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OpenID mhelie said...
The nature of warfare has changed to such an extent that well-regulated militias are completely obsolete. It used to be that all that was expected of a fighter was to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other guys like him and fire at the same time in coordinated volleys. That meant that every man had to be armed and every man had to be drilled regularly, thus "regulated". When it came to police duty, that was mostly handled with edged weapons, not firearms.
Today firearms are used only for personal protection, and even then only for limited personal protection. In today's war it is hidden bombs and traps that the big militaries of the world have trouble with. There is no amount of firearms that can protect someone from a nuclear-armed state with armored troops. So the second amendment has no real meaning. It should either say "ingenious bomb-making being necessary in the defense of the land, the right to tinker shall not be infringed" or "the protection of civil order relying on armed citizens, possession of personal arms shall not be infringed".
My point ultimately is that you can't rely on outdated laws to protect your rights in this day and age. You have to make new laws or just accept being an outlaw.
Hi Mhelie,
Well regulated means well equipped (guns, ammo, food, clothes)
You have the wrong impression and that's part of the brainwashing by the powers to be.
Truth is, on an open declared war, government vs citizens on American soil, the armed population will win all the time. Any strategist knows that.
Its impossible to defeat millions of armed citizens spread all over the country, on every branch of the government, already located at their homes. That was the purpose of the second Amendment. The government knows it so it steps carefully on this ground, the only choice is being sneaky about restricting liberties little by little. The 2A is as explicit as it gets, so that's a big problem for them.
"Today firearms are used only for personal protection"
So Mausers, Aks, FAL, ARs, Glocks, 1911s, those aren't used for warfare? WWII was fought with Garands and Mauser rifles you know?
"There is no amount of firearms that can protect someone from a nuclear-armed state with armored troops."
Said the guy that didn't realize that a handful of fanatics with box cutters could change the world as we know it.
You can't "nuke" a terrorist cell any more than you can "nuke" patriots, specially when the patriot lives on the next block and you dont even know it.
"My point ultimately is that you can't rely on outdated laws to protect your rights in this day and age. You have to make new laws or just accept being an outlaw."
Its not a law, its the acknowledgement of a right. Nothing is more prime and basic than the right of free speech and the right to defend yourself, both as an individual from any sort of bodily harm and as a population against tyrants.
It's the kind of thing you DONT change if you want a free country. It never gets outdated.
Yes, USA is a free country, if you don't think so go visit Venezuela or Cuba for a while, live there as they do for a few years, and regain the perspective you lost.
FerFAL
22 comments:
Dear Mhelie,
You might be surprised to find that the Arizona state constitution says all capable people from 18 to 45 are in the state militia. http://www.azleg.state.az.us/const/16/1.htm
Mexico has a "2nd admendment" too. However the government does not allow the adverage person to have.
It's not the paper (laws) it's the people that matter. Try having a gun in NYC.
I think mhelie has a point. A modern "militia" would be a light infantry force, facing a modern military with air power and armor. In the 18th century, you could muster a bunch of citizens and expect them to be suitably skilled with a musket, and roughly able to withstand a modern military of the day, because the "modern military" was basically staffed by the same type of people.
The right to "bear arms" is a basic right to object possession. Any attempts at gun control should be resisted, because it's a sign of infantalization and distrust ("You might put your eye out with that dangerous thing. We'll have to take it from you."). Possession of a tool, even a weapon, should be free because possession is not illegal use. Owning a gun isn't murdering someone with it.
But the 2nd Amendment is an out-of-date expression of a military truth that's no longer true.
Interestingly enough, there is a federal statue on the books. Instead of quoting at length, I'll just link.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/usc_sec_10_00000311----000-.html
TITLE 10 of the U.S. Code is the law that describes the U.S. Militia: Composition and Classes:
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
The Vietnamese were only armed with individual weapons but they won the war (but not any battles) and the Afghans were only armed with individual weapons, but they won against the Russians.
Only a fool would fight 100 million patriots armed with 300 million weapons. Especially when those patriots lived next door, have infiltrated every facet of government, and outnumbered the active duty military by 100 to 1.
FerFal = My new hero!
Well put and excellent.
At times I get really discouraged as to where America and the rest of the world is heading. Then I come to this blog, read about a guy an entire world away who speaks a different (primary) language and he gets it!
It's too bad those of us who "get it" can't just form our own country and let the socialists/communists/statists/tyrants and their supports enjoy their consequences.
Well put Ferfal. Many Americans are so hypnotized by propaganda being served up as news in America, that they will gladly give up their rights.
More and more America is a nation of fools and miscreants who would no sooner stand up to a tyrant than they would run into danger to save a baby.
Unfortunately we are becoming a nation of self righteous cowards.
Folks who think light infantry with small arms cannot fight back against a first class army has obviously never studied the Vietnam War, the Afghan Russian War, the Sino-Vietnamese War, the War in Lebanon, the Sino-Japanese War. . .and on it goes.
Eastern armies having been doing more with less for the last hundred years.
Check it out.
The closest thing to a standing modern militia there exists in this world today is the Hezbollah group in Lebanon. They have guns but they are not stupid enough to fight the Israeli Army in a symmetrical battle. Instead they hide underground and strike only when they can get an advantage, mostly with explosives.
It doesn't matter that a militia like the Viet Cong can't fight a U.S. army division head-on. An infantry division can't fight an artillery barrage either. A platoon of marines running up the beach to capture a bunker doesn't have a fair fight against a machine gun nest. The rule in war is to only fight the enemy on your terms. War is just a long series of unfair massacres, and it only looks like a war because we see the larger pattern out of it.
Some people can't see that there is a war with terrorism, for example, because they are missing the big picture. But terrorism is war just as much as air strikes or sniper fire or a spy team killing a terrorist in a Dubai business hotel is war.
You don't even have to go so far back as Vietnam to see this. Just take a look at Afghanistan, where for NINE YEARS our army has failed to control an area with less than a tenth the area or population of the USA. Same for Iraq. Look at Gaza, where for decades, the Israelis have failed to control an area the size of a city. Or Iraq, or Lebanon, or Chechnya, where even genocide has failed to control the Chechens fully.
As soon as conflict against the people began here in the USA, even a minority side would field MILLIONS of guerillas.
Don't forget either, people in the US know how to make things as well. There would be underground factories churning out all of the other materials of guerilla war within months, if not weeks. The right to bear arms in a country like this one garauntees the freedom of the people -eventually- in any situation of open oppression.
That's why the parties work so hard to convince you that they're on your side. If they don't get votes, they can't hope to hold power illegally through force.
It's only as long as you continue to vote for them that you will have to continue to put up with all of their ludicrous policies.
Folks, ever hear of the war between the merc firm Executive Outcomes and Sierra Leone's RUF in the mid-90s?
Who had the greater armed numbers? Who outnumbered who?
And to think that EO didn't have nukes. Hell, unlike, say, the North Vietnamese army that invaded South Vietnam in April 1975--hello, "Jack" and "Anonymous"!--EO didn't even have *heavy* armor.
Amazing the devastation a "professional" minority can wreak on superior numbers, isn't it? Even without the "heavy" stuff that a "real" military used by a nation-state's government would be expected to us(e.g. nukes--or other kinds of WMDs, an air force, heavy armor,choice among *several* kinds of "elite" or "special forces" outfits, conscript armies [for American readers: probably more likely with invading foreign armies than domestic tyranny, but I digress...], etc.)
Now, does the above historical example *necesarilly* negate the concept of the "militia"? Well, that's a good question, isn't it?
I too, have to say it's nice and not altogether unexpected, to find someone from a different country who really gets what our Bill of Rights and Constitution of The United States are all about. So much for "no child left behind", it seems that we're raising a nation of idiots thanks to all the money spent on education.
It's is one thing to fight a foreign invading force. But its another thing to use those same weapons in a civil war against your own people.
You need to be seriously committed or opposed with your beliefs to kill your own countrymen. For example 'communist forces fighting free capitalist forces'. There needs to be a great fear or great polarizing force for a people to take up arms en masse and slug it out with each other for domination or independence.
I wonder if Argentinians being armed akin to the U.S would have made a difference after their financial collapse. Something tells me they are too proud to truly fight for their independence, more likely you'd get something like Somalia, a warlord/religious cleric paradise and hellhole for the average guy.
1) Founding Father James Madison had enormous influence on the Constitutional Convention that created the US Constitution --and it was he consolidated proposals from the States to create the Bill of Rights --the first 10 Amendments. Including the Second.
2) In order to convince Americans to accept the new Constitution, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay wrote a series of newspaper articles (The Federalist Papers) explaining the reasoning behind the Constitution. Available online here: http://www.foundingfathers.info/federalistpapers/fedi.htm
3) These are not uniquely American concepts -- those who study history and political philosophy recognize ideas that go back 2400 years in Western civilization. Aristotle [circa 400 BC] developed the idea of a mixed government Republic in his Politics, for example, and it was passed down via Polybius [100 BC] and Machiavelli [circa 1500 AD].
4) American education largely ignores the subject of political philosophy nowdays -- but anyone who claims to be a free man should understand it. ( Which may be why it is no longer part of our K12 education. )
5) Re the militia, James Madison explicitly states the same view as Ferfal's in Federalist 46.
Here is an excerpt from Federalist 46 -- in which James Madison, Father of the US Constitution and later President of the United States, endorsed the same argument as Ferfal:
"Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger.
The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms.
This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.
It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it.
Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.
Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes.
But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it."
1) Some urban intellectuals, arrogant in their college education, proclaim that the Constitution provides no "right of revolution" and that only the ignorant believe it does.
2) Those morons, for some reason, have overlooked the Declaration which created the United States. An excerpt from that Declaration:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
You are absolutely correct in distinguishing between 'laws' and constitutional rights such as the 2nd amendment. It's does not matter what people perceive the meaning of 'militia' to be today, the Supreme Court has affirmed over and over that this amendment refers to the enduring right of individuals to possess firearms. As you point out the fact that the language is in some ways archaic does not change the intention or meaning. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise is being dishonest.
GlobalSovereignty - why are you posting as both mhhelie and GlobalSovereignty? And the disorganized pattern of speach resembles Edgewise - are all three of you the same person?
Edgewise said... "unlike, say, the North Vietnamese army that invaded South Vietnam in April 1975--hello, "Jack" and "Anonymous"!--EO didn't even have *heavy* armor."
I don't know why you'd call me out, but North Vietnam didn't win by using heavy armor on the U.S. forces. And, in 1975 when North Vietnam captured Saigon our military forces were long gone. The North Vietnamese used small arms to inflict enough punishment that the will of the American people collapsed. They didn't do that with armor or nukes.
Militias are obsolete, huh?
Let's put aside Vietnam and the rest of the post-WW2 conflicts. Those are telling, but others have mentioned them.
Let's look at one quote from WW2 itself. Josif Broz Tito was the leader of the Yugoslav resistance. He later became Marshall Tito, who ruled Yugoslavia until his death, and though he was a Communist he often irritated the Soviets a LOT. Enough so that if he was a pushover his nation would have been invaded by them and he and his regime replaced, like the Hungarians and Czechs in '56 and '68.
While the leader of the Yugoslav partisans, a reporter once asked him, "How can you possibly lead a successful resistance against the Germans, with their new Panzers, while your forces are armed only with old rifles?" His response is a constant nightmare for all would-be tyrants:
"When the Germans get out of their new Panzers to take a piss, my partisans will shoot them with their old rifles."
This is classic Sun Tzu - never fight an enemy where he is strong, only where YOU are strong. A force of partisans with old and limited equipment should never fight a modern army in a set-piece battle - it will lose every time. Instead, fight a war of ambushes. Have decentralized command and control (or none - just leaderless resistance). Kill one or a few soldiers at a time, steal their weapons, ammo, equipment and food, and then melt away. Do that 1,000 times or more, and you slowly bleed an enemy to death. An elephant cannot defeat a million ants - it may kill hundreds of thousands, but the ants always win in the end with the elephant ending up as a pile of white bones, picked clean of all flesh.
So shall end any governmental attempt to impose a dictatorship on the American people - whether our own government or any combination of others. So say 100 million gun owners with their quarter of a billion guns and their dedication to liberty.
III - We are everywhere
Molon Labe!
in response to the example of Executive Outcomes I'd like to clear up a thing or two. Before i do I'd like to make perfectly clear that i support the militia movement in America and am a proud volunteer and an elected unit Commander. Executive Outcomes is not a usable example, where a militia may be capable of only the most basic training and equipment EO was the elite of the elite. Formed by ex-special forces and secret police from South Africa they possessed a great deal of modern equipment including but not limited to armored personnel carriers (APCs) and heavy ground-attack helicopters. While the rebels where indeed battle-hardened they were also ragtag, unprofessional and poorly equipped. It is not suprising or even noteworthy that EO was able to decimate and capture most of their combat troops in the diamond mines and oil fields.
Not to mention if a war were to break out in the US, the gov would never use a bomb, maybe a predator strike on a "rebel" leader but they aren't going to flatten houston.
If the gov keeps pushing, someone will shoot back. Then his friends help, then their friends help, then a movement begins and next thing you know...if your a fed you don't go outside without armor and alot firepower.
The people aren't done exhausting every other option available. Whenever the founding fathers spoke of throwing off an oppressive gov they always put in the disclaimer, as a last resort.
That means last. That means; suspension of elections, taking away second amendment, dissolving the constitution in a "world" sovereignty deal, etc...feel free to fight. Until then, the battle is in public debate and the voters booth.
Also, i'm sorry ferFAL, but well regulated does not mean equipped, it means regulated at the state level, this is in the writings of benjamin franklin, founder of the first militia.
The national guard is our modern organized militia while the unregulars are the offset state militias that act as reserves/backup to the national guard.
The problem is our state politicians have a hard time saying no to washington, maybe that will change after the health care thing is finally settled, if the states win.
I could go on about how civil war is unfeasable due to the logistics of states dependence on fed assistance and such, but it would be LONG so i'll leave it at that.
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