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Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

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Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#381

Post by tenaciousDaniel »

enraged_camel wrote: post #345
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't see any historical evidence that superior weaponry always wins, whereas there are plenty of examples to the contrary. So I don't know why it's a "fact" that the dictator would still win.

Except the US military doesn't just have superior weaponry. It also has superior training, superior discipline, superior logistics, superior intelligence, superior force projection capability, superior everything . Unlike the Taliban or the Viet Cong, the US citizenry, even armed, would be like chaff. edit: so many downvotes. I guess I hit a sore spot. I'm sorry the truth hurts, guys and gals. :)

I'm not disagreeing with you over the difference in skill/training/etc. The Viet Cong and Taliban are obviously superior than the average American citizen. But I doubt that their respective victories were because of their military prowess. They turned the battlefield into an un-winnable game by requiring the military to effectively destroy the country in order to win. By the time the superior military wins, there's very little value left. War isn't just a game of who has the bigger guns and better soldiers.

If we descend to such a state where an American president is (a) willing to completely annihilate the population, (b) can either bypass congress or get their approval to do so, and (c) can mobilize our military to perform the annihilation, then perhaps your point is correct.

I wouldn't exactly hold my breath on that.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#382

Post by adamsea »

nvahalik wrote: post #18

> Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator This is why we have the second amendment. And the constitution as the thing to which office-holders swear allegiance to rather than to "the party" or "the president".

Ensuring all citizens got a great education would do so much more than guns to prevent tyranny. Especially since most forms of power and dominance are subtle and maintained through law, propaganda, systems of communication, and with economic power.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#383

Post by [deleted] »

josephdviviano wrote: post #238
bhupy wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US (with its support of the military) has been at war in the Middle East for nearly 2 decades now with insurgents. The argument is not that a rebellious citizenry will necessarily win a war, it's that it will draw out a bloody civil war so long and so expensive as to be a form of mutually assured destruction, the risk of which acts as a check in and of itself.

The fact is that the dictator would still win. The rebellious citizenry would live a life of absolute misery, just as those in the middle east do. The 2nd amendment made a lot of sense when weaponry consisted of horses and rifles, not computer-guided missiles. If there was ever a true US dictator, the 2nd amendment would mostly be used by the oppressed to rob, attack, and oppress one another.

[deleted]

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#384

Post by wysifnwyg »

api wrote: post #363
loquor wrote: post #349

This might sound alarmist, but do you think China is the biggest upcoming global problem after climate change? For two reasons: 1. China has a totalitarian ruling system. They intend to realize George Orwell's 1984. 2. Present-day China essentially has no ethics. Take the US in comparison. No matter how perverse the people in power become and even if they do messed up things, the US has some founding morals and princ…

China is the world's #1 carbon emitter, the top emitter per GDP, and has over 200gw of new coal still planned. (For scale, California consumes about 50gw on a hot day.) So they are not even unrelated problems. China is also the top source of plastic in the ocean. Tangent but: the way China turned out has IMHO been the major factor in the collapse of the post cold war neoliberal narrative in the West. The idea was tha…

Before your tangent, I agreed with you.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#385

Post by jki275 »

Andrex wrote: post #220
jbattle wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the Swiss have ... a well-regulated militia? Wish we had thought of that!

It's almost like that language was inserted into the Constitution for some explicit purpose, but then someone (the Supreme Court) forgot about that along the way... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller I think it's weird how American gun advocates didn't get upset when SCOTUS took some white-out to the amendment they claim to hold so sacred.

Except that's not at all what happened. The plain language of the 2nd amendment is quite clearly and accurately explained by Scalia in Heller. He took no "white out" to it, he explained what anyone without a political agenda has always known the 2nd amendment meant.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#386

Post by bigpumpkin »

parliament32 wrote: post #377
loquor wrote: post #349

This might sound alarmist, but do you think China is the biggest upcoming global problem after climate change? For two reasons: 1. China has a totalitarian ruling system. They intend to realize George Orwell's 1984. 2. Present-day China essentially has no ethics. Take the US in comparison. No matter how perverse the people in power become and even if they do messed up things, the US has some founding morals and princ…

I'm usually not a huge fan of the US rolling in and stomping out governments (and installing their own, of course), but this is one faux-dictatorship where it sorely needs to happen. Some actual democracy would be amazing for these people. With the recent "trade war" and whatnot the stage has been set pretty well for a US intervention.

How should we intervene?

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#387

Post by dragonwriter »

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #381
enraged_camel wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the US military doesn't just have superior weaponry. It also has superior training, superior discipline, superior logistics, superior intelligence, superior force projection capability, superior everything . Unlike the Taliban or the Viet Cong, the US citizenry, even armed, would be like chaff. edit: so many downvotes. I guess I hit a sore spot. I'm sorry the truth hurts, guys and gals. :)

I'm not disagreeing with you over the difference in skill/training/etc. The Viet Cong and Taliban are obviously superior than the average American citizen. But I doubt that their respective victories were because of their military prowess. They turned the battlefield into an un-winnable game by requiring the military to effectively destroy the country in order to win. By the time the superior military wins, there's v…

> The Viet Cong and Taliban are obviously superior than the average American citizen. But I doubt that their respective victories were because of their military prowess.

The VC were utterly crushed, leading the NVA to get more directly involved in the South rather than using them as a catspaw. To the extent that the combined operation had success (which it clearly did) it was because of the NVA—a regular army—and the backing they had even further up the Communist food chain.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#388

Post by jboggan »

dragonwriter wrote: post #357
josephdviviano wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact is that the dictator would still win. The rebellious citizenry would live a life of absolute misery, just as those in the middle east do. The 2nd amendment made a lot of sense when weaponry consisted of horses and rifles, not computer-guided missiles. If there was ever a true US dictator, the 2nd amendment would mostly be used by the oppressed to rob, attack, and oppress one another.

> The 2nd amendment made a lot of sense when weaponry consisted of horses and rifles Around the time of the founding, there was privately-owned field artillery (and rifles were still in limited deployment). The second amendment made sense when calling up the militia/posse comitatus was an essential feature of how the government at all levels dealt with internal and external security threats, such that it was not plan…

We still have privately owned field artillery, among other things:

https://youtu.be/qtFczo5ZCwY?t=934

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#389

Post by coryfklein »

bhupy wrote: post #174
Fezzik wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find this sentiment a little silly - if the US President went in to full dictator mode and had the support of the military, do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces? And if s/he did not have the support of the Armed Forces, it would not be a very effective dictatorship and you would not even need guns for a rebellion.…

The US (with its support of the military) has been at war in the Middle East for nearly 2 decades now with insurgents. The argument is not that a rebellious citizenry will necessarily win a war, it's that it will draw out a bloody civil war so long and so expensive as to be a form of mutually assured destruction, the risk of which acts as a check in and of itself.

Not sure how well the comparison works. Decades of shifting conflicts in several regions opposite the globe and against different "enemies" backed by opposing foreign nations, vs quelling localized rebellions at home where the areas are already saturated with police forces.

Re: Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

#390

Post by Ancalagon »

daenz wrote: post #338
josephdviviano wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact is that the dictator would still win. The rebellious citizenry would live a life of absolute misery, just as those in the middle east do. The 2nd amendment made a lot of sense when weaponry consisted of horses and rifles, not computer-guided missiles. If there was ever a true US dictator, the 2nd amendment would mostly be used by the oppressed to rob, attack, and oppress one another.

>The 2nd amendment made a lot of sense when weaponry consisted of horses and rifles, not computer-guided missiles. Let me make sure I understand your basic premise: the ability to defend yourself against a tyrannical dictatorship made sense until the government developed better technology, now it's pointless so just give up your guns? Aside from being completely contrary to the American spirit of defending yourself f…

Well said, I am very tired of these blasé remarks about the second amendment. Sure, the people don’t have tanks, but when the people and the guns out number the tanks 1000:1, and the tank driver doesn’t really want to fight, and those 1000 guns are all playing geurrilla tactics, I like to imagine the people stand a chance.
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