withak posted:

Spotted in the Charleston thread:

Bitter Mushroom posted:

Pictured: Luddites smashing machinery which had destroyed their livelihoods. The Luddites had many veterans of the Napoleonic wars with them, which spurred the British government to introduce the wonderful measure of restricting gun ownership in order to keep the great unwashed from toppling them.

Crowsbeak posted:

Yeah I wonder why anyone on the left would support restricting firearms when you have greater oligarchic control being pushed on our society.

Noam Chomsky posted:

Your point illustrates exactly what I think is a major fallacy. The government is far from benign--that's true. On the other hand, it's at least partially accountable, and it can become as benign as we make it.
What's not benign (what's extremely harmful, in fact) is something you didn't mention--business power, which is highly concentrated and, by now, largely transnational. Business power is very far from benign and it's completely unaccountable. It's a totalitarian system that has an enormous effect on our lives. It's also the main reason why the government isn't benign.

As for guns being the way to respond to this, that's outlandish. First of all, this is not a weak Third World country. If people have pistols, the government has tanks. If people get tanks, the government has atomic weapons. There's no way to deal with these issues by violent force, even if you think that that's morally legitimate.

Guns in the hands of American citizens are not going to make the country more benign. They're going to make it more brutal, ruthless and destructive. So while one can recognize the motivation that lies behind some of the opposition to gun control, I think it's sadly misguided.

khwarezm posted:

America is a well armed society but doesn't seem to have much trouble maintaining a large class divide and massive accumulation of wealth in the hands of the elite in spite of that, the idea that a well armed populace will eventually rise up against Corporate taskmasters is usually wishful thinking, in any event people with the money and power will also usually have more and better weapons.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9rGX91rq5I

The UK is bad at elections.

C.M. Kruger posted:

"Hitler sighed as he unboxed his 'Kantai Collection' blurays"

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

The Dark One posted:

Peven Stan posted:

Peven Stan posted:

Crowsbeak posted:

Even if you're posting brony bullshit ironically in this thread you deserve to be probated.

Crowsbeak posted:

Who's the clown?

quote:

Chomsky:

As for guns being the way to respond to this, that's outlandish. First of all, this is not a weak Third World country. If people have pistols, the government has tanks. If people get tanks, the government has atomic weapons. There's no way to deal with these issues by violent force, even if you think that that's morally legitimate.

Guns in the hands of American citizens are not going to make the country more benign. They're going to make it more brutal, ruthless and destructive. So while one can recognize the motivation that lies behind some of the opposition to gun control, I think it's sadly misguided.

Dilkington posted:

This discussion is always asinine because when something as complex as a society breaks, it tends to break in ways we can't predict. However, I think Chomsky's being unimaginative.

Chomsky is of course familiar with examples of successful insurgencies- I presume by his pistol-tank-nuke remark he means to emphasize how force multipliers separate the US from "weak Third World countries."

Of course, those force multipliers are tuned for symmetrical warfare, and rely on long, complex logistic chains, almost certainly disrupted in the event of a domestic uprising. The success or failure of such an uprising can't be measured in conventional terms (hoisting the red and black flag over the Whitehouse). Instead, like every other successful insurgency, it would aim to weaken the actual or perceived authority of the state and extract concessions from it (I wish there was a pithy way to sum up how violent conflict is sometimes a continuation of political struggles).

Now, consider the possibility that your violent revolution provokes a nuclear response- contrary to how Chomsky understands it, this doesn't demonstrate the hopelessness of violent struggle- it means your insurgency has already been massively successful in coercing the state.

I also find it interesting how he denigrates brutality, ruthlessness and destruction, as though history didn't bare those out as essential to successful revolutions.

I think a more topical question for Chomsky would be: should leftists and minorities arm themselves against reactionaries, either individually or en masse, or should they rely on the largesse of the state.

SedanChair posted:

Right, Chomsky's thing about the government having superior force (which as he would say, is a completely standard liberal position) doesn't really apply to the threat from white militias. And they're not yokels eating cookies at the meeting hall any more; they're posting "riot defense" tactical scenario fantasy porn on AR-15.com and going to 3-day dynamic carbine classes.

Vetitum posted:

Humanitarians Of Tinder

RaySmuckles posted:

Always leave a little time to dream

Crusader posted:

Armyman25 posted:

Yup..

Scratch Monkey posted:

edit: ha! way to be a poo poo in every way imaginable

THE BOMBINATRIX posted:

Holy poo poo, the bumper sticker is bad enough but they're taking up 5 parking spaces. It's like they're daring someone to key their truck.

I'd try something like this to teach them a lesson but they'd probably just end up shooting me.

http://gawker.com/parking-jerk-taught-a-valuable-lesson-about-not-taking-977196808