Not really. First, the damage is being done by bombs not guns. Second, any proper bunch of ruthless imperialists would laugh at the casualties we’ve taken; Americans as a group are cowards, as well as evil. They want conquest and bloodshed, destruction and empire, but they only want the other guys to bleed.
And finally, the goal of America is conquest, not genocide. The Iraqis couldn’t stop us from massacring them; they’ve never been able to yet, after all. We don’t mind murdering Iraqis, but we need plenty of them alive. And we wouldn’t be able to pretend we were anything other than what we are if we did kill them all, even to ourselves. And at any rate, it’s not like there’s any interest in moving millions of Americans there.
How is this different than the old “sheep smear” that you have already dropped, steaming, into this thread?
Look, you have already hijacked this thread with your complete non sequitur about possessing weapons and forced it into Great Debates with your hostility and poor argumentation. I would strongly suggest you drop the subject, returning only if you have something constructive and not insulting to say.
The question was Why have we not engaged in genocide (at least recently)? Given the overwhelming numbers of societies that have never engaged in internal genocide, regardless of the possession or lack of weapons, along with those soci9eties where genocide was attempted on an armed group, your original statement has done nothing to provide an answer to the question.
If you wish to start a new thread claiming that only the Second Amendment prevents genocide in this country, go ahead, but drop that dead end in this thread–and drop your hostility, regardless.
It’s much less broad a brush than “freedom to keep and bear arms is the sole or principal reason that there hasn’t been a genocide in the United States.” In fact, it’s purely logical.
In fact, there has been at least one genocide in the United States (a fairly successful one), and it was carried out by a combination of government forces and private actors who cherished their right to keep and bear arms.
It’s a simple, if unremarkable, fact that unarmed people are unlikely to become genocidaires on their own. If you’re looking for potential genocidaires in the population, logic and efficiency would dictate you start with the people who are actually equipped to carry out such a desire.
Social and economic factors are far more important, but in all of the genocidal conflicts that have been mentioned, a disparity in weapons was also a factor. The 1938 German Weapons Act made the possession or manufacture of arms or ammunition by Jews illegal, while doing away with any restrictions for members of the Nazi party.
In Yugoslavia, the Serbs, who made up a large majority of the military forces, staged a military coup and were able to secure most of the arms of the former Yugoslavian People’s Army. Under the subsequent UN embargo, Croatia was unable to effectively arm itself.
In Rwanda, Hutu government leaders prepared for the killings by organizing militias, passing out firearms and ammunition where available, providing grenades, and distributed radios to unit leaders for coordinating forces.
To ignore the role that weapons play in enabling massacres and genocide is to ignore the reality of what has happened in history. A totalitarian regime will protect itself from insurgency by disarming and disenfranchising any possible opposition immediately after gaining power. If the regime is unsuccessful in doing so, then the conflict turns into a civil war instead of a wholesale slaughter. It’s debatable as to which is preferable, but the fact of the matter is that whoever has the most guns usually gets to make the rules.
Not really. Organization is more important, followed by numbers. Genocides have occurred long, long before guns. And as the saying goes, an army is never outnumbered by a mob. Even a mob that’s defending itself.
Look at Saddam. He never disarmed the Iraqi people; he knew that guns alone weren’t a threat. But organization ? THAT he cared about.
Well, I’d say they’re rich enough not to have the motivation of widespread privation at this point in history. Germany was Western & industrialized in the 1930’s, though. And if we reach a point of crisis from natural resource depletion, who knows how the populace will choose to deal with population stress?
Agreed, except for Congress impeaching. Both parties are too ideologically opposed to impeachment, period, to do it for any reason.
Except that they aren’t the targets of genocide. And our casualties have actually been quite light, especially compared to theirs. We’re the equivalent of someone who’s beaten someone nearly to death with a lead pipe, who points to a hangnail to show how brutal and dangerous our victim is.
If we decided to simply genocide them, what makes you think they could fight back at all ?
Interestingly the opposite is more true. The US military culture has conveniently bred up the servility and deference which characterize the American right wing /gun-owners. They’ll be the first to do what they’re told, on the tiniest pretext, providing it involves bloodshed of some imaginary enemy.
During and after the Rodney King riots, I heard numerous anecdotes about Asian-owned grocery stores being targeted for looting and arson. So Americans are certainly not immune to the temptation to ethnicly clease our neighborhoods.
I also heard anecdotes about Asian grocers with guns, who persuaded the rioters to seek easier targets elsewhere. Argent Towers’s strategy is not risk-free, but it is not without precedent.
An armed person can always choose to run away. It seems to me that an unarmed person has fewer options.
I heard numerous anecdotes about Jennifer Love Hewitt having three vaginas, you know…
Anyway, you do understand that “genocide” does not equal “rioting”, right? And that “looting x-owned businesses” does not equal “ethnic cleansing”? Well, maybe you don’t. But they don’t.
I agree that it isn’t necessarily true that being armed would be useless if some hypothetical evil government decided to do you in- though I’m dubious as to how effective armed resistance would be against an oppressor who’s trying to slaughter you rather than occupy you. However, the assertion that “an armed populace is all that keeps genocide from happening” is ridiculous on its face.
Two points: First off, to the OP, I would say that the reason genocide doesn’t occur (today) in the US is a combination of our stable government, high standard of living and generally integrated society. Also, by and large we don’t go in for the whole mob rule mentality that would allow for casual genocide…in fact, by and large we are a pretty law abiding society (relatively speaking), generally looking to the government to handle things and take care of us. In addition, we are politically deadlocked for the most part on any large issue like this with the two opposing parties fighting over the differences. Can you imagine the government getting the consensus to prosecute a single race or religion in genocidal terms? We go nuts over some terrorists (and innocents, granted) penned up in Gitmo…imagine trying to, say, put all the Muslims into concentration camps (let alone then going on to kill them). People would go nuts! Hell, I’d be on the front lines of outrage if something like that ever happened.
Secondly, on the hijack, I think people are needlessly handwaving away what an armed population can do against regular forces. Also, I think people are under rating just what the regular service personnel would do in a situation where they were ordered to fight against the citizens of this country. To the first point, I’ll add the examples of the American Revolution, the early French Revolution and the early situation in Iraq. These all seemed to be quite effective against a strong military power. The thing is, IF the US government ever tried to use the military directly against the people there would be a massive split as some try to sit on the fence, some decide to go one way and some another. The point being that even if the targeted citizens start out with no advanced tanks or planes or whatever they wouldn’t be likely to stay that way indefinitely as break away military units joined one side or the other. This isn’t some Red Dawn fantasy…it’s reality. US soldiers aren’t robots and not all of them would go along with an order to commit genocide on some group of US citizens. Hell, the states themselves aren’t mindless drones going along with whatever the Federal government says…I can see many of them breaking with the union over something like that. It would be a complete mess…which is why I don’t see it ever happening.
That said, I don’t think it’s an armed populace that keeps us from going nuts and committing genocide…there are a lot of other factors at play, the fundamental one being our society isn’t geared that way anymore. As Ravenman said it has more to do with how individuals identify with themselves and society that is the core reason. Unless that changes at a fundamental level I don’t see the US disintegrating into wild genocidal factions bent on whacking each other.
German soldiers and SS personnel weren’t robots either. It wouldn’t happen that way - the government wouldn’t just say, “well, let’s kill off the Australian-Americans*” one day. Not that it would happen at all, but if it did… they’d use salami tactics: one slice at a time.
First you demonize the “enemy” - “The Vietnamese* have a stranglehold on small business in America and they are using unfair tactics to push out non-Vietnamese competition!” or whatever.
Next, you suspend one or more of the enemy’s “rights” in the name of national security or economic recovery or to protect the children or whatever. We are doing that right now, in fact, over at Guantanamo.
Then, you start rounding up the enemy in the face of some external threat. Terrorism is a good one, especially if the terrorists are foreigners… but it would probably be effective against purely internal terrorist groups too. This one sounds a little far-fetched until you consider that it happened to the Japanese only half a century ago. Also, consider the national state of mind immediately after 9/11 - half the country was practically ready to take up arms and hunt down their Muslim or Muslim-ish neighbors. I’m not ashamed to say (people generally think I’m of Arab descent, though I’m not) that I was afraid to leave my fraternity house for a few days. Another 9/11 and much of the populace - the “security moms”, for example- might be begging the government to start interning everyone who “looks like a terrorist”.
I admit that getting from “internment” to “final solution” is a bit tricky. To be honest, I just haven’t planned that far ahead . Still, the Germans and Serbs managed it, and while we might like to think we’re a million miles from the Tutsi and Hutu tribesmen in Rwanda who slaughtered one another with machetes, we certainly aren’t that far from post-WWI Germany. The movie V for Vendetta (and presumably the graphic novel) had a surprisingly plausible plotline for Britain’s descent into totalitarianism and genocide, which basically revolved around a government conspiracy to stage a “terrorist” biological attack.
*or whoever
But in most jobs you don’t have a rule that says you can be fired only for committing high crimes and misdemeanors. And, the whole country generally doesn’t have an interest in whether you stay or go.
You can roll your eyes all you like. I was responding to another poster’s assertion that “both parties are too ideologically opposed to impeachment to try it” or words to that effect. I didn’t remark on whether or not the Clinton impeachment was appropriate. :rolleyes:
ETA: ascenray seems to have taken your post to mean something different than I did, so you may disregard mine if he got the sentiment right.
You are right. I was echoing another poster’s language with ‘Western and inustrialized’. I will amend my description to ‘prosperous and free’ instead, which today describes most of Europe, some of the Americas, some of Asia, and Australia. It would not apply to Germany in the 1930’s.
While people are violent, history seems to indicate that if circumstances allow, we will consume goods and services in preference to organizing and wiping each other out systematically. I don’t know what would happen in the case of critical natural resource depletion, but I suspect that prosperity and freedom would disappear before genocide started.
. Still, the Germans and Serbs managed it, and while we might like to think we’re a million miles from the Tutsi and Hutu tribesmen in Rwanda who slaughtered one another with machetes, we certainly aren’t that far from post-WWI Germany. The movie V for Vendetta (and presumably the graphic novel) had a surprisingly plausible plotline for Britain’s descent into totalitarianism and genocide, which basically revolved around a government conspiracy to stage a “terrorist” biological attack.