Rationalskepticism,lol part III.

[Hermit]

There are people who argue that the USA is not a democracy. I think it is, but a deeply flawed one because of this:



And this:

[mistermack]

We have pathetic loonies, just like you, but ours don't have guns.

Neither do the pathetic sheeple of your country, who will always be sheeple and slaves to whomever does have the guns.

Seth and his loony mates are full of shit on this, as on everything else.

Yes, a majority of Americans want to keep the right to own guns. But not with any idea of taking on the government.
They just want the right to get a gun, if they feel threatened by other Americans with guns. Whether legal, or illegal.
The place has so many guns, they want the right to have one too, just in case.

If the US was NOT awash with guns, you would get very different figures for the numbers supporting the right to own them. Most Americans are not natural gun loonies, they just don't know what it's like to feel reasonably safe.

[JimC]

We have pathetic loonies, just like you, but ours don't have guns.

Neither do the pathetic sheeple of your country, who will always be sheeple and slaves to whomever does have the guns.

Seth and his loony mates are full of shit on this, as on everything else.

Yes, a majority of Americans want to keep the right to own guns. But not with any idea of taking on the government.
They just want the right to get a gun, if they feel threatened by other Americans with guns. Whether legal, or illegal.
The place has so many guns, they want the right to have one too, just in case.

If the US was NOT awash with guns, you would get very different figures for the numbers supporting the right to own them. Most Americans are not natural gun loonies, they just don't know what it's like to feel reasonably safe.

Certainly some truth in this, and it's also why I think BG is wrong in his breezy optimism that the US could relatively easily dismantle its gun culture.

It's the old "you can't get there from here" conundrum...

[DaveDodo007]

I'm coming around to Seth's anti tax arguments for different reasons, I'm sick of living in a gynocracy were men's tax dollars (pounds) are taken from hard working men and given freely to women for doing fuck all. I'm now doing my best to avoid paying any taxes in the West before I retire in Turkey. You Westerners can crash and burn for all I care.

[Hermit]

men's tax dollars (pounds) are taken from hard working men and given freely to women for doing fuck all.

Wow.

Just wow.

[Brian Peacock]

Indeed.

You could change 'women' for 'Jews' or 'Immigrants' there and it'd still remain just as coherent.

[Scot Dutchy]

men's tax dollars (pounds) are taken from hard working men and given freely to women for doing fuck all.

Wow.

Just wow.

[mistermack]

I'm coming around to Seth's anti tax arguments for different reasons, I'm sick of living in a gynocracy were men's tax dollars (pounds) are taken from hard working men and given freely to women for doing fuck all. I'm now doing my best to avoid paying any taxes in the West before I retire in Turkey. You Westerners can crash and burn for all I care.

WHA...?
Are you mental? Are you suggesting that women should pay tax, just like men?
I can't see that getting much support.

[Svartalf]

Wasn't there a case, back around 1911 of a woman doctor refusing to pay tax so long as she didn't have suffrage... and it was her hubby that got jailed?

[DaveDodo007]

men's tax dollars (pounds) are taken from hard working men and given freely to women for doing fuck all.

Wow.

Just wow.

Don't worry you have been equivocating for ever so you will get over this one instance. Nice feminist catch phrase by the way as it took you long enough.

[DaveDodo007]

Indeed.

You could change 'women' for 'Jews' or 'Immigrants' there and it'd still remain just as coherent.

No you couldn't unless you think gender is a social construct, shit I'm sorry I mentioned that.

[DaveDodo007]

Wasn't there a case, back around 1911 of a woman doctor refusing to pay tax so long as she didn't have suffrage... and it was her hubby that got jailed?

Quiet you, equility also means responsibility and accountability and you are not suppose to mention that ever.

[Svartalf]

equality implies equality, I'll stay on that tautology

[Seth]

And yet, curiously, we are governed by consent, not by force of arms, just like the US. This makes the US citizens every bit as much 'pathetic sheeple and slave' as Seth claims every non-US nation is.

That is only true so long as despotism and tyranny do not emerge in either society.

If there is a genuine fear that the US government is but mere inches away from bringing down the iron jackboot of totalitarianism, and the only thing stopping it was the fact that some citizens had some guns and half a dozen boxes of cartridges, then it would suggest that the US's democratic institutions and processes were fundamentally flawed. If the Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Armed Forces can't be trusted not to direct the military to turn on the citizenry then 1) first-and-foremost don't vote for them, 2) make the military responsible to the citizenry not the government, and 3) change the nature in which the democratic process operates.

It's not, and never has been "mere inches away" because from the very beginning an armed citizenry has kept it a long way away. That's the beauty of an armed citizenry; it deters totalitarianism and tyranny from even making the attempt to take over control of the country, plus, should some stupid tyrant try it, it provides the ultimate means of removing that tyrant and putting down the despotism.

We prefer to keep potential tyranny far away from us by being armed and prepared to defend our liberties against any pretender who might attempt it. And it works, quite well.

Oh, by the way, the military IS responsible to the citizenry, though their oath to preserve protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the nation as a whole against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Our military may be under the general command of the elected Commander in Chief as a part of our system of checks and balances, but their oath and loyalty are not to the President or the Commander in Chief, it is to the People of the United States. It is they whom the military is sworn to protect, not the operatives of ANY government.

That is precisely why our standing army is relatively small, comprised of fewer than 2 million soldiers, but our Organized and Unorganized Militias are limited in their size only by the ability of Congress or the States to call them to duty. One of the principle arguments made in the Federalist Papers in rebuttal to the objections of the Anti-Federalists regarding standing armies and the potential for centralized military despotism was the proposition that state and local militia forces could, and would refuse to march across the country to levy war upon their own countrymen:

If there should be an army to be made use of as the engine of despotism, what need of the militia? If there should be no army, whither would the militia, irritated by being called upon to undertake a distant and hopeless expedition, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery upon a part of their countrymen, direct their course, but to the seat of the tyrants, who had meditated so foolish as well as so wicked a project, to crush them in their imagined intrenchments of power, and to make them an example of the just vengeance of an abused and incensed people? Samuel Adams Federalist No. 29

First. The President will have only the occasional command of such part of the militia of the nation as by legislative provision may be called into the actual service of the Union. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 69

"This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." Alexander Hamilton Federalist No. 29

Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. 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. James Madison Federalist No. 46

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. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors.

It is certainly of the last Consequence to a free Country that the Militia, which is its natural Strength, should be kept upon the most advantageous Footing. A standing Army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the Liberties of the People. The Militia is composd of free Citizens.

Soldiers are apt to consider themselves as a Body distinct from the rest of the Citizens. They have their Arms always in their hands. Their Rules and their Discipline is severe. They soon become attachd to their officers and disposd to yield implicit Obedience to their Commands. Such a Power should be watchd with a jealous Eye.
I have a good Opinion of the principal officers of our Army. I esteem them as Patriots as well as Soldiers. But if this War continues, as it may for years yet to come, we know not who may succeed them. Men who have been long subject to military Laws and inured to military Customs and Habits, may lose the Spirit and Feeling of Citizens.

And even Citizens, having been used to admire the Heroism which the Commanders of their own Army have displayd, and to look up to them as their Saviors may be prevaild upon to surrender to them those Rights for the protection of which against Invaders they had employd and paid them.

We have seen too much of this Disposition among some of our Countrymen. The Militia is composd of free Citizens. There is therefore no Danger of their making use of their Power to the destruction of their own Rights, or suffering others to invade them.Samuel Adams to James Warren, January 7 1776

[Brian Peacock]

I smell an appeal to Constitutional Fundamentalism here.