That doesn’t explain why other nations, with murder rates much lower than that of the US, are also stable.
Come on now, it has nothing to do with being armed. Genocide isn’t a realistic expectation for even modern, mostly disarmed societies, like, say, Britain or something. There are distinguishing characteristics of countries that have committed genocide – I did a fair amount of work on this in grad school, so I’m going to try to avoid being too verbose about it.
The main reason why we’re not splitting into tribes now is that our society fundamentally has a different structure than 1939 Germany, 2002 Sudan or 1994 Rwanda. Some like to call our society post-modern, but generally people identify themselves as being individuals, rather than submitting themselves to another identity, like as a nationalist who values state power as a selfless ideal, or places membership in a tribe as being more important than being independent.
It’s not that we (or the people of Western Europe) are reckless individualists, it’s that we tend to see the world through a different set of lenses that doesn’t lend itself to getting large numbers of people whipped up against a boogeyman. We also have different outlets for frustration, like voting, or conspicuous consumption.
The insurgents in Nazi-occupied territories couldn’t fight back effectively because most of them were not properly armed. Not like America, where our population is very well-armed.
Lots of Jewish partisan groups fought against the Nazis in the woods, and survived, and lived to tell the tale. Some of them were in my family. They could have gone willingly to the gas chambers, like sheep, or they could have used the rural environment to their advantage, hiding out in the woods, staying mobile, and fighting off any Nazis that they could.
Yeah, it has little to nothing to do with armed individuals, and a lot to do with a strong, stable government and society. That Rambo crap is a fantasy.
Hmmm. I’m not sure of the quantities of firearms which were available in Yugoslavia, but I don’t remember hearing a shortage of guns being listed as a contributory factor to the troubles there. Ditto for Iraq - without the US acting as a combined fire extinguisher and punching bag things might very well have flared into a full-scale Sunni/Shia genocide situation. Having lots of rifles and shotguns won’t help you if the people in the next house have just as many and really want to kill you, and you can’t fight off an oppressive government very well if you immediately get ratted out to the secret police or the militia as being one of ‘them’.
From what I can see, the causes of genocide comes down to one thing only - having neighbours who clearly identify themselves as a group that excludes you, and who hate you. If there are more (or just as many) of them as there are of you, then it can all go off the rails with startling suddenness.
The US seems well-protected just because its population is so fractured and diverse nowadays, and that is reflected in the various branches of the government. It’s hard to think of a cause that would unite enough of the population together to not only commit genocide against a group, but to overcome all the other social groups who would be trying to put out the flames.
Or, being armed, for folks like Mr. Towers.
What I’m saying is, why would our outlets for frustration necessarily be rational?
That’s a myth, as far as I’m aware. There were plenty of guns floating around in the occupied territories, if only for hunting. Do you have any cites supporting your claim?
Remind me, what was the rate of survival of Jewish partisans compared to those that saw the writing on the wall and got out of Germany?
Unless his name is Saddam Hussein.
Maybe it’s just that our leaders wisely choose a foe now and then, someone who’s over there.
Isn’t that why we haven’t caught Bin Laden?
The OP asked why Americans are not genocidal toward each other, which has nothing to do with how we perceive foreign threats. You’re addressing a different topic that has little to do with what I was speaking about, so please don’t remove my remarks from context.
Back to my earlier post, the other issue I should have raised is that aside from the Western people viewing the world through different lenses, genocide requires a high degree of coordination and technology. There are some political scientists who view genocide as a uniquely 20th century invention, because it was technology (like poison gas, the radio, and the philosophy of state power and modernism) that made a “real” genocidal campaign possible.
I wouldn’t go that far, but in terms of coordination, the people of the US and Western Europe aren’t big on the idea of surrendering their identity to an institution that will tell them what to do, e.g., the draft is HIGHLY unpopular, and even those who volunteer for the military often do not see themselves as drones serving a higher authority – many troops have to reconcile their individualism with their service to country (leading to slogans like “An Army of One”). If we were told to pick up machetes and go attack our neighbors, chances are that we’d prefer to watch TV or go to a ballgame or whatever we want to do, rather than sublimate our whims to merge into a faceless mass.
In other words, genocide is only really possible where the power of the state or the importance of a tribe is viewed as so important to one’s identity of self, that people will choose to forgo their own wishes to serve that need.
They don’t have to be rational, but the point I’m trying to make is that genocide requires much more coordination than we’re willing to put into it, to boil it down to just a few words.
The people in Rwanda were killed by machetes. Everyone in Rwanda has a machete. It was an evenly armed fight, and it still went bad.
IMHO it’s a stable economy mixed with a healthy disrespect for authority. But the future is not a sure thing, and while I think it’s unlikely to happen, who would have thought half the stuff thats happened in this world would happen?
It requires nothing that isn’t available in any country currently existing on earth. Rwanda was mostly carried out with farming implements and organised with transistor radios. The total investment to set the whole thing up was probably less than fifty cents per person killed.
Odd then how many people will affiliate themselves with a particular social or political grouping and then devote themselves to endlessly trotting out the same old nostrums?
Given the amount of energy expended by assorted identikit Democrats/Republicans/Christians/Atheists/Hunters/Vegetarians/Anti-helmeters/Loud-pipers/Indoor-catters/Anti-seatbelters or whatever on these boards and the internet in general, one could be forgiven for thinking that many people in the US and Europe only exercise their individuality in the process of choosing which all-consuming cults to define their identity by
This is one of the funniest threads I’ve seen in a long, long time.
Not least for the implication that the only thing keeping us from eliminating entire sections of our population is, “Shit, they might have guns!”
Not, like, common sense, or anything.
ETA: For the record, it’s because we as Americans are much too busy watching American Idol to have time for this genocide thing.
You can throw out all the conjectures and hypotheses and theories you want, but they won’t be worth a tinker’s damn if the shit hits the fan. Believe me, if there’s about to be a genocide against you, you’re going to wish you were armed. All you people with your stupid Obama things in your locations, supporting a candidate who believes in massive disarmament of the population, your Masters degrees and your intellectual savvy aren’t going to be any use against someone who wants to kill you. Some of you seem even to be indicating that you think people should just lay back and accept genocide instead of try to fight back. Not everyone can “see the writing on the wall and leave.” If that was possible, there would have been no Holocaust. Lots of people wanted to leave. They couldn’t. Nobody would take them! Even America wouldn’t take them. Ever heard of the U.S.S. St. Louis? Those folks saw the writing on the wall and tried to leave. A lot of good it did them.
Baaaahhhh. Baaahhhhhh. That’s all I’m hearing in this damn thread.
Can I visit your cabin in Idaho? I really need somewhere to practise my bleating without anyone hearing me…
I believe you completely. I would also wish that I wasn’t massively outnumbered, that the bloodthirsty mob coming after me wasn’t also armed, and that I and my entire family wasn’t about to be brutally killed no matter how many nice shiny guns I owned. But historical precedent suggests that I would be shit outta luck on all counts. Because at the end of the day, what keeps you alive in genocidal situations usually either being one of those comitting it or else running away, not fighting off the mob.
I mean, listen to yourself. Do you seriously belive that if only the 600,000 or so Jews in Germany had owned enough firearms they would have been able to fight off many million anti-semites, backed by the entire military apparatus of the state? It would have played out as well for them as it did for the Branch Dravidians.
Tell that to the Afghans who drove out the Soviet Union.
Well, I’m just trying to expand the context – why limit your definition of genocide to intra-national conflicts? (I think I’m using my terms correctly, perhaps not)
I just figure it’s the same urge, whether we’re turning on our own people or butchering foreigners.
My Swiss German friend Rolf says it’s not likely to be an automatic weapon, but rather a single-shot hunting rifle, and an old one at that.
Actual genocides are pretty rare. In western industrial nations I can’t think of any other than the Holocaust, unless the Balkans count as Western. Most genocides occur around times of war and revolution: Rwanda, Armenia, Cambodia etc. Also they seem to occur in countires used to alot of violence. The Holocaust really seems like an aberration in the history of Genocide, at least in the 20th/21st centuries.
Certainly there could be a genocidal civil war in the U.S., if the government collapses or something. But genocides are not normal acts for a country, even a developing country, let alone an industrialized one.
You could be generous and count Chile and Nicaragua.