He'd been on permanent disability from neurological damage suffered in Iraq
You get: risk your life for a corrupt government.
I get: a put in jail free card if you ever do something I don't like.
The whole thread is interesting to read. Here are some examples of USG rhetoric (highlights are by Michael Tracey).
Leffingwell, a military veteran who once defended the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, willfully betrayed his nation and became an enemy of the United States on January 6.
(...)
Before Leffingwell made his way to the breach, that same entrance had been overrun by rioters who streamed through the Capiton, looting, vandalizing and otherwise terrorizing a temple of American democracy.
It's noteworthy that the USG argued for lesser sentencing of a man who burned someone alive in BLM riots, saying that "riots are the voice of the unheard". Now riots and looting are suddenly Very Bad.
I could mention the historical and civic illiteracy of equating a state, and a very corrupt one at that, with "the nation", which is obviously preposterous. The nation refers to the people, which is rather separate from the government that claims dominion over that people.
Leffingwell, a military veteran who once defended the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, willfully betrayed his nation and became an enemy of the United States on January 6.
You all don't quite understand what this statement actually means. with this sentence, the government is calling him a traitor and asking for his execution.
otherwise terrorizing a temple of American democracy.
No government is sacrosanct.
I could mention the historical and civic illiteracy of equating a state, and a very corrupt one at that, with "the nation", which is obviously preposterous. The nation refers to the people, which is rather separate from the government that claims dominion over that people.
JG Stossenger has entered the chat
It's not a mistake. If the state is the nation and the nation is the state, it's Fascism. It's not the first time this regime has explicitly argued for Fascism.
Yeah, this official's statement probably sounded better in the original 18th century French. "Ce paysan périra pour son insolence! L’État, c’est nous!"
Joining the military nowadays, they force you to get the mandatory clotshot, they force diversity and equity struggle sessions on you and they also treat you like shit when you retire.
The left is succeeding in their goal to make it intolerable for conservatives to serve and thus they can easily achieve their goal of purging the military of all conservatives.
Even back in my day decades ago, that was close to 90% of their sales pitch. Part of me really feels that the entire student loan thing was deliberately designed to drive up the cost of college to force military servitude just for the middle class and poor to afford it (or be in debt prison to the government anyway).
The US has a long history of treating veterans poorly, going as far back as Washington himself. Why multiple generations of families continue to join out of "patriotism" is beyond me.
A long time ago, I was an arrogant Eurofag who posted somewhere laughing at some Americans (Democrats btw) for why America allows guns. One of them was a Southern Democrat, whose argument was that guns are good because, some day, God forbid (he said), people might have to use them against the federal government because it would have become tyrannical.
I was not convinced, and thought the idea was rather preposterous, but in retrospect, I can see the logic in the matter.
I was not convinced, and thought the idea was rather preposterous, but in retrospect, I can see the logic in the matter.
Okay, he's a scale framing exercise for you. Currently, if the U. S. Federal Government armed every single one of their active duty agents: military, reserves, every police officer able to be seconded to DHS, FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, IRS, ATF, Customs, Border Patrol, Postal Inspectors, OSHA... every single person who draws a paycheck from Uncle Sugar and can carry a gun... they would have a force shy of 5 million. We'll call it 5 million for a nice, round number. (Ignoring that some of these would desert, would refuse the call up, would turn into Mr. Magoo out of self-preservation, etc.)
Now, if you take the New Yak Time's absolute, utterly ridiculously low number for American gun owners, there are at least 20 million people in this country who own guns. It's actually probably more like 80-120 million people, but we're looking at a utterly low floor for argument's sake, here.
Tangent-- this number is just absurd, for a lot of reasons, but to give you one, July 2023 was the 48th consecutive month of 1 million plus Form 4473s being filed. That means at least 1 million guns were sold in the U.S., in July alone, and based on a lot of talking with gun store people, the average guns-per-4473 is about 1.5, so that 48 million plus forms actually probably represents 72 plus million guns sold in 4 years. Do you think that each and every one of those supposed 20 million gun owners bout 3.5 guns in 4 years? Or do you think that 100-120 million people did that much buying?
Less than 5 million versus 20 million is a 4-to-1 disadvantage. Assuming the highest sane number I've seen (120 million), that's a 24-to-1 disadvantage. That's not even counting the fact that once anything got spicy, a lot of those 5 million would get a real bad, sudden case of the Blue Flu, or just walk out after raiding the armory. That also completely disregards the fact that there is now a major corps of people who were involuntarily separated from government service for refusing to get the Clot Shot... and those were typically the competent ones.
Like I said, I do see the logic, though I'm not as sanguine about you regarding the chances of 'gun owners' vs. the state. The following is a purely hypothetical exercise, and not intended to incite anything against the noble US government, which is very ethical and a force for good in the world.
It's true that government claims that individuals can do nothing against a government force is untrue, given the fact that it got its ass kicked in Afghanistan. At the same time, Afghanistan was a very peripheral territory to the US Empire - much easier to abandon than its heartland, whose tax revenues fund the entire extent of the empire.
Assuming for a moment that there were to be an uprising by gun owners, very deplorable, then it will be scattered. For one, there are many people with different thresholds of what constitutes tyranny, which means the government can just salami-slice them - or rather, crush one group to strike fear into the rest. It would be the response to January 6 but then cubed. And I can see even here, the deterrent effects of January 6, that people fear engaging in any sort of peaceful protest, and claim that e.g. calls to peacefully protest the political process against DJT are 'federal efforts'. That may be wise, but what is the likelihood that such individuals would be persuaded to engage in (very deplorable) violence, especially after any grossly disproportionate fed response to any previous very deplorable violence?
People would rather peacefully perish than take action that risks their person and their property. If you keep your head down, then maybe the regime will leave you in peace, but if you attempt something, you will definitely not be left in peace.
Even those people were persuaded of the desirability of very deplorable actions, and they were not deterred by the government, and they thought it worthy to risk their lives. How many of the 40 million people will be left? And given that, how likely is it that it would be successful?
A very small-scale revolt that is easily crushed would be blown out of proportion, leading to even greater crackdowns on dissent and then on guns as well. Most of those 40 million will obey, as they call themselves law-abiding citizens, the rest will hide their guns and do absolutely nothing.
The point of being well armed isn't that we're going to have a large army rise up and miraculously overthrow the corrupt federal government.
The point of being well armed is that, once the disappearings start happening, the people doing the disappearing have to worry that they might not come home themselves because they run into someone who objects to being disappeared.
If all you have is silverware and kitchen knives to defend yourself when the state comes for you, you're going to probably be leaving with them whether you object to it or not.
The corrupt federal tyranny is here. It's almost certainly not going to go away quickly. An armed populace helps to accelerate its entropy.
And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
The point of being well armed isn't that we're going to have a large army rise up and miraculously overthrow the corrupt federal government.
That is the impression I got, or at least that weapons would be able to keep out federal authority.
If all you have is silverware and kitchen knives to defend yourself when the state comes for you, you're going to probably be leaving with them whether you object to it or not.
Why is this not true for criminals then?
Fun fact: in some European countries in late 2021, the police refused to enforce some coronavirus restrictions because people got angry and perhaps aggressive when they attempted enforcement. Just being obstreperous can have real effects.
The corrupt federal tyranny is here. It's almost certainly not going to go away quickly. An armed populace helps to accelerate its entropy.
Ah yes, that does make a lot of sense.
That said, how do Europeans fight tyranny? We don't have weapons, nor is there any prospect of introducing any right to weapons (would be opposed by 97%+ of the population).
No clue. Pray for mercy from the people who hate you, or for them to run out of money/resources before they get around to killing you would be my best guesses.
Not exactly. If you're in the military and say, commit rape or murder, I'm sure that will count in your favor. After all, they need people to go around the world and help them destroy one country after another.
The issue here is that they're saying that if you serve in the military, you owe them unquestioned obedience... or else.
The government probably read a few things about what large numbers of war veterans can do if not violently suppressed. Shall we speak of the Bonus Army again?
They can use that but I can also use it. I do not have to obey unlawful orders. It's my duty as a veteran to hold my superiors accountable to the crimes they committed.
You get: risk your life for a corrupt government.
I get: a put in jail free card if you ever do something I don't like.
The whole thread is interesting to read. Here are some examples of USG rhetoric (highlights are by Michael Tracey).
It's noteworthy that the USG argued for lesser sentencing of a man who burned someone alive in BLM riots, saying that "riots are the voice of the unheard". Now riots and looting are suddenly Very Bad.
I could mention the historical and civic illiteracy of equating a state, and a very corrupt one at that, with "the nation", which is obviously preposterous. The nation refers to the people, which is rather separate from the government that claims dominion over that people.
You all don't quite understand what this statement actually means. with this sentence, the government is calling him a traitor and asking for his execution.
No government is sacrosanct.
JG Stossenger has entered the chat
It's not a mistake. If the state is the nation and the nation is the state, it's Fascism. It's not the first time this regime has explicitly argued for Fascism.
Yeah, this official's statement probably sounded better in the original 18th century French. "Ce paysan périra pour son insolence! L’État, c’est nous!"
And then the brass wonders why recruitment is down to a worrying degree.
Sad to see this is how veterans are treated.
Joining the military nowadays, they force you to get the mandatory clotshot, they force diversity and equity struggle sessions on you and they also treat you like shit when you retire.
The left is succeeding in their goal to make it intolerable for conservatives to serve and thus they can easily achieve their goal of purging the military of all conservatives.
“Can’t afford to go to Mandatory University? The armed forces will help you pay for that!”
Even back in my day decades ago, that was close to 90% of their sales pitch. Part of me really feels that the entire student loan thing was deliberately designed to drive up the cost of college to force military servitude just for the middle class and poor to afford it (or be in debt prison to the government anyway).
The US has a long history of treating veterans poorly, going as far back as Washington himself. Why multiple generations of families continue to join out of "patriotism" is beyond me.
"All enemies, both foreign and domestic."
Start a two-choice survey- what is the biggest domestic threat to the United States?
-White Supremacy
-Federal Tyranny (Gee, I wonder why that never shows up in fed-backed research reports)
A long time ago, I was an arrogant Eurofag who posted somewhere laughing at some Americans (Democrats btw) for why America allows guns. One of them was a Southern Democrat, whose argument was that guns are good because, some day, God forbid (he said), people might have to use them against the federal government because it would have become tyrannical.
I was not convinced, and thought the idea was rather preposterous, but in retrospect, I can see the logic in the matter.
Okay, he's a scale framing exercise for you. Currently, if the U. S. Federal Government armed every single one of their active duty agents: military, reserves, every police officer able to be seconded to DHS, FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, IRS, ATF, Customs, Border Patrol, Postal Inspectors, OSHA... every single person who draws a paycheck from Uncle Sugar and can carry a gun... they would have a force shy of 5 million. We'll call it 5 million for a nice, round number. (Ignoring that some of these would desert, would refuse the call up, would turn into Mr. Magoo out of self-preservation, etc.)
Now, if you take the New Yak Time's absolute, utterly ridiculously low number for American gun owners, there are at least 20 million people in this country who own guns. It's actually probably more like 80-120 million people, but we're looking at a utterly low floor for argument's sake, here.
Tangent-- this number is just absurd, for a lot of reasons, but to give you one, July 2023 was the 48th consecutive month of 1 million plus Form 4473s being filed. That means at least 1 million guns were sold in the U.S., in July alone, and based on a lot of talking with gun store people, the average guns-per-4473 is about 1.5, so that 48 million plus forms actually probably represents 72 plus million guns sold in 4 years. Do you think that each and every one of those supposed 20 million gun owners bout 3.5 guns in 4 years? Or do you think that 100-120 million people did that much buying?
Less than 5 million versus 20 million is a 4-to-1 disadvantage. Assuming the highest sane number I've seen (120 million), that's a 24-to-1 disadvantage. That's not even counting the fact that once anything got spicy, a lot of those 5 million would get a real bad, sudden case of the Blue Flu, or just walk out after raiding the armory. That also completely disregards the fact that there is now a major corps of people who were involuntarily separated from government service for refusing to get the Clot Shot... and those were typically the competent ones.
Like I said, I do see the logic, though I'm not as sanguine about you regarding the chances of 'gun owners' vs. the state. The following is a purely hypothetical exercise, and not intended to incite anything against the noble US government, which is very ethical and a force for good in the world.
It's true that government claims that individuals can do nothing against a government force is untrue, given the fact that it got its ass kicked in Afghanistan. At the same time, Afghanistan was a very peripheral territory to the US Empire - much easier to abandon than its heartland, whose tax revenues fund the entire extent of the empire.
Assuming for a moment that there were to be an uprising by gun owners, very deplorable, then it will be scattered. For one, there are many people with different thresholds of what constitutes tyranny, which means the government can just salami-slice them - or rather, crush one group to strike fear into the rest. It would be the response to January 6 but then cubed. And I can see even here, the deterrent effects of January 6, that people fear engaging in any sort of peaceful protest, and claim that e.g. calls to peacefully protest the political process against DJT are 'federal efforts'. That may be wise, but what is the likelihood that such individuals would be persuaded to engage in (very deplorable) violence, especially after any grossly disproportionate fed response to any previous very deplorable violence?
People would rather peacefully perish than take action that risks their person and their property. If you keep your head down, then maybe the regime will leave you in peace, but if you attempt something, you will definitely not be left in peace.
Even those people were persuaded of the desirability of very deplorable actions, and they were not deterred by the government, and they thought it worthy to risk their lives. How many of the 40 million people will be left? And given that, how likely is it that it would be successful?
A very small-scale revolt that is easily crushed would be blown out of proportion, leading to even greater crackdowns on dissent and then on guns as well. Most of those 40 million will obey, as they call themselves law-abiding citizens, the rest will hide their guns and do absolutely nothing.
The point of being well armed isn't that we're going to have a large army rise up and miraculously overthrow the corrupt federal government.
The point of being well armed is that, once the disappearings start happening, the people doing the disappearing have to worry that they might not come home themselves because they run into someone who objects to being disappeared.
If all you have is silverware and kitchen knives to defend yourself when the state comes for you, you're going to probably be leaving with them whether you object to it or not.
The corrupt federal tyranny is here. It's almost certainly not going to go away quickly. An armed populace helps to accelerate its entropy.
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
Yup. That's the exact paragraph I was thinking of when I wrote the above post.
That is the impression I got, or at least that weapons would be able to keep out federal authority.
Why is this not true for criminals then?
Fun fact: in some European countries in late 2021, the police refused to enforce some coronavirus restrictions because people got angry and perhaps aggressive when they attempted enforcement. Just being obstreperous can have real effects.
Ah yes, that does make a lot of sense.
That said, how do Europeans fight tyranny? We don't have weapons, nor is there any prospect of introducing any right to weapons (would be opposed by 97%+ of the population).
No clue. Pray for mercy from the people who hate you, or for them to run out of money/resources before they get around to killing you would be my best guesses.
I'd rather die.
I think they're fine with keeping folks like me as a slave underclass with no power. There's no point in killing people if they are no threat.
To call the United States Capitol a”beacon of democracy” is sedition against the constitution.
Literally "being in the military is the same as being a serial offender". In the eyes of the government, the two are synonymous.
In other news, the military is having trouble recruiting people and nobody can figure out why!
Not exactly. If you're in the military and say, commit rape or murder, I'm sure that will count in your favor. After all, they need people to go around the world and help them destroy one country after another.
The issue here is that they're saying that if you serve in the military, you owe them unquestioned obedience... or else.
The government probably read a few things about what large numbers of war veterans can do if not violently suppressed. Shall we speak of the Bonus Army again?
Just another subtle way of purging the military of opposition and pretending it's not a dictatorship.
Walking into a building is an "assault" on said building?
literally kill yourself. you are not sacred, democracy is not sacred.
Ok. Now apply that to all politicians and public servants such as police officers and postal workers.
It's always apostates to the cause who get the harshest treatment.
They can use that but I can also use it. I do not have to obey unlawful orders. It's my duty as a veteran to hold my superiors accountable to the crimes they committed.
Goes both ways.
Another data point in the graph that proves joining the military in [current year] is a sucker's bet.