herrjr

iTrader: (12)

I'm well aware of that. This was not a refund that was garnered through just running a turbotax or going to H&R Block. I had to pay a qualified accountant to help me get some of what they took back. Furthermore, where's my 5-figure refund check for all of the Social Security and Medicare amounts that are taken from me annually? Practically every time I read about those in the paper, it's stated that both those programs will be insolvent decades before I am allowed to access them. WTF! So I (and other producers of my generation) are the losers in this FDR-Ponzi scheme; how wonderful.

flatline

iTrader: (11)

Correct. You only need to identify your SPF if you have commited a crime or if you are being detained for reasonable suspicion of commiting a crime.

If it's a completely consensual encounter you can tell the cop to go **** him/her self haha. Sucks but oh well !!

psoper

No, valuing freedom (what's left of it) is all well and good, but I think it is silly to think that standing up to those who are in the process of denying you your freedom using small arms is going to win your freedom back, in fact standing up to authority with small arms is more likely to land you either in prison or dead.

I've never been to Iran so I'm not really in a position to comment on their internal politics, my guess is that not only could they keep them down but they could also claim justification in slaughtering more of them if they were armed.

"did it's thing" i.e.; denied those people their rights, but it "wasn't our problem", yeah I get that...


(since both happened at the same time- over 50 years ago, I think both examples belong together)


If you want to extend the basis of my reasoning to the logical end you might arrive at that conclusion, although I think there are other possibilities, my point is that- like it or not- the Constitution has been ignored and abused to become what the Bush administration called "an old piece of paper" pretty much any attempt to "assert your rights" outside of the legislative or legal system is almost certain to wind up with you being in jail or dead, so people need to re-think the value of the second amendment, as the principles behind the framer's original intent are simply no longer relevant.

I wish it weren't that way, but it is.

psoper

Cornwallis pre-dated the US civil war by a century, and he didn't have M-1A2's or A-10's with Gau-8's on them either, or that whole "American war of independence" might have come out a little different, don't you think?

Then again, we don't seem to be able to win in Iraq or Afghanistan with those goodies ourselves, so I'm not sure what the lesson is here...

herrjr

iTrader: (12)

Iran - I've never been there myself, but based upon first-hand information from those who have, another option is that since there are far more protestors than security forces, then they actually may get what they were seeking and have the incumbents removed.

did its thing - the its here is possessive; thus, it is not the contraction of the two words "it is"

Iraq and Afghanistan - these are occupational wars, not wars in the traditional sense. Hence, nothing is "won" in these locations until the infrastructure is complete and the nation stabilized. On a side note, I think that being there is an utter waste of time and resources. We can't seem to get the oil out of there, and frankly, I could care less what happens in either country. What matters to me is that billions of US dollars from taxpayers like myself are being funneled to them, but I don't see "what's in it for me."

Finally, the main issue at hand. You think it's silly to protect what little freedom we have left, aside from within the court system, a system that we have seen over time erode the very liberties that they were supposed to protect. There is no other end point to be reached here. So might as well hop on the bus, based upon your reasoning.

Furthermore, if arms have to be taken up to protect one's liberty, I gather that it is evident that there is no other alternative but to be captured or to die. That is the point of weapons! There is no more diplomacy possible when a confrontation has reached the point wherein either party resorts to weapons. So if the millions of armed Americans chose to stand together to protect themselves against tyranny, that's still silly? Notwithstanding the pessimism that people would choose to unite in such a manner, I hardly think that the government should be given sway to erode anymore of the Bill of Rights as it is. Whether you recognize it or not, the "principles behind the framer's intent" is all the more relevant now, than it was over 200 years ago, precisely because the enemy is in our backyard, and not thousands of miles away. So it is not silly to fear prison or death to stand up against an oppressive regime (read Patrick Henry), and call me "silly" if you will to think that it would be better to have arms, then no arms, in this current situation. Molon Labe!

AntiochCali

iTrader: (1)

Even with those goodies, if enough people move, the govt doesn't have the force to control everyone.

It's odd, but in govt class, we would discuss what would be required to cause a city to fail - it's surprisingly few! The professor was involved back in the early 60's with the race riots in Chicago and LA. LA had way more people but were not as effective as the much smaller group in Chicago. I'm positive that this would still work today, and I'm surprised it hasn't happened.

In another govt class we discussed how to overthrow our govt. at the time the US pop was something below 250M and the required number of "revolters" to affect major change was around 5M. These are estimates but they were done with a lot of research - what they did was with hold their taxes....but they had to all be in a geographically narrow region, i.e. 5 M across the whole country wouldn't work, but if large portions of Il and OH did it...it becomes a serious mess for the govt.

herrjr

iTrader: (12)

This was actually an idea that I had as well. Not paying taxes is the best method of non-violent revolt that I can imagine. You just need to do it with more people than they can throw in jail. I don't think that even 5 million people would be necessary for it to work, provided it's the right set of people. Since the government grabs our money before it hits most of us through withholding, the best option for this to occur is at the self-employed level. Everyone that pays income tax once a year, who pay it only after they've been paid themselves, is the best group to employ this course of action. But this is only possible through strength in numbers. "By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall" (from Dickinson's Liberty Song).

Each one of us individually is like a twig to the government (and alone it can do "its thing" to us), but together, as a large enough group, we can be strong enough that no force can overwhelm us, and would instead be the overwhelming force ourselves. It is clear that this is an understanding that the Founding Fathers realized. And it is also evident, that by continuing to promote divisions among people, whether through ethnicity/race, class, sexual orientation, lifestyle choices, etc., that the government has found a simple way to be able to "govern" us at their will, rather than by our own.

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