barnbwt
member
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2011
- Messages
- 7,340
Guns are merely a means of delivering force. Force is not the same as political power. Resources are power (no matter what Mao may say, seizing the 'means of production' is foremost in his twisted ideology). In a vacuum, power congregates so that it may grow (i.e. otherwise "equal" people will cooperate for personal gain), and if unchecked by the rule of Law (a people's collective desire to limit individual power so it does not threaten mutual prosperity) it results in tyranny of one sort or another.
All the force in the world means nothing for an individual up against a group with the same capabilities, who has also gathered all the resources. You join their ranks to share in the booty, or submit to their rule to be given enough to live. As their stranglehold on resources tightens, the means of resistance collapse (a militia could not be fed even if it were formed against them), and the society crosses the event horizon into a Dark Age. Even though the regime's capabilities will ultimately decay from its own inherent inefficiency, that change is slow enough that all become accustomed and cease resistance.
Take heart, these "steady states" do not last forever, since random occurrences take place to destabilize even the best laid Orwellian Plans (assuming that massive incompetence doesn't accelerate the regime's decay to the point that subjects are once again able to challenge it). In the case of Somalia, it is likely some terrorist group will screw up big time and hurt someone important in a big way, and utterly ruin the "good thing" they had going. That perturbation will be enough to give the people there the opportunity to reclaim the prosperous nation they once had; or to simply rinse and repeat
"Case in point, a group of British colonies on the North American continent 237 years ago, threw off tyranny partly with the use of privately owned guns"
And inexplicably, these soldiers ("organized patriots") did not seize power with said guns as has happened with just about every other revolution ever
TCB
All the force in the world means nothing for an individual up against a group with the same capabilities, who has also gathered all the resources. You join their ranks to share in the booty, or submit to their rule to be given enough to live. As their stranglehold on resources tightens, the means of resistance collapse (a militia could not be fed even if it were formed against them), and the society crosses the event horizon into a Dark Age. Even though the regime's capabilities will ultimately decay from its own inherent inefficiency, that change is slow enough that all become accustomed and cease resistance.
Take heart, these "steady states" do not last forever, since random occurrences take place to destabilize even the best laid Orwellian Plans (assuming that massive incompetence doesn't accelerate the regime's decay to the point that subjects are once again able to challenge it). In the case of Somalia, it is likely some terrorist group will screw up big time and hurt someone important in a big way, and utterly ruin the "good thing" they had going. That perturbation will be enough to give the people there the opportunity to reclaim the prosperous nation they once had; or to simply rinse and repeat
"Case in point, a group of British colonies on the North American continent 237 years ago, threw off tyranny partly with the use of privately owned guns"
And inexplicably, these soldiers ("organized patriots") did not seize power with said guns as has happened with just about every other revolution ever
TCB