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Eric the Green, it's pretty clear from your post there's no hope of convincing you of anything outside of the dogma of political correctness on gun control, but just to satisfy your curiosity regarding the link to democracy and individual liberty, I will point you to my writeup on how military technology dictates political organization and has done so since at least the beginning of the bronze age:
http://psychohist.livejournal.com/77711.html
I have not yet written a planned follow on regarding how nuclear weapons will change standard forms of government over the coming centuries, but if you grasp the historical influence of military technology on political organization provided at the above link, you should be able quickly to see how obsolescence of firearms likewise makes democracy obsolete.
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09-07-2016, 12:14 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-07-2016, 12:21 PM by Eric the Green.)
(09-07-2016, 12:04 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Eric the Green, it's pretty clear from your post there's no hope of convincing you of anything outside of the dogma of political correctness on gun control
Or you, I imagine....
The situation here is that you are not able to refute my comments, so you just talk about my "dogma"....
Quote:, but just to satisfy your curiosity regarding the link to democracy and individual liberty, I will point you to my writeup on how military technology dictates political organization and has done so since at least the beginning of the bronze age:
http://psychohist.livejournal.com/77711.html
So the people can't decide, whether by politics or revolution, what kind of military technology they should have? This sort of mechanistic causation cannot explain human behavior, and scarcely coincides with the idea of "liberty" for the individual.
Quote:I have not yet written a planned follow on regarding how nuclear weapons will change standard forms of government over the coming centuries, but if you grasp the historical influence of military technology on political organization provided at the above link, you should be able quickly to see how obsolescence of firearms likewise makes democracy obsolete.
Obsolescence of firearms only means that humans are learning to solve their disagreements without shooting each other. Don't you think that should become obsolete as humans mature? Or do you want to live forever in a neighborhood with barred windows in homes that you can't leave unless in an armoured vehicle? Have you any notion of the possibility that humans can live in peace with one another?
Nuclear weapons have been around since 1945. So I imagine if your theory is correct, that democracy should have vanished by now. Instead, it has expanded across the globe, and even people in the tyranny-bound Middle East are rising up for it, and giving up their lives for it.
I have already refuted the statements in your essay.
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09-07-2016, 12:22 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-07-2016, 12:23 PM by Warren Dew.)
(09-07-2016, 12:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: So the people can't decide, whether by politics or revolution, what kind of military technology they should have?
Did you read the article? No, people can't "decide" to eschew iron age technology in favor of sticking with bronze, nor to stick with plate armor and swords when the enemy is using firearms. People who so "decide" will soon - which is to say, within a small number of generational cycles - be conquered by others who use the more effective technology.
You didn't read the article, did you?
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09-07-2016, 12:44 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-07-2016, 12:50 PM by Eric the Green.)
(09-07-2016, 12:22 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (09-07-2016, 12:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: So the people can't decide, whether by politics or revolution, what kind of military technology they should have?
Did you read the article? No, people can't "decide" to eschew iron age technology in favor of sticking with bronze, nor to stick with plate armor and swords when the enemy is using firearms. People who so "decide" will soon - which is to say, within a small number of generational cycles - be conquered by others who use the more effective technology.
You didn't read the article, did you?
Yes I did!
People and societies are not solely determined by their technology; people decide what technology they have. I know that's a different philosophy from materialism, but the facts about how societies evolve are a lot less clear than any doctrinaire single-cause philosophy (even mine that I just expressed) can assert.
Your theory is so full of holes that it's a waste of time to refute them all. You need to think more clearly.
The arms you mention here are all individual arms. So according to your theory, of course 18th and 19th century individually-operated arms will "trump" the earlier ones. All that means is that advanced technological societies will conquer less advanced ones. No shit; but so what? That doesn't say a thing about those societies. Arms are not the only thing that determines what kind of society people have. Such a one-sided theory of causation is worse than Marx.
Who says that history is still all about who conquers who? We now live in a world where unjustified conquest of other states is frowned upon and even resisted by the international community.
And our democracy does not depend on a bunch of gun fanatics who refuse to go beyond their fearful ignorance. And armies have never been made up of militias composed of individual firearm owners. You seem to forget that little detail. States provide for armies by taxing their citizens and providing arms to the soldiers they draft or hire.
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(09-07-2016, 12:22 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (09-07-2016, 12:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: So the people can't decide, whether by politics or revolution, what kind of military technology they should have?
Did you read the article? No, people can't "decide" to eschew iron age technology in favor of sticking with bronze, nor to stick with plate armor and swords when the enemy is using firearms. People who so "decide" will soon - which is to say, within a small number of generational cycles - be conquered by others who use the more effective technology.
You didn't read the article, did you?
Warning, Eric has his own ideas of how things are and ought to be. Little things like fact and history aren't allowed to get in the way of his perception of how the world works. In this he is not alone, not hardly, but communicating with him is very difficult. The problem is less one of logic and fact, more like a problem communicating with an alien species that perceives reality in a very different way.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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That's okay. I perceive reality differently than most people too. He's a blue boomer, I'm a red pill boomer.
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09-07-2016, 02:25 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-07-2016, 02:25 PM by Mikebert.)
Well I read the article and it contained whoppers like this:
Quote:Why do we have tablets showing that the central governments of the bronze age tracked taxes down to the individual farm?
The whole article is hopelessly naïve like the quote above. Who wrote this thing?
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(09-07-2016, 02:21 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: That's okay. I perceive reality differently than most people too. He's a blue boomer, I'm a red pill boomer.
Good enough. This might provide you two with long term entertainment possibilities.
I hope you don't mind if I run and hide? I'd been playing the roll you're taking. If this were the WWE, I'd tag my partner and head for the locker room. 
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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(08-30-2016, 10:18 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Quote:I could drop you off in wild places where you wouldn't make it back to civilization alive. You don't understand power or nature. You certainly aren't ready for the responsibility that comes with it. You've barely even left home in your lifetime.
Maybe; maybe not. How would you know?
Quote:Your politics have chained you to the to the arrogant notion of wilderness as just another human resource to be controlled rather than understood and embracing your connection to it. That's a big part of the problem. As I've often said, when you folks run out of water don't bother coming east.
My politics has not caused me to have a view about Nature; Nature causes me to have a view about politics. I know that your anarchist, pro-business philosophy is the greatest threat to Nature that exists. It's the corporate world that looks at Nature as another human resource to be controlled; not green, semi-hippies like me.
Frankly it's pretty easy to tell the difference between life-long urban dwellers and their rural opposites.
Semi-hippy? I was raised by total hippies. The family farm was essentially a hippy commune in the 70's. My grandmother was fond of collecting strays (both people and animals). It made for an interesting childhood. It was never a political thing and still isn't. It was a family thing. Politics is just an arbitrary construct used to derive power from the many for the few. The resulting divisiveness is an important part of the bread and circuses you so desperately cling to. Funny that while you grew up during the time of hippies, all these years later you clearly never got it.
The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If any one denies my right, let him try conclusions with me. -- Lysander Spooner
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09-07-2016, 03:50 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-07-2016, 03:52 PM by Warren Dew.)
Bob Butler 54
Warren Dew
That's okay. I perceive reality differently than most people too. He's a blue boomer, I'm a red pill boomer.
Good enough. This might provide you two with long term entertainment possibilities.
I hope you don't mind if I run and hide? I'd been playing the roll you're taking. If this were the WWE, I'd tag my partner and head for the locker room.
----
I can't promise to hold down the fort, I'm afraid. I'm not really here to argue politics for fun; there are other forums I use for that. I'm hoping rather to explore the implications of the Strauss-Howe generational theory for the coming crisis and the subsequent cycle with others who are used to thinking in those terms.
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(08-30-2016, 10:20 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (08-30-2016, 03:14 PM)Copperfield Wrote: (08-26-2016, 10:50 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think he's in Maine, but he probably doesn't want to say.
You should learn to cherish anonymity. Did you know that, thanks to the FCC, your home address is quite easy to find with the simple Google search? 
I'm not too worried about who might find me. Should I be??
If you value your identity and privacy, yes. Identity theft is a very real thing these days. People who share a bit too much info about themselves online is a personal pet peeve of mine (say that five times fast). But hey, it's your data. Do as you will with it at your own peril.
The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If any one denies my right, let him try conclusions with me. -- Lysander Spooner
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(09-06-2016, 11:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: This is a common argument but quite incorrect. I am always surprised that any government would recognize in its constitution the right of the people to rise up and overthrow it by force of arms. The second amendment is indeed about the need of a free state to protect itself. The need to put down uprisings and repel invasions is specifically mentioned in the constitution, iirc. That's why the militia was needed. It was probably intended to repel a slave rebellion. In any case, the people can't protect themselves from the government through their individual right to bear arms. The government has to enforce law and order and protect itself from invasion. It has to be armed, therefore, and is always likely to be better armed than individual gun owners are. The only way for the people to threaten the government violently with guns is to do what Dixie did; form an alternative government, conscript an army, equip it with all the weapons an army can muster, and make itself into the very kind of state that you are rebelling against.
So yeah, you should probably read the declaration of independence too. It pretty clearly spells out the natural right of revolt, violently if necessary (hint: it's part and parcel of the right to self-defense).
(09-06-2016, 11:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The idea that the people protect themselves from the government with their own arms, suggests that police shooting unarmed black people has justified what the guys did in Dallas and New Orleans in response, and shooting police/the government by themselves. I disagree; they did not have the right to go kill police. Black lives matter, and the Black Panthers did some things right, but no, the people do not have the constitutional right to shoot the government or rise up and overthrow it-- unless they are ready to set up an alternative state of their own with their own constitution and defend it with a full army. Talk like this from Warren Dew suggests that many people today are ready for civil war, and have utterly given up on law and politics as an alternative. Be sure and understand what you are getting into with your calls for individuals to be armed to "protect themselves from the government." It means civil war and gross slaughter, for which the rebels will suffer disproportionately.
When a government declares war on its own citizens as the US has for decades, one has to eventually expect a response from those same citizens. People will only tolerate bullshit for so long.
(09-06-2016, 11:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: This is a strange statement that takes me aback. So Warren, you are saying here that free governments need to have large numbers of armed citizens ready to fight wars, which really means drafting huge numbers into the army, and without this the people lose their freedom.
It's called a militia. No need for a draft. War being a political thing tends, to happen a lot more with standing armies under political control. That's kinda why the US Constitution suggests that the government shouldn't rely on standing (i.e. full-time) armies.
(09-06-2016, 11:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Armies do not consist of such individualist libertarian anarchist gun toters. Governments build armies by putting young people into their armies and taxing their citizens to put lots of military weapons in their hands and at their control. So what are you talking about here, Warren? Make some sense of your statement, and take responsibility for it if you can. I don't think you can.
Ummm yeah, sometimes they do consist of such individualist libertarian anarchist gun-toters. You really should keep up on current events.
The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If any one denies my right, let him try conclusions with me. -- Lysander Spooner
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(09-07-2016, 12:44 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: And our democracy does not depend on a bunch of gun fanatics who refuse to go beyond their fearful ignorance. And armies have never been made up of militias composed of individual firearm owners. You seem to forget that little detail. States provide for armies by taxing their citizens and providing arms to the soldiers they draft or hire.
Still trotting out that factually incorrect argument? Many of the military units in the American Civil War were militia (especially early on). As for your inevitable "but that was 150 years ago!", please see my above link on Kurdish People's Protection Units.
The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If any one denies my right, let him try conclusions with me. -- Lysander Spooner
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09-07-2016, 04:35 PM
(09-07-2016, 02:31 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Good enough. This might provide you two with long term entertainment possibilities.
I hope you don't mind if I run and hide? I'd been playing the roll you're taking. If this were the WWE, I'd tag my partner and head for the locker room.
I always knew you were a Kevin Owens guy.
The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If any one denies my right, let him try conclusions with me. -- Lysander Spooner
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09-07-2016, 04:43 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-07-2016, 04:43 PM by Copperfield.)
(09-01-2016, 03:46 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: The obnoxious class clown has no clue about our geo. None whatever. New England is OK in some ways but lacks the true expanses of wide open country and high country we have out here.
Seen it. My brother was stationed at Pendleton for the better part of a decade. Not my place, nor my people. We are woodlands folk here. The Pacific Northwest is better suited to our particular disposition. If I want wide open expanses I just go visit Nebraska for a few weeks until I get bored of all the cornfields.
The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If any one denies my right, let him try conclusions with me. -- Lysander Spooner
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The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If any one denies my right, let him try conclusions with me. -- Lysander Spooner
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(09-07-2016, 06:33 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: (09-07-2016, 05:56 PM)Copperfield Wrote: (09-07-2016, 05:11 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: (09-07-2016, 04:43 PM)Copperfield Wrote: (09-01-2016, 03:46 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: The obnoxious class clown has no clue about our geo. None whatever. New England is OK in some ways but lacks the true expanses of wide open country and high country we have out here.
Seen it. My brother was stationed at Pendleton for the better part of a decade. Not my place, nor my people. We are woodlands folk here. The Pacific Northwest is better suited to our particular disposition. If I want wide open expanses I just go visit Nebraska for a few weeks until I get bored of all the cornfields.
You think this entire state (or the entire Western US for that matter) is like the Orange County - San Diego County border area? Seriously?
Never said it was actually. Those were your words, not mine.
Point being, you seemed to imply Eric and I, living in the Bay Area, have no concept of nature or dealing with rural settings. Sure we have big cities here in the Western US, but you get into the back country quick here. Want a work out? I've got some timber to clear out at the back part of my place. Or I could put you to work over at the side, where it's a south facing canyon wall dense with chaparral. Need a defensible space restored over there.
Oh goodness no, we have enough fire wood work to take care of here. Winter is coming soon after all. Actual real winter with feet of snow and ice and shit.
The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If any one denies my right, let him try conclusions with me. -- Lysander Spooner
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Well said, Mr. X. I don't think Mr. Copperfield acknowledged your point.
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09-07-2016, 07:08 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-07-2016, 07:13 PM by Eric the Green.)
(09-07-2016, 04:27 PM)Copperfield Wrote: (09-07-2016, 12:44 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: And our democracy does not depend on a bunch of gun fanatics who refuse to go beyond their fearful ignorance. And armies have never been made up of militias composed of individual firearm owners. You seem to forget that little detail. States provide for armies by taxing their citizens and providing arms to the soldiers they draft or hire.
Still trotting out that factually incorrect argument? Many of the military units in the American Civil War were militia (especially early on). As for your inevitable "but that was 150 years ago!", please see my above link on Kurdish People's Protection Units.
I don't think you can take that very far. The Union and Confederate armies were classic state armies pretty soon, with a draft and big state military industrial complex behind them, and the Kurds are quite an efficient army now too, who get weapons from the good old USA courtesy of us taxpayers, and don't just bring their own.
If the individual gun owners are going to rebel or protect themselves from the government, they will need to set up a state and army of their own just like Dixie did. If they hope to win, they will need generals even more brilliant than Bobby Lee and Stonewall Jackson too.
Fanatics with guns are not who protects our rights. Believe it or not, it is the law, the courts and the police who do that, at least when they are doing what they are supposed to do. A gun-totin' fanatic has never been seen protecting anyone's rights, except perhaps their own "right" to their gun and the lands they have squatted on; usually to no avail. They might parade around black lives matter rallies, but do you suppose they have helped protect young blacks from the police? What would happen if they tried?
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09-07-2016, 07:20 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-07-2016, 07:27 PM by Eric the Green.)
(09-07-2016, 04:22 PM)Copperfield Wrote: (09-06-2016, 11:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: This is a common argument but quite incorrect. I am always surprised that any government would recognize in its constitution the right of the people to rise up and overthrow it by force of arms. The second amendment is indeed about the need of a free state to protect itself. The need to put down uprisings and repel invasions is specifically mentioned in the constitution, iirc. That's why the militia was needed. It was probably intended to repel a slave rebellion. In any case, the people can't protect themselves from the government through their individual right to bear arms. The government has to enforce law and order and protect itself from invasion. It has to be armed, therefore, and is always likely to be better armed than individual gun owners are. The only way for the people to threaten the government violently with guns is to do what Dixie did; form an alternative government, conscript an army, equip it with all the weapons an army can muster, and make itself into the very kind of state that you are rebelling against.
So yeah, you should probably read the declaration of independence too. It pretty clearly spells out the natural right of revolt, violently if necessary (hint: it's part and parcel of the right to self-defense).
Well yes, I agree. And Jefferson said a little revolution every once in a while is a good thing too. Maybe so. But this was not something that was ever going to be put into the Constitution. A government does not give a people the right to disobey its constitution or its laws. Such a revolution has to be unconstitutional, and the rebels must be ready to pay the price for their rebellion. Dixie paid the price and it wasn't pretty.
Nowadays, unlike in Jefferson's time, the influence of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. have entered the picture. In an at-least semi-civilized society like ours, non-violent revolutions work better. In places like Syria, no. The non-violent protesters needed to form an army, and they did.
Quote: (09-06-2016, 11:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The idea that the people protect themselves from the government with their own arms, suggests that police shooting unarmed black people has justified what the guys did in Dallas and New Orleans in response, and shooting police/the government by themselves. I disagree; they did not have the right to go kill police. Black lives matter, and the Black Panthers did some things right, but no, the people do not have the constitutional right to shoot the government or rise up and overthrow it-- unless they are ready to set up an alternative state of their own with their own constitution and defend it with a full army. Talk like this from Warren Dew suggests that many people today are ready for civil war, and have utterly given up on law and politics as an alternative. Be sure and understand what you are getting into with your calls for individuals to be armed to "protect themselves from the government." It means civil war and gross slaughter, for which the rebels will suffer disproportionately.
When a government declares war on its own citizens as the US has for decades, one has to eventually expect a response from those same citizens. People will only tolerate bullshit for so long.
I'm not so sure you can say the government has declared war on its own citizens. Generation X hyperbole; a common thing you are expressing, although I don't think the majority of Xers feel that way. Yes it has done some things that I would agree with you are not proper conduct on US citizens. I'm not sure it has ever been any different.
Quote: (09-06-2016, 11:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: This is a strange statement that takes me aback. So Warren, you are saying here that free governments need to have large numbers of armed citizens ready to fight wars, which really means drafting huge numbers into the army, and without this the people lose their freedom.
It's called a militia. No need for a draft. War being a political thing tends, to happen a lot more with standing armies under political control. That's kinda why the US Constitution suggests that the government shouldn't rely on standing (i.e. full-time) armies.
Why did it call specifically for setting one up, then?
Quote: (09-06-2016, 11:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Armies do not consist of such individualist libertarian anarchist gun toters. Governments build armies by putting young people into their armies and taxing their citizens to put lots of military weapons in their hands and at their control. So what are you talking about here, Warren? Make some sense of your statement, and take responsibility for it if you can. I don't think you can.
Ummm yeah, sometimes they do consist of such individualist libertarian anarchist gun-toters. You really should keep up on current events.
Yes, and the Kurds get US backing. And the Kurds are not anarchist fanatics who hate their autonomous regional state, and merely want to protect their right to bear arms. They are real freedom fighters and deserve our support.
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