Cosmoline
Member
The Founders also believed very, very strongly that we should have no federal standing army. Only state militias and perhaps a frontier force or a special purpose force like the Legion of the United States. So in this context, it would truly be impossible for a tyrant to take over. Because the very act of raising militias was a kind of democratic process involving votes of support or refusals to recognize authority.
Since WW2 our betters in DC decided they needed us to keep spending trillions on national defense and that we needed a huge standing army. Without getting into the merits of this, it has created a stress on the notion that an armed citizenry can block tyranny. But I don't see that stress as any reason to disarm. Hopefully we can find a way to avoid Rome's fate.
He has many of those powers right now. And he has a Praetorian guard in the form of the Secret Service. And he's very frustrated with the "failings" of the Senate. The parallels are certainly enough to give pause to any student of history. I know this much--now is not the time to lay down arms.
Apaches cost a fortune. Their weapons are expensive. Their crews are expensive. And when you're killing the people paying for those tools, the end result is a death spiral for the government. You cannot slaughter every tax payer. If the household guns do nothing more than give people the idea that they need not obey, then they have done their job. Because what really props up dictators isn't the bombs or jets, it's the belief that there is nothing that can be done. And what really brings them down is the belief among enough people that they CAN be brought down. Plus nobody is truly bulletproof. Helicopter crews have to sleep somewhere--in this case back in the same neighborhoods they bombed. They have families there. And every one of them has to think long and hard before deciding to back the hand of some nutcase wearing a crown, when all his neighbors can retaliate after the day is done.
I've seen enough supposedly powerful dictators put up against walls and stabbed in the backside in my lifetime to conclude resistance is never futile. And for every one of them who died screaming, a dozen took last-minute deals to avoid that fate and concede power to the rebellion. Believe me none of these guys wants to die with a knife in his fundament.
Since WW2 our betters in DC decided they needed us to keep spending trillions on national defense and that we needed a huge standing army. Without getting into the merits of this, it has created a stress on the notion that an armed citizenry can block tyranny. But I don't see that stress as any reason to disarm. Hopefully we can find a way to avoid Rome's fate.
But didn't the Romans have a "temporary dictator" emergency power that Caesar took advantage of? Didn't he also have an army that was personally loyal to him?
He has many of those powers right now. And he has a Praetorian guard in the form of the Secret Service. And he's very frustrated with the "failings" of the Senate. The parallels are certainly enough to give pause to any student of history. I know this much--now is not the time to lay down arms.
AR15 vs Apache Helicopter with thermal imaging; hmm, who would win? Worst of all this talk makes gun owners look paranoid and delusional.
Apaches cost a fortune. Their weapons are expensive. Their crews are expensive. And when you're killing the people paying for those tools, the end result is a death spiral for the government. You cannot slaughter every tax payer. If the household guns do nothing more than give people the idea that they need not obey, then they have done their job. Because what really props up dictators isn't the bombs or jets, it's the belief that there is nothing that can be done. And what really brings them down is the belief among enough people that they CAN be brought down. Plus nobody is truly bulletproof. Helicopter crews have to sleep somewhere--in this case back in the same neighborhoods they bombed. They have families there. And every one of them has to think long and hard before deciding to back the hand of some nutcase wearing a crown, when all his neighbors can retaliate after the day is done.
I've seen enough supposedly powerful dictators put up against walls and stabbed in the backside in my lifetime to conclude resistance is never futile. And for every one of them who died screaming, a dozen took last-minute deals to avoid that fate and concede power to the rebellion. Believe me none of these guys wants to die with a knife in his fundament.
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