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Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

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Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#91

Post by austhrow743 »

noonespecial wrote: post #67
austhrow743 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's better that a thousand individuals get to kill each other than one person be oppressed by a government.

Change "one person" to "all persons" and you have the heart of the second amendment argument. You may disagree, but it is not an unreasonable position.

Oh absolutely but when you phrase it like that you risk getting bogged down in the minutiae of irrelevant details like the exact impact removing/adding more guns would have on a society's homicide rate, like that's at all relevant to what is at it's core a disagreement on principles. Best to express your stance in the most extreme way possible so you don't get stuck in detail quibbles.

A disarmed society is an enslaved society.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#92

Post by Santosh83 »

nabla9 wrote: post #74
keanzu wrote: post #42

Excellent analysis here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20492145 The Chinese and HK governments have realized they've lost the culture wars and public opinion so they've resorted to the tried and tested handbook of authoritarian governments, to create a cycle of violence to create justification for cracking down. This is a provocation. Protesters will now counter arm themselves with similar bats and stick…

Non-violent resistance is an option, but it requires very tough attitude. If people would just take the beating and lay down, like Gandhi-led resistance against Brits did, it could break down the violent strategy.

May not work these days. The British were half decent and still they killed thousands of people before they left India. If the protestors continue non-violently, we'll simply see them shot with rubber bullets and carted off, or barricaded and starved out. Countries these days are willing to escalate into violence since every major country has more than enough blood on its hands and prefers tacitly looking the other way unless there is something in it for them.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#93

Post by RankingMember »

navigatesol wrote: post #80
RankingMember wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we really think that armed citizens would have a chance against the current US military? Weaponry has come pretty far since the days the 2nd amendment was created.

> Do we really think that armed citizens would have a chance against the current US military? Would it surprise you to learn that the "US military" aren't a bunch of mindless drones, but are in fact family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and fellow citizens? And that they wouldn't necessarily feel great about slaughtering their fellow countrymen?

I don't think the military are mindless drones, but yes, it would surprise me to see large-scale defection because history is littered with incidences of military being used successfully to repress citizen populations. This happens, in my opinion, for two reasons: 1. Militaries spend a lot of time breaking down and rebuilding recruits into order-following killing machines. 2. Target populations are demonized to the point that your neighbors/friends can be made to look enough like an enemy "other". Add groupthink to that and you've got a deadly situation that's not really a moral failing on the part of the soldier but a corruption of their motives by propaganda.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#94

Post by [deleted] »

simonh wrote: post #89
cgriswald wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting and protesting are resulting in oppression and physical assault. Your argument, such as it is, is equivalent to saying people should not be allowed to defend themselves, because someone might get hurt. It rests on the hidden assumption that guns cause violence, which isn't supported by the evidence you offer; and flies in the face of the actual violence in HK.

Nobody was killed in the recent violence. Are you seriously suggesting that the commuters would have been safer, and less likely to get killed, if both sides had been armed with guns?

[deleted]

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#95

Post by j_m_b »

RankingMember wrote: post #68
meddlepal wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn't to win against the US military by overpowering it, but it is to cause enough damage, death, and collateral that you bring the US government to the negotiating table when supporters realize the cost of prolonged battle. You also want to make it look as brutal as possible to get foreign support and condemnation on the world stage. Also we really don't know what would happen if the US military was asked…

I don't think we should have no recourse against a tyrannical government, but I just don't see how anyone is going to realistically go up against the US military and make even a tiny dent. To your latter point, there are constant human rights abuses/crackdowns on dissent in China, but does anyone intervene? Now consider that the US has military might many times China's. Who's going to intervene? I, too, would hope fo…

>I don't think we should have no recourse against a tyrannical government, but I just don't see how anyone is going to realistically go up against the US military and make even a tiny dent.

See Vietnam

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#96

Post by gruez »

Drakim wrote: post #65
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a hell of a lot harder (or at least more costly) to violently impose your will on people who can violently defend themselves.

A civilian population armed with guns to the teeth will still not be able to stand up even a little to a real well organized military with gear. Maybe it would be more costly, but the escalation would also provide the justification to strike down the population completely and simply murder all the protesters. Instead of reading about peaceful protesters being attacked you'd read about the military taking out insurgen…

> Instead of reading about peaceful protesters being attacked you'd read about the military taking out insurgents

I'm curious. What was the last anti-insurgent war we won? I'll list the ones where we lost: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#97

Post by simonh »

novok wrote: post #76
Drakim wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A civilian population armed with guns to the teeth will still not be able to stand up even a little to a real well organized military with gear. Maybe it would be more costly, but the escalation would also provide the justification to strike down the population completely and simply murder all the protesters. Instead of reading about peaceful protesters being attacked you'd read about the military taking out insurgen…

Afghanistan and iraq would like to talk to you

Both are very good examples of the point. Both are dominated not by free armed civilians protecting their rights, but by organised well armed militias that completely suppress the rights and freedoms of the general population in their areas of control.

Yes ordinary people in much of Afghanistan and parts of Iraq can get hold of firearms if the want to. It doesn't help them at all. They are utterly dominated by either the local militias in Iraq (Sunni and Shiia depending on their area), or by the Taliban in much of Afghanistan.

If arming everybody worked to promote freedom, then Iraq and Afghanistan would be free associations of local communities joining together to protect their liberties. That is clearly not the case, and it isn't the case in any country with weak government and pervasive access to arms. Guns everywhere make the weak weaker and the strong stronger.

Guns do not even the playing field. In practice they dramatically tilt the playing field even more in favour of those with a willingness and propensity to use violence.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#98

Post by noonespecial »

austhrow743 wrote: post #91
noonespecial wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Change "one person" to "all persons" and you have the heart of the second amendment argument. You may disagree, but it is not an unreasonable position.

Oh absolutely but when you phrase it like that you risk getting bogged down in the minutiae of irrelevant details like the exact impact removing/adding more guns would have on a society's homicide rate, like that's at all relevant to what is at it's core a disagreement on principles. Best to express your stance in the most extreme way possible so you don't get stuck in detail quibbles. A disarmed society is an enslav…

That's the tough part isn't it? It's just a cost benefit analysis. There's no "one true way". The Americans chose one end of the spectrum, the English the other. Both approaches worked out reasonably well.

That's not something either side really wants to hear these days.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#99

Post by PauloManrique »

MadSudaca wrote: post #28
sgjohnson wrote: post #7

Seems like they could use the 2nd amendment there.

The progressives in HN downvote you, but the truth is that being able to use violence to protect your individual freedoms is instrumental to democracy. Few places can boast the level of stability that EEUU has had in the last 150 years. Many were taken over by tyrants and armed mobs, than eventually chose their tyrant. It's no coincidence that in Venezuela the regime disarmed the people with a law that according to t…

1) it's false Venezuela disarmed people;

2) to say armed people can stop dictators, it's a totally braindead assumption.

Please, go understand how the world works.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#100

Post by sgjohnson »

Drakim wrote: post #65
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a hell of a lot harder (or at least more costly) to violently impose your will on people who can violently defend themselves.

A civilian population armed with guns to the teeth will still not be able to stand up even a little to a real well organized military with gear. Maybe it would be more costly, but the escalation would also provide the justification to strike down the population completely and simply murder all the protesters. Instead of reading about peaceful protesters being attacked you'd read about the military taking out insurgen…

Vietnam. US won every single battle, but failed to achieve anything.

Civilian militias have an enormous advantage over organized militaries. Guerilla tactics.

Yes, special forces employ them, but never the less, you’ll never see a special forces groups throwing IEDs on insurgent convoys.

Unlike civilians, organised militaries have rulebooks to follow.

This is true especially in authoritarian states with centralised decision making. See: the six day war. When communications were out, Arabs became mindless drones and the morale was in the toilet. Perhaps not the best example because that was organised military vs organised militaries. However, for Israel, everything was at stake. It was either victory or total annihilation.

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