Strategically, the VC were an annoyance and accomplished nothing. If Diem and Thieu had just been fighting the VC, their successors would still be in power in Saigon today. It was the NVA, a real military force, that won the war and conquered Vietnam.
Looking at my posts, I realize I’ve been talking about the peripheral issues that have arisen and not said anything about the OP. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that this is business as usual. I won’t go as far as say it’s moral to spy on your opponents, but I think it’s expected. If I were a member of the NRA I know I’d expect my organization would have spies inside gun-control groups. And if I were a member of a gun-control group, I’d expect my organization to have spies inside the NRA.
That said, spies I can accept. People sent into an organization to act as saboteurs or agents provocateur are a different matter and I feel it’s wrong to use them.
[QUOTE=Algher]
Again, Saddam did not have a gun culture among the Shiites to deal with.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, nonsense. The Iraqis were well armed; Saddam didn’t care because it didn’t matter.
[QUOTE=Chimera]
I would like to know where I allegedly did this, you lying, distorting piece of shit.
[/QUOTE]
I brought up the fact that guns aren’t used to defend freedom, but to terrorize people. Your response was “point and laugh”. If you don’t like that I called you on it, too bad.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
I brought up the fact that guns aren’t used to defend freedom, but to terrorize people. Your response was “point and laugh”. If you don’t like that I called you on it, too bad.
[/QUOTE]
He was laughing at you and your desperate anti-Republican trolling, you retard.
Not people who have been murdered.
YOU.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Oh, nonsense. The Iraqis were well armed; Saddam didn’t care because it didn’t matter.
[/QUOTE]
Cite?
I find this from the NYT:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504E3D8103AF933A1575AC0A9659C8B63
However, the NYT ALSO says this:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2080201/
I didn’t spot an actual law in my brief Googling, nor did I see a reference to WHO was allowed to buy guns (Did you have to have a certain party membership?)
What do you hunt in Iraq, anyway? They don’t have deer there. Boar is out, since they’re Muslims. Camel? Seems unlikely, since they’re too valuable as a pack animal. Do they have some kind of antelopes or something that I don’t know about? Do they have game fowl like quail or partridge over there?
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
I brought up the fact that guns aren’t used to defend freedom, but to terrorize people. Your response was “point and laugh”. If you don’t like that I called you on it, too bad.
[/QUOTE]
I pointed and laughed at your nonsense about gun owners being pro-fascism. This is what I addressed from your post.
You’re a lying piece of shit who deliberately distorts what other people say in order to make a point that doesn’t exist, in order to justify the crap that comes out of your own deluded mind.
Oh, and the point you make above in the quote boxes is full of the same shit.
Damn, now I gotta go learn how to use that board feature that I’ve never bothered to look at before.
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
What do you hunt in Iraq, anyway?
[/QUOTE]
Antelope/gazelle, even though overhunting really reduced their numbers. Rabbits, ducks/geese, partridge/grouse, pigeon/dove. Pigs (if you’re Christian, or non-devoutly Muslim)
[QUOTE=Algher]
Cite?
[/QUOTE]
I found this, from USA Today (mostly talking about Iraq’s current gun laws, as of 2004, but…bolding mine):
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-10-07-guns-iraq_x.htm
So, if I’m reading it right, the requirements were 18, no criminal history or mental illness for handguns and hunting rifles, permits for AK-47/millitary weapons.
Were these gun laws actually applied to EVERYONE in Iraq, or was it just a case of Saddam’s favorite people getting gun privileges and everyone else getting fucked? That article you cited makes it seem like the latter.
I don’t know why I’m bothering, but:
Saying “I don’t think gay people should marry” is not equivalent to “Homosexuality is against Gods’ will” is not equivalent to “I’m going to shoot all the gays.”
Saying “I don’t like what that guy has to say” is not equivalent to “I want to stop that guy saying what he says” is not equivalent to “I’m going to shoot him for saying that.”
Saying “I believe in God” is not equivalent to “All atheists are wrong” is not equivalent to “All atheists are evil” is still not equivalent to “I’m going to shoot all the atheists.” (insert religion of choice for ‘atheist’ if provoked"
An easy victim would not be armed.
You talk about how very easy it is for armies to defeat a lightly armed populace, but if that’s the case, why were we in Vietnam so long? Why have we been in Iraq so long? Why is it such a mire?
Oh, I’m there’s a lot of idiocy involved in general, but mostly it’s because even with tanks and automatic weapons and planes and bombs and the like, sufficiently motivated people can still put up a very spirited resistance. What the hell do you think people are DOING over there, losing at checkers?
The fact is, the war in Iraq could be over and done with if we were prepared to massacre the populations of those two countries. With bomb manufacturers working overtime I’m fairly certain we could salt the earth with the blood of the citizenry. We wouldn’t even have to pull out the nukes to do it. If we really didn’t want another Iraqi alive, we could pull that off.
What’s the major reason we don’t? Assume you are as cynical as DT over there and believe it’s only because we’d get such bad press from the rest of the world that we’d get bombed ourselves and we just don’t have enough bombs for the whole world. It’s really all the reason you need for this little thought exercise, because the people DT is pointing at as the lovers of guns are the Almost Non-Existent Stereotypical Evil Rightie.
Observe the weak chin and the close-set eyes and the gun grafted to his hand. He loves Amerikuh and her fruited plains and purple mountains majesty. But as much as he might hate the Ebil Terrists and Them Damn Ragheads and Those Godless Heathens, he’s probably still going to balk at nuking his own country into the Stone Age.
No, it’s far more difficult and expensive and time-consuming than you might think for a country to control an internal armed insurrection. It’s far easier to dull people into cow-like obedience, either believing what they’re told or dully accepting that everything they hear is a lie but never going very far to find out what the truth might be. I’m not a very good liberal: I’d rather have a gun in the hands of an idiot than in the control of the government. At least someone can stop the idiot if he gets out of line.
Heck, there’s even a saying about two men fighting with knives: the most likely outcome is that one participant ends up in the hospital while the other ends up in the morgue. With guns? Even a guy holding a pistol can kill a guy holding a submachinegun.
…Oh wait, there was an OP. Well, I suppose lying about your convictions is somewhat dickish, but I’m not sure if this woman’s behavior actually caused harm and violence like I’m told CIA infiltration did back in the 60s and 70s. Unless someone was actually hurt or killed by her shenanigans, it doesn’t get much more than a :rolleyes: from me.
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
Were these gun laws actually applied to EVERYONE in Iraq, or was it just a case of Saddam’s favorite people getting gun privileges and everyone else getting fucked? That article you cited makes it seem like the latter.
[/QUOTE]
The article made it seem like everybody gets guns (pistols and hunting rifles). Saddam’s friends get assault rifles.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Or, you can recruit those civilians to your side; have roaming death squads of true believers killing the disloyal. Again; I don’t see any reason to believe that the gun owners of America are the sort of people who WOULD fight against a fascistic government. Instead, I’d expect them to help hunt down and kill anyone they think is liberal or gay or atheist or Jewish or whatever. That’s the sort of people who tend to be enthusiastic about gun rights; not noble defenders of civil rights, but the scum element of America. Who only care about one right; the right to have a gun.
[/QUOTE]
If you want an example of disgusting bigotry, look no farther than your mirror. This is an absurd caricature and you know it. I am a liberal, and an atheist, and a member of JPFO. I’m not quite gay, but I support gay marriage rights. I happen to think that the right to be armed is a fundamental civil liberty, and because of that you want to lump me together with your own deranged fantasy of gun owners as racist proto-authoritarian thugs. I would try to tell you that your perception is six different kinds of bullshit, but you know it as well as I do.
And if you’re so afraid of the ultraconservative overzealous super-Christian redneck bigots siding with the government when it descends into tyranny, why don’t you pick up a rifle yourself and start practicing with it? We gun-toting enlightened liberals could use another hand if it’s as bad as you say. 
But no, you’re just looking for a reaction. Nobody here should be taking you seriously, whichever side they’re on.
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Easily, and it’s hers. Because she lied.
They were stupid. But she’s still a liar. The wool being comparitively easy to pull over their eyes does not mean there was no deception.
[/QUOTE]
If you don’t ask and I don’t tell, the responsibility lies with you, not me. The people that hired and promoted her bear sole responsibility for this “debacle”, as it were.
Not that it matters. In the grand scheme of things this is small potatoes. It’s not like it’s a big secret what the Brady Campaign and their allies are trying to do or going to say. I could predict it right now with 100% accuracy, and I have nothing to do with them. Same with the NRA. The line have long been established in this battle.
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
If you don’t ask and I don’t tell, the responsibility lies with you, not me. The people that hired and promoted her bear sole responsibility for this “debacle”, as it were.
[/QUOTE]
So it’s perfectly ethical to lie as long as you aren’t specifically asked not to?
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
From this thread at THR:
What good can a handgun do against an Army?
By Mike Vanderboegh
A friend of mine recently forwarded me a question a friend of his had posed:
“If/when our Federal Government comes to pilfer, pillage, plunder our property and destroy our lives, what good can a handgun do against an army with advanced weaponry, tanks, missiles, planes, or whatever else they might have at their disposal to achieve their nefarious goals? (I’m not being facetious: I accept the possibility that what happened in Germany, or similar, could happen here; I’m just not sure that the potential good from an armed citizenry in such a situation outweighs the day-to-day problems caused by masses of idiots who own guns.)”
If I may, I’d like to try to answer that question. I certainly do not think the writer facetious for asking it. The subject is a serious one that I have given much research and considerable thought to. I believe that upon the answer to this question depends the future of our Constitutional republic, our liberty and perhaps our lives. My friend Aaron Zelman, one of the founders of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership told me once:
“If every Jewish and anti-nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition AND THE WILL TO USE IT (emphasis supplied, MV), Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic.” - Aaron Zelman, JPFO
Note well that phrase: “and the will to use it,” for the simply-stated question, “What good can a handgun do against an army?”, is in fact a complex one and must be answered at length and carefully. It is a military question. It is also a political question. But above all it is a moral question which strikes to the heart of what makes men free, and what makes them slaves. First, let’s answer the military question.
Most military questions have both a strategic and a tactical component. Let’s consider the tactical.
A friend of mine owns an instructive piece of history. It is a small, crude pistol, made out of sheet-metal stampings by the U.S. during World War II. While it fits in the palm of your hand and is a slowly-operated, single-shot arm, it’s powerful .45 caliber projectile will kill a man with brutal efficiency. With a short, smooth-bore barrel it can reliably kill only at point blank ranges, so its use requires the will (brave or foolhardy) to get in close before firing. It is less a soldier’s weapon than an assassin’s tool. The U.S. manufactured them by the million during the war, not for our own forces but rather to be air-dropped behind German lines to resistance units in occupied Europe. Crude and slow (the fired case had to be knocked out of the breech by means of a little wooden dowel, a fresh round procured from the storage area in the grip and then manually reloaded and cocked) and so wildly inaccurate it couldn’t hit the broad side of a French barn at 50 meters, to the Resistance man or woman who had no firearm it still looked pretty darn good.
The theory and practice of it was this:
First, you approach a German sentry with your little pistol hidden in your coat pocket and, with Academy-award sincerity, ask him for a light for your cigarette (or the time the train leaves for Paris, or if he wants to buy some non-army-issue food or a half- hour with your “sister”). When he smiles and casts a nervous glance down the street to see where his Sergeant is at, you blow his brains out with your first and only shot, then take his rifle and ammunition. Your next few minutes are occupied with “getting out of Dodge,” for such critters generally go around in packs. After that (assuming you evade your late benefactor’s friends) you keep the rifle and hand your little pistol to a fellow Resistance fighter so they can go get their own rifle.
Or maybe you then use your rifle to get a submachine gun from the Sergeant when he comes running. Perhaps you get very lucky and pickup a light machine gun, two boxes of ammunition and a haversack of hand grenades. With two of the grenades and the expenditure of a half-a-box of ammunition at a hasty roadblock the next night, you and your friends get a truck full of arms and ammunition. (Some of the cargo is sticky with “Boche” blood, but you don’t mind terribly.)
Pretty soon you’ve got the best armed little maquis unit in your part of France, all from that cheap little pistol and the guts to use it. (One wonders if the current political elite’s opposition to so-called “Saturday Night Specials” doesn’t come from some adopted racial memory of previous failed tyrants. Even cheap little pistols are a threat to oppressive regimes.)
They called the pistol the “Liberator.” Not a bad name, all in all.
Now let’s consider the strategic aspect of the question, “What good can a handgun do against an army…?” We have seen that even a poor pistol can make a great deal of difference to the military career and postwar plans of one enemy soldier. That’s tactical. But consider what a million pistols, or a hundred million pistols (which may approach the actual number of handguns in the U.S. today), can mean to the military planner who seeks to carry out operations against a populace so armed. Mention “Afghanistan” or “Chechnya” to a member of the current Russian military hierarchy and watch them shudder at the bloody memories. Then you begin to get the idea that modern munitions, air superiority and overwhelming, precision-guided violence still are not enough to make victory certain when the targets are not sitting Christmas- present fashion out in the middle of the desert.
“A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money.” --Everett Dirksen
Consider that there are at least as many firearms-- handguns, rifles and shotguns-- as there are citizens of the United States. Consider that last year there were more than 14 million Americans who bought licenses to hunt deer in the country. 14 million-- that’s a number greater than the largest five professional armies in the world combined. Consider also that those deer hunters are not only armed, but they own items of military utility-- everything from camouflage clothing to infrared “game finders”, Global Positioning System devices and night vision scopes.
Consider also that quite a few of these hunters are military veterans. Just as moving around in the woods and stalking game are second nature, military operations are no mystery to them, especially those who were on the receiving end of guerrilla war in Southeast Asia. Indeed, such men, aging though they may be, may be more psychologically prepared for the exigencies of civil war (for this is what we are talking about) than their younger active-duty brother-soldiers whose only military experience involved neatly defined enemies and fronts in the Grand Campaign against Saddam. Not since 1861-1865 has the American military attempted to wage a war athwart its own logistical tail (nor indeed has it ever had to use modern conventional munitions on the Main Streets of its own hometowns and through its relatives’ backyards, nor has it tested the obedience of soldiers who took a very different oath with orders to kill their “rebellious” neighbors, but that touches on the political aspect of the question).
But forget the psychological and political for a moment, and consider just the numbers. To paraphrase the Senator, “A million pistols here, a million rifles there, pretty soon you’re talking serious firepower.” No one, repeat, no one, will conquer America, from within or without, until its citizenry are disarmed. We remain, as a British officer had reason to complain at the start of our Revolution, “a people numerous and armed.”
The Second Amendment is a political issue today only because of the military reality that underlies it. Politicians who fear the people seek to disarm them. People who fear their government’s intentions refuse to be disarmed. The Founders understood this. So, too, does every tyrant who ever lived. Liberty-loving Americans forget it at their peril. Until they do, American gunowners in the aggregate represent a strategic military fact and an impediment to foreign tyranny. They also represent the greatest political challenge to home-grown would-be tyrants. If the people cannot be forcibly disarmed against their will, then they must be persuaded to give up their arms voluntarily. This is the siren song of “gun control,” which is to say “government control of all guns,” although few self-respecting gun-grabbers would be quite so bold as to phrase it so honestly.
Joseph Stalin, when informed after World War II that the Pope disapproved of Russian troops occupying Trieste, turned to his advisors and asked, “The Pope? The Pope? How many divisions does he have?” Dictators are unmoved by moral suasion. Fortunately, our Founders saw the wisdom of backing the First Amendment up with the Second. The “divisions” of the army of American constitutional liberty get into their cars and drive to work in this country every day to jobs that are hardly military in nature. Most of them are unmindful of the service they provide. Their arms depots may be found in innumerable closets, gunracks and gunsafes.
Think about it. Even if you’re still opposed to the idea, it’s historically interesting.
[/QUOTE]
Wow. I think you just convinced me to change my mind on this issue. (I’m fifteen, it’s academic anyway, but still)
[QUOTE=Terrifel]
So it’s perfectly ethical to lie as long as you aren’t specifically asked not to?
[/QUOTE]
How is it a lie? If you don’t ask me the question, I don’t have to volunteer anything. Should people have to volunteer their entire medical history to get a job? How about their personal history, including any high-risk behaviors?
If Mother Jones had the wherewithal to find out about this, I fail to see where the organization who hired her couldn’t have done the same in their vetting process, or simply asked outright.
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
If you don’t ask and I don’t tell, the responsibility lies with you, not me. The people that hired and promoted her bear sole responsibility for this “debacle”, as it were.
[/quote]
But the problem is, you’re assuming she didn’t “tell” - and I find it hard to believe that at no point during working for various gun-control organisations - for over ten years - did she once mention her own leanings on the subject, truthfully or falsely. The argument that she has never once during that time spoken about her own views rings hollow, at least to me.
True. In the grand scheme of things, stealing a 50p chocolate bar doesn’t matter. But it’s still wrong.
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
How is it a lie? If you don’t ask me the question, I don’t have to volunteer anything.
[/quote]
I am asking you now to respond honestly to the following questions.
Do you really, truly believe that this woman was able to represent herself for years as a gun-control advocacy official without ever expressing an opinion about gun control?
That’s not much of a hijack, is it? From paid espionage to one’s medical history? I guess that theft would constitute a “high-risk behavior.”
Okay, then: If a bus driver knows he has narcolepsy, and manages to keep it a secret from the bus company, do you really, truly believe that the bus driver is committing no wrongdoing?
Do you really, truly believe that the failure to identify a spy absolves that spy of responsibility for their actions?