Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by spaginal » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

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.

Every war goes to the streets in the end. No amount of tanks or missiles stops this eventuality. At some point you are going door to door with guns. You can't just bomb people from far away with a few missiles and wipe your hands clean of it and call it a day.

The only effective bombing campaign that subdued a citizenry outright in military history were nukes, and if we ever crossed that line as a nation where the government nuked it's own citizens to quell rebellion, we are never coming back from that as a nation. It would leave a scar on humanity. Whatever would be left of the United States after that event would curse the people that did it.

So to your point, the 2A is not antiquated, if the US government had any interest in having an intact territory, at some point it would need to get face to face with the people, and the presence of firearms in the citizenry acts as a check against this possibility, and an escape option for the citizens of it ever got there.

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

#462

Post by Lunatic666 » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #401

parliament32 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can't force democracy upon people that don't want it and aren't ready for it - it ends disastrously. The US tried to do that in the middle east and failed miserably. The only success story seems to be South Korea, but I would argue they wanted democracy and fought alongside the US for it.

I'd count Germany as a success story, too! First country where democracy stuck after the Americans installed it.

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

#463

Post by dcolkitt » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

bigpumpkin wrote: post #386

parliament32 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not that I'm necessarily advocating this, but US intelligence has historically proven extremely adept at destabilizing regimes.

I'd imagine that mostly look like sowing internal discord within the CCP. The party already has a lot of corruption, so most likely many senior officials could be blackmailed and manipulated. The long-term goal would be to weaken the resolve and coherence of the CCP to the point that a non-violent democratic revolution could take place.

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

#464

Post by thaumasiotes » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #144

thaumasiotes wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the simple fact is that the government will win in the game of “who has more guns and power”, just as it would in the USA I do not actually agree with the premise that, in this modern day, governments can no longer be overthrown. Civil wars are not won on the basis of "who started with more guns?".

> I do not actually agree with the premise that, in this modern day, governments can no longer be overthrown. Of course not. But the Beijing government is not going to be overthrown from Hong Kong. Hong Kong is very small and very far away from Beijing. And the whole situation, Hong Kongers protesting the removal of some of their 'special' rights isn't exactly winning sympathy among mainlanders.

> But the Beijing government is not going to be overthrown from Hong Kong. Hong Kong is very small and very far away from Beijing.

Hong Kong can't much influence whether Tianjin is ruled from Beijing or not. But it can influence whether Hong Kong is ruled from Beijing! Being far away makes it hard for Hong Kong to reach Beijing, and it also makes it hard for Beijing to reach Hong Kong.

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

#465

Post by coryfklein » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #246

empath75 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they were armed this would have been over a long time ago. China would have gone in with tanks and the army, or even air strikes. Once you take up arms against the government that’s not a protest, that’s a civil war.

> China would have gone in with tanks and the army, or even air strikes Thereby ruining the very thing they want to control and profit from. That's the thing that the " They'll just send in the army, LOL " folks don't seem to get: bombed out cities and a population under armed guard aren't very economically productive and, on top of that, you need to station military units there to keep a lid on things which is also…

This is too simplistic a calculation. If Beijing shows that Hong Kong can write its own rules just by brandishing some weapons, then it's setting a precedent to lose every other major urban center.

For Beijing, the destruction of some parts of one urban may be exactly the price they're willing to pay to maintain their grip.

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

#466

Post by tempguy9999 » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

paul_milovanov wrote: post #450

tempguy9999 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing justifies "resorting to violence" in HK today If they're basically going to be steamrolled by a rather unsubtle up-and-coming superpower, perhaps they have no choice. In fact IF violence is all you're left with (and that does seem to be the case as legal recourse is blocked) then violence is necessary. The CCP is not backing down until it has borged HK.

What are the specific "actions of the CCP" that have actually occurred to date that supposedly justify violence from the protesters?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/05/rights-under-t...

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

#467

Post by throwawaymanbot » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

"Nothing can shake Chinas Foundations"... except 16yos apparently.

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

#468

Post by CapricornNoble » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

Fezzik wrote: post #168

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".

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.…

>>>do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces

Who do think we've been fighting in Afghanistan for the last 18 years? Impoverished farmers with AKs and explosives.

>>>I truly do not get it.

Insurgents win by undermining the legitimacy of the government, and moving into the vacuums that are created. You don't do that be attempting to fight force-on-force against overwhelming conventional power. You do it by targeting the mayors, governors, police chiefs, district attorneys, tax collectors, etc.....basically all of the key leadership of low-level government, and law enforcement. Without the support or at least tolerance of the population, ANY army will have exploitable vulnerabilities in essentially hostile territory.

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

#469

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #419

dragonwriter wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It's not a faux dictatorship, it's the real deal. But, the idea of the US “stomping out” the PRC (or even somehow “just” rejecting it from Hong Kong) and installing its own preferred government is downright insane.

It's not insane, but it would be a horrible and bloody hot war, the likes of which we haven't seen since WWII, and it would probably eclipse WWII in total deaths. But it's not "insane", because we have precedent for it: it's exactly what happened in WWII: the world's largest economies and industrial powers going into an all-out war, culminating in nuclear attack, and resulting in the deaths of tens of millions. It's…

Nuclear states don't attack other nuclear states for a reason.

NYC, LA, DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Huston, Dallas are all potential targets if the US declares war. Most of the US army would be going to war with no home to go back to.

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

#470

Post by nostrademons » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #460

nostrademons wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised you're downvoted. The U.S. already has one civil war in its history, conducted when the 2nd amendment was in force and even more people owned guns than do today. It played out exactly like what the grandparent said was ridiculous: the respective militaries fired into every rural and urban home, set whole plantations on fire, destroyed their own infrastructure, killed their brothers and extended families, fo…

The second amendment was nothing then like it is today; until 2008 it has been interpreted to mean the states have a right to raise a militia, not as an individual mandate to possess firearms.

And yet people did possess firearms - it was pretty necessary when living an agrarian life on the frontier, then as now.

Curious how you think that would alter the conclusion? If anything organized resistance would be more effective then, because you already had state militias and rough technological parity with the military.