@Frank Gerlach - "Violence DOES work"
The point I was making, was that trotting out the complacent "an armed country is a free country" stuff doesn't really hold water, in my view.
But, basically you agree with me that in order for the armed populace to counter oppressive government, they *would* have to form some kind of militia, as per my final paragraph?
BTW, yes I have heard of the provos, but never *heard* them - I slept through their kind donation of £30 million worth of urban regeneration funding for Manchester, but my GF claimed it rattled the windows.
I think the example of the IRA is a good one in this context, because unless you view the Turner Diaries (minus the apalling racism) as a credible fortelling / strategy guide, I don't really see any mass armed resistance arising. I reckon only a very small number of people would be willing to give up their relative comfortable safety, cross a big, thick, black line on the ground and actually begin war against their own government.
And how the hell would this group of terrorists - for that is what they would be labelled by the compliant media - operate? How can they apply pressure to the government? You say the provos "Killed and bombed Whitehall into compromise". Largely true, but for the armed US patriots, traditional terror tactics are out - no bombing planes or shopping malls or or placing car bombs in urban centres for that would be murdering your own people. No attacking big business targets for the same reason.
Government buildings are being progressively hardened and protected. Security screening is becoming the norm. Military bases are pretty well placed to secure and defend themselves. Police and police stations? Maybe... local / state government? Again maybe. Low-level political assassinations aplenty? No idea...
Add in the fact that government is incrementally increasing its powers to spy on its own citizens thus making coherent organisation more and more difficult. Anything other than face-to-face communication or hand-delivered messages would be to invite discovery and exposure. Oh, and expect infiltration by military intelligence and a few informers...
I just don't see how it would work, *unless* a sizeable portion of the populace were to partake in rebellion and I don't see it happening. People have different pressure points. No one thing is going to set them all off at once, allied with the theory of frog boiling techniques.
Like I said to a previous poster - I'm quite willing, almost hopeful to find out I'm utterly wrong. At least there would be hope somewhere. I'd be interested to hear your ideas about the ultimate role of the armed populace (ie. ultimate = the arms get used) in warding off oppressive government.
Unless you don't want to give your plans away, that is ;-)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
