# F\*ck the "long American tradition of armed resistance to intrusive government" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 29, 2009, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859 "2009-12-29T00:23:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/1 "2009-12-29T00:23:19Z")
Belated followup to [this thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11842622) From [**furt’s** post #52:](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11842622#post11842622) > [@](#): > > America has a long history of people freaking out over politics (what was the Boston Tea Party but an organized political riot?) as well as a long history of [people freaking out with the fear that other people are freaking out.](http://reason.com/archives/2009/09/15/the-paranoid-center/) The link is to an article in the libertarian _Reason_ magazine. [My response in post #79:](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11862028&highlight=survive#post11862028) > [@](#): > > Very **interesting** article. This passage was especially telling: > > > [@](#): > > > > In the popular imagination, the militia movement of the ‘90s was a paranoid pack of racists plotting terrorist attacks. The University of Hartford historian Robert H. Churchill calls this “the narrative of 1995,” a storyline cemented after McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that year. “In this narrative,” Churchill writes in To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant’s Face, a perceptive new study of the militias, "the militias and the Patriot movement took on the guise of a perfect, racist ‘other,’ and the threat they posed was best articulated by Morris Dees’ apocalyptic vision of a ‘gathering storm.’" > > > > \ > > > > Churchill offers a more persuasive origin story. By his account, the militias overlapped with the older, broader populist right, but their origins were distinct. The movement began to congeal not in 1992 but in the early months of 1994, as activists reacted to the lethal federal raid on the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas. Rather than tracing the phenomenon back to groups like the Order, Churchill uses a series of case studies to explore **the long American tradition of armed resistance to intrusive government.** > > I have not read Churchill’s book, but found a thumbnail review on [Amazon:](http://www.amazon.com/Shake-Their-Guns-Tyrants-Face/dp/0472116827) > > > [@](#): > > > > In reality the militia movement was neither as irrational nor as new as it was portrayed in the press, Robert Churchill writes. What bound the movement together was the shared belief that citizens have a right, even a duty, to take up arms against wanton exercise of unconstitutional power by the federal government. Many were motivated to join the movement by what they saw as a rise in state violence, illustrated by the government assaults at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in 1992, and Waco, Texas in 1993. It was this perception and the determination to deter future state violence, Churchill argues, that played the greatest role in the growth of the American militia movement. > > > > Churchill uses three case studies to illustrate the origin of some of the core values of the modern militia movement: Fries’ Rebellion in Pennsylvania at the end of the eighteenth century, the Sons of Liberty Conspiracy in Civil War-era Indiana and Illinois, and the Black Legion in Michigan and Ohio during the Depression. Building on extensive interviews with militia members, the author places the contemporary militia movement in the context of these earlier insurrectionary movements that, animated by a libertarian interpretation of the American Revolution, used force to resist the authority of the federal government. > > Had to look all of those up. > > [Fries’ Rebellion:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fries_Rebellion) > > > [@](#): > > > > John Fries (1750-1818) was born in Pennsylvania of German descent in about 1750; he was locally famous for having defeated a foraging raid by the British during the American Revolution. (This may not have actually happened, but it was a local story by 1799.)[1] Ironically Fries had been among those called out to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. > > > > As an itinerant auctioneer, he became well acquainted with the Germans in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania. In July 1798, during the troubles between the United States and France now known as the Quasi-War, the US Congress levied a direct tax (on dwelling-houses, lands and slaves; sometimes called the Direct House Tax of 1798) of $2 million, of which Pennsylvania was called upon to contribute $237,000. There were very few slaves in the state, and the tax was accordingly assessed upon dwelling-houses and land, the value of the houses being determined by the number and size of the windows. The inquisitorial nature of the proceedings aroused strong opposition among the Germans, and many of them refused to pay, making the constitutional argument that this tax was not being levied in proportion to population. Fries, assuming leadership, organized an armed band of about 60 men, a force that grew to about 400 by mid-day, which included his son Ben Fries, who marched about the country intimidating the assessors and encouraging the people to resist. In March 1799, the governor called out the militia, and the leaders were arrested. > > > > Fries and two others were twice tried for treason (the second time before Samuel Chase) and were sentenced to be hanged, but they were pardoned by President John Adams in April 1800, and a general amnesty was issued on May 21, 1800. Fries died at his home south of Trumbauersville, Pennsylvania in 1818. A segment of PA Route 663 near Trumbauersville is named in his honor.[2] > > [Sons of Liberty Conspiracy:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copperheads#Copperhead_resistance) > > > [@](#): > > > > The Copperheads were a vocal group of Democrats in the Northern United States (see also Union (American Civil War)) who opposed the American Civil War, wanting an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates. Republicans started calling antiwar Democrats “copperheads”, likening them to the poisonous snake. By 1863, the Peace Democrats had accepted the label, but for them the copper “head” was the likeness of Liberty on the copper penny, and they proudly wore pennies as badges. [1] > > > > \ > > > > **Copperhead resistance** > > > > The Copperheads sometimes talked of violent resistance, and in some cases started to organize. They never actually made an organized attack, though. As war opponents, Copperheads were suspected of disloyalty, and their leaders were sometimes arrested and held for months in military prisons without trial — one famous example was General Ambrose Burnside’s 1863 General Order Number 38, issued in Ohio, which made it an offence (to be tried in military court) to criticize the war in any way: the order was used to arrest Ohio congressman Clement L. Vallandigham when he criticized the order itself. However, Lincoln commuted his sentence while requiring his banishment to the Confederate states. > > > > Probably the largest Copperhead group was the Knights of the Golden Circle; formed in Ohio in the 1850s, it became politicized in 1861. It reorganized as the Order of American Knights in 1863, and again, early in 1864, as the Order of the Sons of Liberty, with Vallandigham as its commander. One leader, Harrison H. Dodd, advocated violent overthrow of the governments of Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri in 1864. Democratic party leaders, and a Federal investigation, thwarted his conspiracy. In spite of this Copperhead setback, tensions remained high. The Charleston Riot took place in Illinois in March 1864. Indiana Republicans then used the sensational revelation of an antiwar Copperhead conspiracy by elements of the Sons of Liberty to discredit Democrats in the 1864 House elections. The military trial of Lambdin P. Milligan and other Sons of Liberty revealed plans to set free the Confederate prisoners held in the state. The culprits were sentenced to hang but the Supreme Court intervened in Ex parte Milligan, saying they should have received civilian trials. > > [Black Legion:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Legion_(political_movement)) > > > [@](#): > > > > The Black Legion was an additional organization within the Ku Klux Klan which operated in the United States in the 1930s. The organization was founded by William Shepard in east central Ohio.[1] The group’s total membership was estimated between 20,000 and 30,000, centered in Detroit, Michigan, though the Legion was also highly active in Ohio, and one of its self-described leaders, Virgil “Bert” Effinger, lived and worked in Lima, Ohio. > > > > The Associated Press described the organization on May 31, 1936 “as a group of loosely federated night-riding bands operating in several States without central discipline or common purpose beyond the enforcement by lash and pistol of individual leaders’ notions of ‘Americanism.’” The death of Charles Poole, kidnapped and murdered in southwest Detroit, caused authorities to finally arrest and successfully try and convict a group of twelve men, thereby ending the reign of the Black Legion. > > > > The Black Legion was organized along paramilitary lines and had five brigades, 16 regiments, 64 battalions, and 256 companies. Although its members boasted that there were one million legionnaires in Michigan, it probably had only between 20,000 and 30,000 members in the state in the 1930s, one third of whom lived in Detroit. > > > > Black Legion was also the name of a 1937 Humphrey Bogart film, featuring a fictionalized version of the group. > > > > Members wore black uniforms with skull and crossbones insignia and were allegedly responsible for numerous murders of alleged communists and socialists, notably Earl Little, Malcolm X’s father. > > If those are the best examples Churchill could find of “the long American tradition of armed resistance to intrusive government,” then, to put it as mildly and charitably as possible, he is describing nothing that should be suffered to survive in the 21st Century. And if the “militia movement” is part of that tradition, it might not be new but it certainly is utterly irrational. By which I stand. Anyone disagree? ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/2 "2009-12-29T00:27:22Z")
I don’t think America has any “long tradition of armed resistance to intrusive government”. I can’t think of any such resistance off the top of my head, and I’m not exactly the kind of guy who knows nothing about history. Wait, I can think of one thing, the Whiskey Rebellion, which happened over 200 years ago. Yes, that’s a very “long tradition of armed resistance to intrusive government.” ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/3 "2009-12-29T00:37:26Z")
There were a lot of communities in the southern part of the United States who tended to look the other way when revenuers were assaulted or murdered by members of the community in the 19th century. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/4 "2009-12-29T00:59:08Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > There were a lot of communities in the southern part of the United States who tended to look the other way when revenuers were assaulted or murdered by members of the community in the 19th century. No doubt. But that only supports **my** point. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/5 "2009-12-29T01:07:59Z")
I’m confused. Are you arguing that there hasn’t been a long tradition of armed resistance, that there shouldn’t have been this long tradition, or that we should end this tradition? Sounds like you are arguing for the last assertion and then assuming it derives from the first. I see nothing wrong with saying we have a long tradition of armed resistance. It’s not mainstream, but it’s there. I lived thru a lot of it in the 60s. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/6 "2009-12-29T01:15:57Z")
You haven’t even got a functioning democracy. Reading this stuff is like the Black Knight scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail: 'Tis but a scratch. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Krebbs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5fc32e/32.png) [@Mr.Krebbs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Krebbs)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/7 "2009-12-29T01:33:52Z")
Yes, everyone should submit to tyranny of the majority peacefully… As if decrying armed resistance will prevent a disenfranchised minority from using violence to defend themselves or advance their goals. Violence is often the product of desperation. When people feel severely marginalized, it is a perfectly legitimate response on their part to become desperate. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/8 "2009-12-29T01:34:46Z")
Well, there was this little disagreement called the American Civil War, but it did happen almost a century and a half ago. There were a number of so-called “tax revolts” prior to that, the most prominent of which are the abortive Shay’s Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, of which the most significant consequence is the resulting popularity of Bourbon whiskey. The most significant post-Civil War armed action I can think of that was initiated by United States citizens against a government within the federated states was the 1946 Battle of Athens (not to be confused with several similarly-named battles from the Civil War), and while it is often cited as a rationale for armed citizenry, it was a rather modest affair. Similar armed incidents involving an armed citizen resistance against government authority at large (rather than against a specific personage), and subsequent response by government that acknowledged the action as an insurrection (distinct from mere criminal activity) are very limited in scope and largely drawn across ethnic lines. There were a number of semi-organized resistance efforts against American authority in Puerto Rico in the 1950s, and Islamic resistance to American rule in the Philippines by the Moros at the turn of the 20th Century, neither of these peoples regarded themselves as American citizens. There is no “long American tradition of armed resistance to intrusive government.” Indeed, even the rebellion that led to the American Revolutionary War wasn’t so much against intrusive governance (save for the Stamp Act and the Quartering Act requiring Americans to house British troops) as the burden of Britain imposing taxation for needed funds to support ongoing wars with France and Spain, and the American resistance thereto was predicated on financial and moral support from France combined with the weakness of the British grasp on the lucrative and self-sufficient American colonies. The various “citizen militias” that came to some media prominence in the 'Nineties (and which were, save for a couple of instances, not militias in any legal or functional definition) never engaged in any active armed activity against any government. Unless one wishes to classify organized crime like the Capone organization and their resistance to prohibition as “armed insurrection”, there just isn’t such a history. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/9 "2009-12-29T01:41:51Z")
There was the [Dorr Rebellion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorr%27s_Rebellion) during the early 1840s. In brief, when the state government of Rhode Island refused to grant the vote to men who weren’t land owners, the disenfranchised mass of the populace organized a rival government and it briefly came to armed rebellion. As recently as 1946 there was the [Battle of Athens](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946)), where WW2 vets resisted a corrupt county sheriff who was turning away voters from the polling place. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/10 "2009-12-29T01:45:19Z")
Well, yes, there is a long **human** tradition of armed resistance to a perception of an overly intrusive government–just ask the Catholic Church sometime about the various “heresies” they dealt with. In the United States, there’s this tradition, also. Of course, here we also have a tradition of **electoral** resistance to a perception of an overly intrusive government. And we, like many places, have a long tradition of terrorism, of organizations using violence against civilians in an attempt to change political policies. When people defeated by the ballot turn to the bullet, I confess I have very little sympathy for their cause. The three groups described in the OP sound to me like terrorist organizations. Maybe not the first one–what did that “intimidating the assessors” look like? Placing the militias in the company of American-bred terrorist organizations seems a little harsh for some of the militias, and wholly appropriate for others. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/11 "2009-12-29T01:48:16Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > There is no “long American tradition of armed resistance to intrusive government.” Indeed, even the rebellion that led to the American Revolutionary War wasn’t so much against intrusive governance (save for the Stamp Act and the Quartering Act requiring Americans to house British troops) as the burden of Britain imposing taxation for needed funds to support ongoing wars with France and Spain, and the American resistance thereto was predicated on financial and moral support from France combined with the weakness of the British grasp on the lucrative and self-sufficient American colonies. Wait a minute. What you’re saying is that the resistance wasn’t against intrusive government, except in the cases where it was. I don’t see why the resistance has to be exclusively against “intrusive government” (whatever that is) for it to be against intrusive government. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/12 "2009-12-29T02:50:22Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’m confused. Are you arguing that there hasn’t been a long tradition of armed resistance, that there shouldn’t have been this long tradition, or that we should end this tradition? The second. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/13 "2009-12-29T02:52:56Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > You haven’t even got a functioning democracy. Compared to what? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/14 "2009-12-29T02:57:40Z")
> [@Mr.Krebbs](#): > > Yes, everyone should submit to tyranny of the majority peacefully… Can democracy work any other way?! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/15 "2009-12-29T03:03:02Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The second. I’m even more confused. You started this OP with the quote from **Furt** , who wasn’t arguing in favor of violence. Seems like we have a strawman here… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/16 "2009-12-29T03:07:08Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’m even more confused. You started this OP with the quote from **Furt** , who wasn’t arguing in favor of violence. Seems like we have a strawman here… I’m actually responding to the author of the _Reason_ article **furt** cited, and this Churchill whom the _Reason_ article cited, both of whom seem to be arguing for the **legitimacy** of “armed resistance to intrusive government” – and implicitly connecting that position with the “insurrectionary theory of the Second Amendment.” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/17 "2009-12-29T03:55:34Z")
I think they miss the point. Whether or not it is an American _tradition_, the American value is based on human rights, and explicitly acknowledged as such: any human being has the self-evident right to resist tyranny. Being American or not doesn’t necessarily enter into it. The tradition does not lend legitimacy, the people who claim the necessity to invoke the right must embody that legitimacy, they must have grievances petitioned but not answered, their grievances must be legitimate or they cannot justifiably claim the right to armed resistance. I expect the closest we have come to such legitimacy would be the Black Power movement. If any group of Americans had a right to armed rebellion, it would have been African-Americans. “By any means necessary”. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/18 "2009-12-29T04:08:18Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > I think they miss the point. Whether or not it is an American _tradition_, the American value is based on human rights, and explicitly acknowledged as such: any human being has the self-evident right to resist tyranny. Being American or not doesn’t necessarily enter into it. Armed force does not necessarily enter into it either; ask Gandhi and King. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/19 "2009-12-29T04:47:13Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Wait a minute. What you’re saying is that the resistance wasn’t against intrusive government, except in the cases where it was. I don’t see why the resistance has to be exclusively against “intrusive government” (whatever that is) for it to be against intrusive government. I’m saying that there is no consistent history of such. The British weren’t especially intrusive in regard to the governance of the Colonies except as a reflexive response to resistance to pay taxes and tariffs. The only significant armed rebellion in the history of the United States was the American Civil War, which was a response by the Southern states to what they viewed as intrusive mandates (i.e. abolition of slavery, export tariffs, et cetera) by the Northern-dominated federal government. Subsequent to that, there have been no significant armed uprisings against any government within the federated states. > [@elucidator](#): > > I expect the closest we have come to such legitimacy would be the Black Power movement. If any group of Americans had a right to armed rebellion, it would have been African-Americans. “By any means necessary”. The thrust of the Black Power movement was a non-violent cultural revolution intended to affirm the distinctiveness and positive virtues of “black culture” (predominately ethnically sub-Saharan African-American culture). The most militant aspects of the Black Power movement, such as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, were pretty limited in the scope of their activities and were marginalized by both the involvement in crime and the strong neo-Marxist bent, as well as internecine fighting that weakened the organization. When weapons and mass violence were employed as a response to racial inequality, it was usually the African-American communities that came off the worst (Washington D.C., the Los Angeles Watts riots, Oakland, et cetera). So, again, no long tradition of armed resistance. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![lurking\_guest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/2acd7d/32.png) [@lurking\_guest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lurking_guest)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859/20 "2009-12-29T04:51:35Z")
C’mon… it is really very simple. There are folks who BELIEVE that all poor people are POOR because they are LAZY. And then, there are folks who BELIEVE that people are poor because of childhood circumstances; because of brain chemistry; because of cultural differences. No matter. All things seem to be judged by what cohort DRAW the most Money. That would be… Wall Street…Politicians…Perhaps Religious Leaders…Heads of State… Oh… and that would NOT be …Families…Parents…Schools…Communities… (Those damned, neophyte, STUDPID people.) Obama. Mitch McConnel Tim Geithner Alan Greenspan George Bush Tim Geitner Larry Summers Ben Bernanke Bill Clinton Hillary Clinton Alan Greenspan Let us include those “in the know” from every single government on the face of the Earth. As Frederick Douglas once said, no one with Money or Power will ever give up Power or Money or Privilege without a FIGHT. And, right now…across the globe… those with the most assets are determining the governments of the entire globe. The Laws. The Legislatures. No matter their philosophies nor governments. $$$$$$ Money $$$$$ It matters NOT who made it. Only who HAS it. REPUBLICANS or DEMOCRATS in the UNITED STATES? A joke. America’s politics? A joke. The REAL promulagters of power have, and have had, power through the ages. Through great wealth and influence. They laugh at the “Masses.” The jerks who pick up garbage. Who work in factories. (Across the world.) Who stand at “Attendance” at high-end hotels and motels across the world. Who subserviantly serve on educational boards at local schools. Ha! Does THIS matter to people whom three or four or five homes exist across the globe? Who have boats sitting at moorings which bring millions to those buisnesses? Money. It seems. Matters more than anything. Really. Really? Perhaps we should give up care for every other human being on earth to those human beings whose goal is to make money and have have bigger and better “things.” THINGS. POWER. INFLUENCE. MONEY. THESE things matter more than THE GOOD of MANKIND… Here we are. BUT…we can fix it. OBAMA is NOT the answer. Conscience is. We have almost a year in our political system to try again. Let’s try again… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f-ck-the-long-american-tradition-of-armed-resistance-to-intrusive-government/522859.md?page=2)