Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum? • Hacker News Board

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#251

Post by mindcrime » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 4:14 PM UTC

randomsearch wrote: post #91

newbie12 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right to bear arms is also, explicitly, a protection against tyranny BY the government. Thomas Jefferson: ""When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

Interesting. But, how does owning a gun provide protection against the US military?

But, how does owning a gun provide protection against the US military?

I don't understand why people keep asking this question, and variations of it, or offering up the argument "the 2A is useless for allowing rebellion since you can't defeat the US military".

Bands of rebels armed with mostly light weapons have caused superpowers all sorts of issues: See Afghanistan, from the Soviet era through today.

And if a full fledged rebellion did break out in the US, here are a few points to consider:

1. It's likely that at least some military units would side with the rebels. So you're already not talking about a case of just "you and your AR-15 versus tanks and F-16's".

2. Nukes are effectively "off the table" since there wouldn't be much point in nuking your own country, as there wouldn't be anything left to rule.

3. A hypothetical rebellion would not be limited to just AR-15's and what-not... factor in IEDs and various kinds of improved weapons.

4. And factor in stolen / captured military weapons.

5. And factor in military weapons provided, illicitly, to the rebels by the manufacturers, distributors, foreign groups, and gosh knows who else.

6. The population of the US is somewhere north of 300 million people, right? And a significant portion of the population own firearms. How many members are in the standing US military? According to Wikipedia, there are 1,429,995 active duty members of the US armed forces. IF a rebellion had sufficient popular support, consider, as they say, that quantity has a quality all it's own.

Anyway, the point is to say that it's not as simple as "you and a gun versus the US military" if you look at the big picture. I mean, sure, if it's just you and you take on a tank with an AR-15, they're just going to run you over, game over. But if an actual, massed rebellion, with lots of popular support were to break out, those guns do matter.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#252

Post by justin66 » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 4:17 PM UTC

jpdoctor wrote: post #199

justin66 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do people feel the need to use proof by authority anyway? Either a thing is right, or it is insightful, but attributing it to dead 18th rebels does not bolster the case. There's at least one completely made up Orwell quote that gets kicked around quite a bit by conservatives. ("rough men") That one is weird: you'd think those people would be happy to NOT quote Orwell if they knew anything about his politics. I…

> I assume it's less about argument from authority and more about just a lack of eloquence or confidence on the part of the person relying on quotations to make their point. That's probably right. Hell, it's part of the reason that Hallmark greeting cards will always have a viable business model.

I really don't mind it when it's just meant to amuse people or send a nice message. When people try to engage in a battle of ideas and they rely so directly on borrowed wisdom, it can make for a boring time.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#253

Post by XaspR8d » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 4:19 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #192

mtgx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is the 4th amendment, and look how much that one is abused. In the end the Constitution really is "just a piece of paper", if not the government , not the judges , not the media , and ultimately not even the people respect it, live by it, and try to protect it as soon as it's endangered by people trying to accumulate too much power. Where are all the street protests?! I also fail to understand people who so viciou…

> Where are all the street protests?! I'm going to interpret that question literally. A key thing you have to keep in mind is that in almost all of the US outside of a few very large cities, the "street" is not a useful public place. People don't gather and interact on streets in the US. They are merely channels for cars. Protesting on the streets would be as useful in most cities in the US as wandering around next t…

I really appreciate this viewpoint, because I was trying to understand the apparent disconnect between my American and European friends on the suggestion of protesting, and now I do think the function of public space has much to do with it (also overall size of the country).

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#254

Post by cwp » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 4:19 PM UTC

Wow. This is the first time I've encountered an exception to Betteridge's law. The article makes a pretty strong argument that the answer to the headline is "yes".

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#255

Post by Goronmon » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 4:21 PM UTC

powertower wrote: post #162

flyinRyan wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Maybe you need to compare it to a country like the Republic of Congo to get an idea of what's safe and what's not. Modern US patriotism at its finest: find the shittiest place you can think of and compare the US to that to show how great it is.

Sometimes you need to compare and contrast to the worst to get an idea of what's really going on... Can you get up in the morning, turn on your coffee maker, shower, eat, get in your car, drive to work, ... enjoy your free time, etc? Do you know how many safe things need to happen for any of those events to work? Think about it. From the electricity to the police force to the gas prices and 100 other things. Or just…

Can you get up in the morning, turn on your coffee maker, shower, eat, get in your car, drive to work, ... enjoy your free time, etc? Do you know how many safe things need to happen for any of those events to work? Think about it. From the electricity to the police force to the gas prices and 100 other things.

So, your argument is that the USA is as safe as Russia and China? I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of people in those countries that were able to accomplish those tasks today without a problem.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#256

Post by Zak » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 4:25 PM UTC

astrodust wrote: post #172

freehunter wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it did lead to an insanely long battle that continued well after the official war was over in not one but two countries. The governments had given up fighting, but the civilians with guns kept US forces under constant attack for ten years.

Guns are an important tool, but it's Improvised Explosive Devices that are causing the majority of the casualties, over 63% of them in Iraq and 66% in Afghanistan. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_explosive_device ) A lot of the guns in circulation in Iraq were liberated from the army and police, or acquired through corrupt channels, originally provided by the coalition forces themselves. You credit a well a…

An advantage of an armed population is a large number of people skilled in the use of arms. Most people cannot reliably hit a person-sized target at several hundred meters the first time they pick up a rifle. Make that target a trained soldier who's moving and shooting back and the disadvantage grows much larger.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#257

Post by temp453463343 » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 4:39 PM UTC

newbie12 wrote: post #12

_airh wrote: post #8

It is strange that the same country which cherishes its 'right to bear arms' on the grounds that it gives them a level of protection that the government is unable to provide is 'happy' to build the infrastructure which allows the same government to peek into their lives. On the one hand, we don't trust the government with the basics (physical security). On the other, we trust them with information we don't want our p…

The right to bear arms is also, explicitly, a protection against tyranny BY the government. Thomas Jefferson: ""When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

The world Jefferson lived in is infinitely different from ours. There is absolutely no chance that the government of the US will turn tyrannical. none. zero. if you think there is you're nuts.

There is all sorts of talk in this comment section about how people would fight the US military and stuff like that. There people are in la-la land. I'm not going to elaborate on this but: I think it's closely tied with the American obsession with the apocalypse (see zombie/post-apocalyptic movies)

People have very very different expectations from the government now than they did even 50 years ago. No first world country (even ones that don't cherish liberty as much as us) in the past 50 years has turned to tyranny. There are studies about how past a certain GDP tyranny becomes unsustainable - and we're well past that point.

I do what to clarify that I'm not against the second amendment at all. But the argument that it's to fight the government is absolutely absurd.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#258

Post by saalweachter » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 4:40 PM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #215

saalweachter wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do believe there are sets of laws and circumstances which logically or even ethically permit it, but I think in the end The Man wins. In this case, I suspect there are federal laws against shooting FBI agents, which would trump state law. Even if there weren't, well, suspects aren't always taken alive to be vindicated in court.

I don't believe there are any laws against shooting federal agents actually, though I could well be wrong, but in the absence of a verifiable warrant, there's no guarantee that they are federal agents. Even if they are federal agents, that doesn't give them any right to enter your home without your consent, absent a warrant. I don't otherwise disagree with the synopsis you've put forth, I'm just saying that our right…

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1114

Fun fact: Timothy McVeigh was convicted of the murder of 8 federal agents who were in the Federal Building. They didn't bother to charge him with the other 160 counts of murder, because those weren't federal crimes.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#259

Post by jlarocco » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 4:41 PM UTC

newbie12 wrote: post #12

_airh wrote: post #8

It is strange that the same country which cherishes its 'right to bear arms' on the grounds that it gives them a level of protection that the government is unable to provide is 'happy' to build the infrastructure which allows the same government to peek into their lives. On the one hand, we don't trust the government with the basics (physical security). On the other, we trust them with information we don't want our p…

The right to bear arms is also, explicitly, a protection against tyranny BY the government. Thomas Jefferson: ""When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

That's not really true any more.

When Thomas Jefferson was alive it was feasible for the people to protect themselves from tyranny by fighting the government because the technology available to "normal" people was the same as available to the military.

Today it would be impossible. Even the police are 10000x better equipped than any group of civilian can be. And then there's the military...

Besides that, I'm skeptical there will ever be an issue where enough people are angry enough to start a revolt against the government. Right now people are outraged because the government is massively violating our rights, but nobody's talking about an armed revolution.

Re: Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?

#260

Post by lhc- » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 4:45 PM UTC

jvictor118 wrote: post #227

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>After all, it's not like Carrie from Homeland is chillin' at the CIA reading my texts with my girlfriend. They have neither time nor inclination for that. When you get accused of a federal crime and they use the handful of terabytes of all your data against you, what then? How can you possibly defend yourself against an entity with unlimited power and funding. Check out how much it costs to defend yourself from a fe…

See the comment below for example of a NYC terrorist plot foiled by PRISM. And by the way -- why would I be accused of a FEDERAL CRIME? I didn't do anything wrong. If anything, _their collection of my data could be used to exonerate me_. Data is a two way street. It can both prove or disprove your guilt. Be real. You and I both know that when it comes to national security, we do what we have to do. That doesn't mean…

That collection of data won't exonerate you because you won't have access to it; the only data which will be used is that which is potentially bad for you. And why would you have all this faith that the govt. is only using this data in good faith? Do you remember Aaron Schwartz? He wasn't an isolated incident: its very easy for the federal government to bring charges against anyone they want at any time, especially when they have all this data about you.