron age weapons.

Since before the US existed up to basically one generation ago, Native Americans have survived in conditions of tyranny that have been very slow to improve or be cured. Many of them throughout history have demonstrated their resistance to tyranny via armed conflict and their refusal to submit even to being murdered because of their commitment to rights and freedom.

Native People were recognized by their inclusion in those covered in the 1965 VRA:

In 1965 the Voting Rights Act (VRA) put an end to individual states' claims on whether or not Natives were allowed to vote through a federal law. Section 2 of the VRA states that, “No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure, shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color."

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

[Buzz cook]

20. I'm sure you think you make sense.

The American Civil War is an not an example of a struggle against tyranny. Your mindset is too American to see the real point. The point of the Civil War is that civilians on both sides were sufficiently armed in order that neither the existing federal government was able to simply dominate the states in rebellion nor was the government set up by the rebellious states able to dominate the Northern Union. The result was the war not a state of tyranny.

The South sure as hell described the North as tyrannical. In fact Southern apologists still call it that today.
https://nonrevisionistcivilwarfacts.wordpress.com/lincoln-s-tyranny/

If my mind set is too American does that mean that your's is not? I've studied the Civil War since I was a child in the sixties. My reading has included works by non-Americans as well the usual American authors.
Which brings us to the point that Northern soldiers were never armed with their own firearms. With the exception that many soldiers bought side arms, many of which littered the line of march, and some commanding officers buying arms for their troops.
The issue of private ownership of firearms was never an issue in the North. As to the South, well at the start of the war most soldiers were armed from Union stores in the rebellious states. There were Southerners that carried personal firearms as a matter of necessity but most were armed by the Southern government. The war lasted less that four years and in the end the North did indeed dominate the South.

Yes the various European governments in the Americas were tyrannous to indigenous people. From Columbus on down to Trump that has been the case.
Now I'd like to remind you that various native groups were armed by Europeans in order to fight other Europeans. When they weren't being armed by governments they were being armed by private companies such as the Hudson Bay Company.
https://books.google.com/books?id=BJRJZZIxrmkC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=french+arming+indians&source=bl&ots=XvfMs3t_hP&sig=ws2VntvPibHTa8LRWJJa4ZnksOE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwivn46_wobZAhVHImMKHcT6CgUQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=french%20arming%20indians&f=false

Yet even were they were well armed, they never stopped tyranny.

The carpetbaggers and radical reconstruction folk were just older example of our orange plague in chief.

Sorry but no. The depredations of Northerners in the post war South were mostly an invention of Southern apologists. In short a fiction to excuse the depredations night riders and other reactionaries. It was the Southerners that are the true ancestors of Trump and his alt-right fanboys.

So just as a reminder you haven't given an example of private ownership of firearms stopping tyranny.

[Paladin]

22. Privately-owned firearms damn sure aren't stopping tyranny, right now.

I believe it's because the militant segment of private firearm ownership is largely on the side of the tyrannical forces, as they have been, for a long time. Like I said elsewhere, the lectures on the true and glorious purpose of the Second Amendment seem to have disappeared, once we no longer had a black Democrat for a president.

Sorry for the intrusion---everybody can go back to arguing about the Civil War, now.

[Buzz cook]

26. No you're exactly right.

We already see fewer people clinging to religion. Guns will follow suit.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

23. I always try to make sense and I sometimes succeed

The South sure as hell described the North as tyrannical. In fact Southern apologists still call it that today.

Tyranny: despotism, absolute power, autocracy, dictatorship, totalitarianism, Fascism. These words do NOT correctly describe the relationship between the federal government of the 1850s and '60s with the white Southern population. In fact, because a major Southern economy was agriculture. That economy thrived in part because of slavery. When the federal government and the Northern states worked to abolish slavery, many Southern states rebelled and attempted to secede from the Union. Had their cause been just rather than one of defending slavery and had they been unable to rebel and actual wage war then history would be looking on that time as one of tyranny.

These are the options:

When the people are armed, they can fight tyranny. The possible sequelae being victory and living in freedom or death defending what is right.

When the people are disarmed, they cannot fight tyranny. The options that follow are life with impaired to very little freedom or suicide.

In some cases Native Americans were armed and fought against their oppressors. The results of this were often small scale wars. We learn but slowly and at great cost. Through history the "animating contest for freedom", as Adams called it, has produced advances in civilization. We have governments that defend the rights of the individual.




Please read again the quote from Churchill.

[Buzz cook]

25. False Dichotomy.

http://wiki.c2.com/?FalseDichotomy

The greatest revolutionary period in the history of the world was at the end of the twentieth century. The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact were over thrown by an unarmed populace.

I suggest you haven't proven your thesis.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

27. And where did I say that arms were the only requirement in revolution?

There are certainly other means to pressure oppressive and tyrannical governments and rulers. Just an inference on my part, but you may have the impression that I (or other pro-RKBA folk) hold the position that arms are the only viable means by which to oppose a rights-hostile government. Speaking for myself only, a gun is a tool. It is not the only tool for most situations where it may be employed individually or collectively. I further hold that the initial clause of the 2A certainly names a valid purpose for private arms but not the only valid purpose.

Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts soon. I will also expand later on what I've shared so far but need to work now.

[Buzz cook]

30. Quote"I have stated in the past that the individual RKBA is a safeguard against tyranny."unquote

That is the thesis you have to defend.
Are there other revolutionary principles involved in a holistic approach to resistance? Yes, but you didn't appeal to any of them in your OP.
Besides even tough we may agree that there's more to the world than armed resistance all the legs are needed to hold up a table.

I am not ant-gun ownership. I probably own more firearms than you do. What I oppose is the rampant romanticism used by many call themselves 2nd amendment advocates.

Have fun at work.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

31. re: "Have fun at work."

Luckily I have a high tolerance for boredom. Thanks...

re: "...a safeguard against tyranny." AND "Are there other revolutionary principles involved in a holistic approach to resistance? Yes, but you didn't appeal to any of them in your OP."

I said, "...a safeguard" but not the only safeguard.

My premise here is that an armed individual can resist. They may die resisting but they can resist. There is nothing romantic about the idea of dying. Death is almost never a noble hero's end that you might see in movie. Movies are just entertainment.

"I probably own more firearms than you do."

Likely since it would be impossible to own fewer firearms than I do. This is not me defending some personal lifestyle where I walk around thinking I might save the day at some point. I am a firm believer in the #26 of the USMC Rule for Gun Fighting: "26. Your number one Option for Personal Security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation."

Starting a war as the last option in resisting tyranny is difficult without arms.

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. - George S. Patton

[jimmy the one]

32. churchill's remarks suitable for britons, but not others

discntnt cites churchill: …if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

Churchill was writing about the belated British guarantee to Poland in early 1939, after Hitler had absorbed the rump of Czechoslovakia, which he had promised to respect six months earlier at Munich. See Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 1, The Gathering Storm https://richardlangworth.com/if-you-will-not-fightwhen-you-can-easily-win

Churchill was referring to the British army & territorial home guard & Chamberlains' appeasement approach, not the civilian populace of the UK taking up arms, outside able bodied men.

churchill, jun 4, 1940: We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, ________________________________________

You evidently aren't aware of Churhill's racist tendencies towards several ethnic groups & nationalities, for which he wasn't so concerned about them becoming slaves, & to which I doubt he would've proffered the same fight song advice as he did to his own british people.

Churchill's racism was wrapped up in his Tory zeal for empire, one which irked his wartime ally, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As a junior member of parliament, Churchill had cheered on Britain's plan for more conquests, insisting that its "Aryan stock is bound to triumph." It's strange to celebrate his bravado in the face of Hitler's war machine and not consider his wider thinking on other parts of the world. After all, these are places that, just like Europe and the West, still live with the legacy of Churchill's and Britain's actions at the time.
India, Britain's most important colonial possession, most animated Churchill. He despised the Indian independence movement and its spiritual leader, Mahatma Gandhi, whom he described as "half-naked" and labeled a "seditious fakir," or holy man. Most notoriously, Churchill presided over the hideous 1943 famine in Bengal, where some 3 million Indians perished, largely as a result of British imperial mismanagement. Churchill was both indifferent to the Indian plight and even mocked the millions suffering, chuckling over the culling of a population that bred "like rabbits." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/03/the-dark-side-of-winston-churchills-legacy-no-one-should-forget/?utm_term=.23caf0206111

As the Indian writer Pankaj Mishra explains in the New Yorker, Churchill was one of a coterie of imperial rulers who worked to create sectarian fissures within India's independence movement between Indian Hindus and Muslims, which led to the brutal partition of India when the former colony finally did win its freedom in 1947.
"I hate Indians," he once trumpeted. "They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."

He referred to Palestinians as "barbaric hordes who ate little but camel dung." When quashing insurgents in Sudan in the earlier days of his imperial career, Churchill boasted of killing three "savages." Contemplating restive populations in northwest Asia, he infamously lamented the "squeamishness" of his colleagues, who were not in "favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes."

He also thought blacks inferior to whites. In the best defense of churchill I can muster so as not to merely belittle him - he was particularly suited for backing into wartime leadership after munich's appeasement failed, and jim crow racist tendencies were more 'en vogue' in the early 1900's; indeed, the KKK was considered mainstream america in the 1920's, sometimes marching down constitution avenue in washington DC, to throngs of cheering supporters.

churchill in OP likely referring to britons: You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves

Rule Brittania, England's patriot song:
The nations, not so blest as thee, Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free, The dread and envy of them all.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves: "Britons never never never will be slaves."

[Paladin]

33. Moving the discussion from the U.S. Civil War to WWII?

I guess that counts as some sort of progress around this place. Let us know when you want to talk the trumpian 21st century.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

34. okay yeah

"Churchill was referring to the British army & territorial home guard & Chamberlains' appeasement approach, not the civilian populace of the UK taking up arms, outside able bodied men."

The scope of Churchill's speech changes the meaning of his words and wisdom entirely.

"You evidently aren't aware of Churhill's racist tendencies..."

And obviously racists unilaterally lie and always speak foolishness.



Tell me this, are Churchill's words untrue, irrelevant or otherwise not applicable to this topic because of the scope of his address lacking sufficient overlap into this topic or because of his apparently racist remarks? If either of these arguments hold water, why are they both necessary to your denial of what seems rather plain and simple? Further, perhaps you can show why the statement itself is untrue or foolish. Rather than simply attacking the source, maybe you have an actual argument??? Kind of smacks of some odd flavor Godwinism.


Hold the salad, hold the dressing.
With the truth, there is no messing.

[jimmy the one]

37. rambling wreck

discntnt: The scope of Churchill's speech changes the meaning of his words and wisdom entirely. (sarcasm emogee)

With your sarcasm emogee, what are you trying to say thru your ambiguity?

discntnt: And obviously racists unilaterally lie and always speak foolishness. (sarcasm emogee)

I give up. You win the riddle me this contest.

discntn: Tell me this, are Churchill's words untrue, irrelevant or otherwise not applicable to this topic because of the scope of his address lacking sufficient overlap into this topic or because of his apparently racist remarks?

Churchill's racist remarks over the years, make this OP quote you posted of his, to be disingenuous to the international community & applicable mainly to, or only to, britain, in his opinion, since Churchill was quite happy with the british subjugation of India, and did not agree with her independence circa 1947.

British Relations with India and Subjugation of the Principal Indian Powers | 18th Century http://www.historydiscussion.net/british-india/british-relations-with-india-and-subjugation-of-the-principal-indian-powers-18th-century/692

the rambling wreck, of discontent: If either of these arguments hold water, why are they both necessary to your denial of what seems rather plain and simple? Further, perhaps you can show why the statement itself is untrue or foolish. Rather than simply attacking the source, maybe you have an actual argument??? Kind of smacks of some odd flavor Godwinism.
Hold the salad, hold the dressing.
With the truth, there is no messing.

Whee.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

38. re: "rambling wreck" agreed, you are

My question per the Churchill quote: Is it [*never*, *sometimes*, *always*] better to live as slaves than die fighting an oppressive tyrant?

Churchill's quote stated, "...It is better to perish than to live as slaves." I don't much care what racist religious half baked mental aberration did/may have/whatever inspired that sentence. A broken clock is even right twice a day.

In reality crime, oppression and tyranny may manifest at your door in the form of an armed force of men.

History is full of folks with prejudiced ideas and actions. Oskar Schindler saved many Jews but wasn't known for treating his wife all that well. You don't have to be a perfect saint to have something wise to say or to do something good.

I'm not against some regulations. I am against bans for the most part.