Trump..... (The Sophistry Thread)

pink poodle

気が狂っている男
I think I can see where you're heading @Zaf, but Korea wasn't an insurgency (more a Chinese and American invasion), Vietnam had aspects of insurgency supporting their rather large army of regulars (the NVA), Iraq 1 + 2 kicked off with regulars though p2 has indeed dragged on in a similar fashion to Afghanistan with insurgency. Are you suggesting that the USA itself is deteriorating into a Syrian style state? Or that a militia is the last hope of the American people? I don't want to put words in your mouth here or run on assumptions about what you're trying to say, so I am hoping you can give a fuller explanation of why you feel a militia is a good thing for American freedoms? Or if you even do think that? It's hard to tell but I think you were trying to say that? I get that you think that they would stand a fair chance against the government based on some aspects of post ww2 warfare involving uncle Sam.
 

moorey

call me Mia
I have stated it in broad, clear terms. I have now asked, on many occasions, for someone to answer my question which kicked off this entire fucking tangent, and I have been met with nothing more than "I need further clarification" or "do you mean to say?" or directly having words and opinions forth that I have never expressed being put forward as if I have.

I'm desperately sick of it. I have been labelled as far right, and a rape apologist unfairly, and now I think you guys simply expect that I am in opposition to you, when on most matters we agree on almost every detail and then maybe disagree on intended or expected outcomes in the final details.

I'm done answering this cascade of questions so that you can hold aloft some semantic victory on how I said "they're farmers" when in fact they were plumbers, accountants and armed forces armed (in a relative sense to the force opposing them) about as well as farmers. Even when I say it's an embellishment, to help conjure up pictures of medieval civilian uprisings where pitchforks overcome knights, we still have to delve into the minute details of the claim and seemingly miss the entire point of what I was saying.

Am I being that unreasonable?
You’re.
 

johnny

I'll tells ya!
Staff member
Zaf, US COIN wars in foreign lands can’t be compared to fighting a local militia in the US. The main reasons why the US, and most countries struggle to win COIN conflicts is because the have to deploy their forces to another part of the world to fight (which has many probs, like fighting on someone else’s home turf, greater expense, a harder argument to make to the home crowd funding the war with blood and treasure, etc), and the US can just pick up and leave if they have to, whereas the insurgent forces can only fight or die. Their commitment will always be greater and they will barely ever concede defeat.

These two factors are not part of the equation should the US have to combat a local insurgency. The US isn’t an outsider or invader and won’t have to coerce or compel support out of much of the population and neither will it have to navigate a foreign culture, etc.

Lastly, it will have both strategic and tactical level forces already in place and embedded within the local population so it will be nimble and agile fighting a COIN strategy right from the get-go, unlike the historical failures you refer to.

Regards the 2nd Amendment, the population already bears arms and the militias exist (waves in the direction of Timothy MvVeighs rotting corpse). Doesn’t seem to have achieved much in the way of containing govt.


PS - For the record, Korea was a conventional war anyway.
 

pink poodle

気が狂っている男
I already did @Zaf - through their anti terror laws the Americans have a system in place that could operate in a similar to that of the soviet union (particularly under Stalin) and others in the eastern bloc, should the government feel it necessary to suppress the people. Those systems of tyranny weren't undone by mass violent uprising. On their home turf the easiest militia movements of modern history to study, those of the civil rights era, were not overly successful at achieving their goals and either crumbled on themselves or ran out of steam. The victory of the civil rights movement was from persistent pursuit of peace.

Your answers come off as half expressed. I'm only asked for more from you because you seem so convicned that people put words in your mouth. I still don't know if you think America needs a militia to ensure the freedoms of their populace from the tyranny of the government? Merely that they have mention of it in their constitution, something I think most of us know. Further I'm curious to know that if you think America needs a militia (or militias even!) for the sake of freedom, would the same be of benefit to us here in Australia? From memory I believe we are considered the closest culture to America (or certainly were way back when I was at university in things like hofstede's cultural dimensions) yet our system of government is quite different, so this would be an interesting analysis. I think we all know I'd say no and that we aren't under threat of tyranny (incompetence perhaps...) but maybe I'm blind to it.
 

johnny

I'll tells ya!
Staff member
I will add; we're now five pages of posts away from when my question was originally posed, and still without a single direct (or indirect) answer to it.
If you're referring to 'the left' taking the 2nd ammendment seriously, I thought I made a fair response to that by pointing out that having the 2nd ammendement in place and the US awash with guns doesn't seem to have had any real influence on govt the way it was intended.

The logical conclusion to your comment, based on my remark, would be that it's unlikely 'the left' would take it seriously because it doesn't contain govt, it only creates a society that shoots itself up.

Hope that helped.
 

johnny

I'll tells ya!
Staff member
Oh if it is that, then I defer to my comment at the time - the left doesn't really have much of a militia.
Unfortunately they are forming now, though, after Charlottesville.

I say unfortunate because it's not to follow the fairytale of keeping govt in its box but to fight those they label as nazis.

Again, I point towards opponents of the United States (most external but some internal as well) who are working to pry this divide as wide open as they can. And, the way that the extremists on all sides are so caught up in their frenzies that they fail to see what is happening to them.
 

pink poodle

気が狂っている男
I suppose Nazis would be a form of tyranny. So can a leftist lunatic farmer with a pitch fork or gun. Violence breeds violence.

I've no doubt there's plenty of hands pulling on the seams at the moment.
 

B Rabbit

Likes Bikes and Dirt
So, I have a up coming scandal prediction...pure speculation of course.

I bet the US intel agencies told the white house that Jamal Khashoggi was in danger and the white house sat on that information/was too disorganized to act on it and now he is dead and cut up into little pieces.
 

pink poodle

気が狂っている男
Being a US citizen they may have been able to forewarn him perhaps. Given the shit storm over the Russian version, all hot air in the end.
 

pink poodle

気が狂っている男
He wasn’t a US citizen, just a permanent resident.
My bad, I misunderstood the legal resident title. Would that not come with some level of protection/rights/ownership or whatever it might be called to him and others in similar situations?
 

PINT of Stella. mate!

Many, many Scotches
My bad, I misunderstood the legal resident title. Would that not come with some level of protection/rights/ownership or whatever it might be called to him and others in similar situations?
Not really. The US have been more than happy to kill their own citizens in drone strikes and have turned a blind-eye to scores of 'political prisoners' over the years. For example Chile's dictatorship under Pinochet murdered at least 4 US citizens without any serious censure - one of which was by car bomb right in the middle of Washington DC!
Chile was regarded as an ally against communism at the time so they got a free pass.
 
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