Is there any evidence that guns prevent tyranny?

Great Debates
121

He was appointed chancellor in '32, following the presidential election results. His stranglehold on power was further cemented by the legislative elections in '33. What does the year matter ?
Or was this perhaps a “clever” attempt at a gotcha, “because he was appointed, his position wasn’t the result of a popular democratic process” ? Because that would be an asinine distinction to make considering my general point - namely that oftentimes “We the People” welcome tyrants with open arms.

It was specified upthread. Why not follow the flow of the discussion, eh ?

And it wouldn’t/couldn’t in the case of US dictatorship because… ?

[QUOTE=Dissonance]
Yes, I actually have bet my civil rights on that.
[/quote]

You really have, at that. As I understand it, the American founders were not altogether keen on the idea of a standing army.

You’re saying something very true here: the culture of the military would be a wide gap to bridge, notably the separation (and relative mutual animosity/antagonism) of branches and the widespread divisions in commanding powers.
A Navy Grand Admiral would need to convince an Air Marshal and an Army 12-stars General to move any kind of plot along ; and no one medal rack has authority over the whole of the armed forces. Even the Joint Chiefs and the UCC are, well, Joint :). In the event of CENTCOM going stir fry crazy along with his boys, he’d probably have to duke it out with the other -COMs before getting anywhere near Washington for example. This no doubt helps tremendously.

That being said, there are also concerning aspects with the US military culture - in particular, a perhaps growing notion that civilians “owe” the military, and therefore should jolly well sit down and shut the fuck up. “You need me on that wall !” might have been Hollywood being Hollywood, but I’ve heard or read many enlisted men echoing the sentiment.

122

Yes. It’s know as ‘idiocy’.

123

Perhaps you can name a bad guy who thought twice because US civilians were armed to the teeth?

124

No “perhaps” about it. I’m not responsible for what YOU post. YOU said Hitler was elected.

125

He didn’t say directly elected. The British Prime Minister is in effect appointed by the party with the most seats in Parliament, but I’d still call the office “democratically elected”. Hell, we don’t directly elect our own President.

Help! Help! Tyranny!

126

And as I said, it’s a distinction without a difference. Do you want a pat on the head for the semantic nitpick or something ?

127

The tyranny of cheating spouses and convenience store owners has yet to take over the U.S.

128

In the U.S., voters elect who will be in the Electoral College and the EC votes to elect the POTUS.

In the U.K., a political party which has achieved a majority of seats gets to vote within it’s party to select the next PM. The UK Labour Party has an electoral college to select it’s PM. The Conservative Party votes within it’s political party somehow to chose it’s PM. The Queen then makes a pointless gesture of asking the political parties slection to be the next PM, as if matters at that point.

Hitler lost two elections and then pressured Hindenburg to finally appoint him Chancellor 9 months later.

129

Interesting question. First there was the British but they invaded a British colony. The British, including Canadians, returned in 1812, won some battles and lost the war.

Mexico had a few excursion over the border but quickly retreated.

Hitler’s goal was to conquer the world. That would include the U.S.. Hitler had plans for bombers and rockets that could reach the U.S.. He would have eventually invaded unless the Nazis could have invented a working atomic bomb first. No doubt about that.

Imperial Japan thought they had a chance to defeat the 39th largest military in 1940. If the sea battles had turned out differently, the island-hopping campaign wouldn’t have reached Tinian Island. Australia would have had to face Imperial forces without the British, who told Australia they were on their own until the Nazi was delt with, or the U.S., who had started their island hopping campaign 800 miles from Oz and 5,000 miles from San Diego.

*Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians, among whom armchair arguments about war are being glibly bandied about in the name of state politics, have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.

  • Isoroku Yamamoto*

In order for Imperial froces to march into Washington, DC, our first line of defense would have been defeated.

*You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.

  • Isoroku Yamamoto*

This quote is said to be unsubstantiated but that doesn’t mean he didn’t say it, only that it hasn’t been substantiated. (Would anyone like some cheese with their whine?)

That leaves the countries who might have considered an invasion but quickly dismissed it as much too costly. Russia via Cuba? France in the late 1700’s? The Duchy of Grand Fenwick led by Tully Bascomb?

130

Other than the questionable Yamamoto quote (maybe), what does any of that have to do with private ownership of firearms?

131

Lots of doubts about that, considering Hitler’s goal never was to conquer the world. You shouldn’t rely on video games to teach you history.

There never were any plans to invade the US. The Nazi plan always was to knock out Western Europe ASAP, sue for peace then focus on blowing up Russia and seizing the ME and Caucasus oil fields. But mostly just murderize Russians. It was sort of a hobby for them.
The US was only Nazi Germany’s enemy insofar as they supported the British war effort and, later, joined the fun to get a few kicks in just to be able to say they won the war on their own and saved everybody (:)).

Not only did they not want to, the Nazis never had the means to invade the US or mount any kind of transoceanic war in the first place. Their navy was pitiful outside of the U-boot fleet (and even that was taking a hell of a beating. 7% survival rate among German submariners. Yup.).
The one and only Nazi operation that came anywhere near US soil was Paukenschlag, which consisted in sending a handful of long range U-boots along the East Coast to strike at supply convoys before they could join up with escorts out of England. And that only lasted 3-4 months before the US coast guard got its shit together and made the strategy too onerous.

To assert that Pop’s zip gun made Hitler “think twice” is beyond ludicrous.

The assertion is even more asinine when it comes to Imperial Japan, not just because they never wanted to invade the US either (they wanted to show the Chinese what for, and make a resource grab to get out from under the thumb of US trade shenanigans), but more so because the whole of the Japanese high command thought you guys were, by and large, a bunch of gigantic pussies.
That’s why they rolled Pearl, that’s why they sought early naval engagements, that’s why they went so hard against US possessions in SE Asia at the outbreak of the war. The whole point was to get you to fuck off, under the (in retrospect ever so slightly mistaken) notion that once they’d dug in you’d stay fucked off. Yamamoto thought different, because he had a working brain. The rest of the medal racks couldn’t stop telling each other the US was a paper tiger.

132

You wanted a list of bad guys. I gave you a list of bad guys. Were you expecting a list of bad guys who thought about attacking the U.S. but never formulated a plan because their goal seemed soooo…uhmmm…“out-of-reach”? Preposterous? Doomed to failure?

133

There was that Amerika-Bomber Project that was intended to reach the U.S.. Albert Speer wrote that Hitler was fascinated with seeing NYC in flames. (Why does that sound familiar?)

Hitler considered everyone his enemy. He turned on the SA (brownshirts). He turned on his fellow invader of Poland, Joe Stalin. He turned on Italy but he never really liked Mussolini. I suppose you could make a case that a megalomaniac would suddenly be satisfied with a partial conquest of the world.

Imagine what would have happened if France, England, Scotland, Wales, half the Irish, Canada, Norway, Russia, Greece, Poland, and all the rest had not fought against Nazi tyrani. Imagine what would happened if the U.S. hadn’t use it’s industrial strengths to hurry the war along for everyone but Hitler’s benefit. Imagine what Hitler would have done with an atomic bomb if the Nazis had enough time to develop it.

134

I wanted a list of bad guys who were dissuaded because we have private ownership of firearms.

135

There’s a qualitative difference between spite terror bombings and invasion plans. I also fail to see how private ownership of firearms would have “made him think twice” about bombing the place.

Nonsense.

Because they were his enemies, sort of. There were ideological differences and power struggles at play ; and Röhm was planning a putsch (or at least making noise with his mouth that indicated as much in public).

Because the whole plan had always been to invade Russia for lebensraum on the backs of them degenerate Slavic untermenschen commies. The “alliance” between them was always a matter of temporary convenience - and there’s little doubt Stalin would have broken it eventually had the Germans not broken it first.

Italy turned on him. And Mussolini wasn’t at its head then.
In fact, German parachutists even rescued Mussolini from prison in a daring raid the first time he was captured. Hitler might have not been Mussolini’s #1 admirer, but he didn’t betray him.

I imagine it would have ended up a Cold War, except without a European NATO. And Europe a shittier place to live, all things considered. Anyway, I’m not saying fighting Hitler was a bad thing or that he was a nice, unassuming young man. I *was *saying that private gun ownership in the US had fuck all to do with… well, *anything *re:the whole of WW2. Try and stay on topic, will you ?

136

I assumed that if Afghanistan, Taliban, French Resistance, '43, '46, FARC, and Colombia were allowed as part of the topic or else you wouldn’t have mentioned them.

137

Except he never said that.

138

You’re really not good at this “following the conversation” business, are you ?

Here’s the Cliff notes:

  • **rat avatar **was extolling the virtues of “gorilla warfare” against conventional military forces, as part of his larger assertion that armed civilians might take on a military coup. In this context, bringing up Afghanistan, the French Resistance and the impotence of the FARC is absolutely on topic.

**- RNATB **asked you to provide examples of tyrants (foreign or domestic, one surmises) who “thought twice” because of private gun ownership. You went straight for the Godwin. When I point out that it was an unfounded example to begin with and had nothing to do with what **RNATB **asked you, you proceed to go on a tirade about how Hitler had to be stopped and was, in fact, something of a bad person. Which came as a surprise to most of our readers, I’m sure :).

See the difference ? I’ll give you a hint: the latter is a non-sequitur, the former isn’t.

139

(BTW, rat avatar, I apologize for making light of your spelling mistake, my intention is not to slag you - it’s just that the concept of warfare involving gorillas cracks me up. It’s even scarier than bear cavalry ! :))

140

He never said that OR it hasn’t been substantiated?