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[Sheb]

Also, anyone commenting about industrial nations stomping guerillas need to take a long, hard look at Vietnam, Afghanistan, Algeria etc etc...

Insurrections do work. Not all the time, but they do.

[Scoops Novel]

*foreigh power with replacements* i said.

[Loud Whispers]

And now for a break from 2nd amendment rights!

Your definition of legitamate is different from mine. Legitimate does not mean "best", or "good" or even "decent". It means "acceptable". And that, the Government is. A non-legitamate government, by definition, is a inherently unstable, usually transition or post coup government. The US is neither. Is democracy, which tends to be moer legitamate then other government types.

The choice is between obstructive Party 1 or 2.

Two main points:
*Intense political media saturation (and of just the two parties),
*Oh by the Gods why are those digits so high.

Democracy does not mean choice, it means the people's rule. The US government seems anything but acceptable.

[mainiac]

Also, anyone commenting about industrial nations stomping guerillas need to take a long, hard look at Vietnam, Afghanistan, Algeria etc etc...

Insurrections do work. Not all the time, but they do.

Those are all really, really crap examples.

All three of those insurgencies didn't just pick up guns they had lying around.  They were extensively supplied by outside powers.  They were also being invaded by foreign powers except for Algeria and to different extents were actually interstate conflicts, not intrastate conflicts.  Vietnam and Afghanistan's fighting forces are far more comparable to the national guard (hey, remember that "well regulated militia" part?) then joe sixpack with his toys.  Algeria would perhaps be a halfway plausible example of where guns might have helped except it happened so long ago that it's not really relevant anymore.

Also you need to take a good, hard look at the amount of bloodshed it took to get there in those cases.  You have to have the population supporting you not just tentatively, but to the point where they are willing to suffer casualties of 5% to 33% of the population.  These insurgencies didn't spring up overnight either.  You have to be willing to spend a decade underground in your best case scenarios.  And in all these cases you have relatively humane governments (by the 80s the soviets were reducing their hardlinerness) who didn't value the territory too much.  I defy you to come up with a remotely plausible scenario where this would apply and where the rule of the ballot no longer applies.

[Sheb]

I'm not saying it makes sense, just that insurgencies can win.

[SalmonGod]

I think it's interesting how many people think any conflict against the government or any other powerful establishment these days will take the form of some sort of guerrilla warfare.  Times have changed.  The battlefield is information, not guns.  People are discredited, villified, and then locked away or killed after it's certain that not enough of the population will care about them to matter.  There will be no obvious moment when a line is crossed and everyone knows it's time to spring into action.  There will be a moment when you look back and see a vast but scattered array over years of people shut down by legal attacks launched over-zealously on the basis of petty technicalities, where the disproportionate application of the law (expanded to make any person alive eligible for identification as a criminal as soon as the overwhelming surveillance state recognizes them as an active dissident) was for the handful of people paying serious attention quite obviously motivated by challenges to legitimacy and ideology, and you will realize that no real conflict could ever possibly hope to begin under these circumstances.

[Sheb]

*cough* Syria *cough*

Information warfare is only the first step. Once the institution you oppose lost its standing in the eye of the public, then you need to leverage that to actually excert pressure. Guerilla warfare is a rather extreme form of such pressure, but the only one left when the ennemy won't bow down peacefully.

[Loud Whispers]

I'm not saying it makes sense, just that insurgencies can win.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency

Post WWII British government needs resources from post WWII Malaya to recover. Big government violently oppresses protesters in the unstable economic environment in both countries.
Some of the Malayans trained and armed (sound familiar) by the British to fight for Malaya's freedom against Japan's occupation form the Malayan people's liberation army to impose a new communist government and get the British, New Zealand and Australian forces out of Malaya.
They fought with guns they had kept post war in guerrilla warfare; and got absolutely roflestomped by the big military super power.

After that uprising is quashed, the British do some nice infrastructure building, help improve living conditions and give Malaysia independence.

I think it's interesting how many people think any conflict against the government or any other powerful establishment these days will take the form of some sort of guerrilla warfare.  Times have changed.  The battlefield is information, not guns.  People are discredited, villified, and then locked away or killed after it's certain that not enough of the population will care about them to matter.  There will be no obvious moment when a line is crossed and everyone knows it's time to spring into action.  There will be a moment when you look back and see a vast but scattered array over years of people shut down by legal attacks launched over-zealously on the basis of petty technicalities, where the disproportionate application of the law (expanded to make any person alive eligible for identification as a criminal as soon as the overwhelming surveillance state recognizes them as an active dissident) was for the handful of people paying serious attention quite obviously motivated by challenges to legitimacy and ideology, and you will realize that no real conflict could ever possibly hope to begin under these circumstances.

This. It's already been steam rolling with the patriot act and other such niceties.

[Sheb]

Oh my god, not all insurgencies won so no insurgencies can ever win!

[Loud Whispers]

Oh my god, not all insurgencies won so no insurgencies can ever win!

*Against the most modern and largest military super power in the world.

[darkrider2]

Oh my god, not all insurgencies won so no insurgencies can ever win!

*Against the most modern and largest military super power in the world.

**In its own territory.

[RedKing]

Okay....took off for a couple of days, and nobody managed to get the thread locked. Good job, guys.

Hate to bring 2nd Amendment stuff back up, but it is kind of the biggest issue right now. Tuesday's announcement of the slate of executive orders (including finally getting an actual, confirmed Director for BATF) was amazing to hear. That's the most action I've seen out of the White House in a looooong time on the issue of gun violence. My belief in Obama as a worthy President has been mostly restored, because dude's grown a sackful in the last few weeks.

It does, however, have me on edge in the run-up to Obama's 2nd inauguration. By opposing the gun lobby, he's made some powerful (and somewhat unbalanced) enemies.


Couple of interesting points I wasn't aware of until recently:

1. Ronald Reagan, the younger brother of Jesus Christ to most conservatives, supported the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. A letter that Reagan wrote in support of the legislation has been circulating the Web in recent days. Interestingly the reaction from some of the most virulent pro-gun groups has been to find a way to gently denigrate Reagan by suggesting that it was when he was really old and probably going senile.

2. The NRA, in its earlier days, supported automatic weapons bans, background checks, and a host of other regulations that they now virulently oppose as one step away from fascism.

[misko27]

Oh my god, not all insurgencies won so no insurgencies can ever win!

*Against the most modern and largest military super power in the world.

**In its own territory.

EXACTLY.

The main problem with the argument is you assume the US will operate at full capacity. The point of legitimacy is that there is open rebellion, because the leaders seen as the correct ruler's are not in power. The US, unlike many other countries, elects it's leader's directly, instead of choosing a party. It has it's problems, like exacerbating the Political divide, but it has a purpose. If that person, that person in particular, loses power for what seem to be arbitrary reasons, people get angry, as opposed to being able to hide behind the ceremonial government. You can't just say people will obey one of those, because the entirety of the US governmental system is based around preventing a tyrant from gaining power.

There will be defectors, mass strikes, people just won't listen. Add into that the power of the various state governments, and a effective counter-coup could be up in days. It won''t be Syria like insurgents, it would be every damn city government in Syria deciding simultaneously to defeat the government. It would be his entire cabinet defecting. The states have their own troopers. The problems people who create coups run into elsewhere would be double.

Also sorry, terrorists, governments and how they fall was my mother specialty when she was still a college professor.

[mainiac]

It's amazing how everyone has these perfectly accurate visions of how a hypothetical dictatorship can happen and how there is only a single way.  You guys are uncanny!  What witchcraft do you use?  Can I learn your ways?

[Sheb]

It's called "Looking at history". We don't all see the same thing though.