| From: | Sommers sommers@*****.edu |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Value and so on.... |
| Date: | Fri, 16 Jul 1999 08:29:45 -0400 |
>According to Robert Watkins, at 9:43 on 16 Jul 99, the word on
>the street was...
>
> > Lots of people would. What you do is you send the soldiers in, backed up
> > with overwhelming force, round up the citizens everywhere you go, loot the
> > houses for weapons and valuables, and deal with the various resistance
> > groups by committing atrocities such as shooting random citizens in
> reprisal
> > for resistance attacks. The militia groups with their rifles can't
> really do
> > much more than annoy, and eventually the spirit of the people gets crushed.
>
>To that I'll add a quote of American general Sheridan, when he was an
>observer in the Franco-Prussian war (1870-71): "The people must be left
>with nothing but their eyes to weep with after the war."
But how often does that work? The US had all of the high-end military gear
in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese didn't have a lot of gear at all. The
South Vietnamese, and the US forces were certainly not above the occasional
atrocities. The more they were kicked when they were down, the more they
got up to fight.
Whether or not a group of people can stage an armed uprising against their
own government is a very dicey thing. Sometimes it succeeds (Iran in 1980)
and sometimes it fails (Hungary in 1956). Just because one side has the
secret police and the tanks does not mean they can win. And just because
the other side has Right on their side doesn't mean that they will win either.
But that really doesn't matter for the US. Its not impossible, but very
unlikely that the citizens of the US would ever be able to rise up and
stage a revolution against the government. However, there are legitimate
reasons for a citizen to hold a gun. And one of them is to defend himself.
In general, the military and police do a very good job protecting our
interests. But no matter how good they are, they cannot be everywhere. As a
citizen I have the right to defend myself if I so choose. As someone else
pointed out earlier, once I give up that right, its very hard for me to
take it back.
Sommers
Insert witty quote here.
