This is referring to all the people who say I own this gun to protect against a tyrannical government. While I agree fighting a tyrannical government is noble Most of those people aren’t serious about it and are just LARPing. If you are serious about fighting for your freedom then you’d know that fighting alone will get you nowhere. No revolution or civil war has ever been won by scattered armed individuals with no organization, you need to join a group to be effective.
But all the militias are full of right wing psychos
Yeah, but you won’t be able to change their mind from the outside. Join one and try to educate them on true freedom from the billionaire capitalist class. Worst case scenario even if they don’t respond you’ll still be training and learning how to work in a group, and you can be a spy and learn their tactics and how to defeat them in the case of a civil war.
I’ll just buy the gun now and join a group once shit starts going down
That’s the wrong order, get organized and then buy weapons. Left wing organizations will be banned and forced underground long before guns are. There’s a very high probability trump will ban armed left wing groups in the next couple years, him restricting gun purchases is far less likely. It’s best to get in an organization and build trust before it goes underground because after they are banned they are rightfully more picky on who they let in for fear of informants.
We can look to the civil rights movement as an example of how to successfully enact change. Hundreds of people were killed either directly or indirectly by the state or states inaction. Thousands were injured.
Peaceful, stern protest with minimal escalation is exactly how you keep the support of outside-group ally’s. You need that. You really need that. We are a vast land mass with drastically different cultures throughout.
The alternative is more total bloodshed.
People are going to die, people are going to be injured. All we can do is attempt to control “how many” and “for how many years”.
Let’s say by some magic every person who thinks like you do is suddenly armed, in a group, and is willing to die for their ideas. Let’s say this group escalates the issue with force. How many ICE die? How many of this group dies? Now…. How might politicians spin this conflict? Think it is in your favor? Hell no. The conflict lets them abuse more power. Could it be used to expand executive authority until Trump literally dies of age? How many years is that? Is it worth it to find out?
The US civil war was the single deadliest conflict the US was in. We have only gotten better at killing each other since then.
You may have a different measure of “gone sideways” but I’m guessing thread OP has a much clearer action plan and understanding of just how sideways things can get. Our leader is still “playing” with the idea of a dictatorship. We aren’t actually in one by ‘law’ yet. That distinction is delicate and extremely important.
I get what you and cobysev are saying but it seems to me that restraint didn’t work out so well for Germany. We do live in a different time though, where the atrocities and violence by the government is easy to see. Everyone has a phone and access (until they end that too) to the videos. I think part of what matters is if the military would side with Trump. Which is why I wonder if quicker action is better before Trump finishes purging the military. Hitler had the support of the military at first so it made it easy for him to do many of the things he did, it was only later that the German military leaders opposed him (not all of them).
I guess what it comes down to is how many people are we willing to watch die/be maimed before something happens. I am personally not sure that even if the Dems win the midterms anything will change. They seem mostly spinless to me and far more about saying they are anti Trump than being anti Trump, again not all of them. I have been at to many protests where Dem reps will be on the mic saying things like “are we going to let him get away with this” or something similar and people are yelling and cheering. All I keep thinking is he is getting away with it and has been getting away with it and you are not really doing anything.
Mostly I guess if I am being honest I am frustrated and worried and do not see a way any of this ends well.
Sure, let’s look at a more recent example. In 2019 Hong Kong began protesting the CCP. The world watched and threw some support towards the protesters. If it weren’t for the 2020 pandemic that support could have changed into economic sanctions, bad global politics and loss of influence for China.
Those protests were mostly peaceful.
Imagine if they had been massively violent against the CCP military. The world would not have given two shits if the CCP stomped them harder.
Some might consider what Hong Kong was doing as “doing nothing”. Their politicians said a lot of words. And personally, I see a lot of parallels between the current CCP leadership and other dictatorships. So I think the comparison to the current US direction and action is pretty close.
Looks like this all started with “where is the line in the sand” where violence is the only option. I don’t have a concrete answer for that. Violent revolutions don’t tend to happen in developed countries with reasonable economic conditions. Despite high prices, the US is still a developed country with reasonable economic conditions. If we look at the Irish wars of the 90s it looks a lot like gorilla warfare with a lot of collateral damage. Also they didn’t get a lot of outside support, and not much changed.
So, do you want to play the long game or the short one? That determines the line in the sand. And, it is going to be different for everyone. Doubt anyone on the internet can give you a good answer on that, and if they try I’d be super skeptical.