The status in the US that you're concerned about has always been the status quo here. The difference is that our information stream wasn't as good, so the power brokers could more easily control things and get away with them. But with improved access to information, the people are taking steps to change it.

The courts are actually forcing some undoing of gerrymandering, for example (and here in Texas, the gerrymandering is extreme.) Change will be slow, but it's in progress and as people see changes they like (or don't like), voter participation steps up.

Lack of voter participation is the result of feelings of powerlessness against the system, systematic disenfranchisement, and political machinations (oh boy, do we have stories here in Texas!)

Yes, these are fractious times but I remember other troubling times (the race riots in the 1960's, for example, with murders and parts of various cities being put to the torch.)

But the revolution won't come with guns. It will come with technology to force transparency and with the public being willing to remove officials for well-evidenced malfeasance, and with voter registration and with getting others to get out and vote.

That's how it happened before, and that's how it will happen now. So put away the gun and instead go help an elected official whose message and legislative efforts you feel are best representing you.

I agree with this statement. The thing about the whole "armed revolution" bit is that if it ever gets to that point, America as we know it will already be gone. We have to be a lot more proactive. I think one of the things we REALLY need to do is get rid of the two-party system. When we do that, we can see some improvements because representatives will be subject to the peoples' will and not their party's. That's one of the biggest problems I see as far as our government goes. I think if we did that, we'd see a lot more politicians who sided with Democrats previously being less anti-gun, more former Republicans being in support of other things that were considered Democratic viewpoints, and other things. Not all of that change would be for the better, of course, but it would be a start.

They don't even need the Gerrymandering (people need to research where that word came from -- if you care about history), they have more sinister and illegal methods at hand. One of the biggest reasons the Demoncrats protest the 2016 elections was, no matter how much they stuffed the ballot box, Hilarious still wasn't charming enough to win. It happened in Connecticut for twoconsecutive Gubernatorial races; the goober who won did so because 'lost' votes were 'found'.

Meanwhile a certain newly elected official is telling people she's gonna give EVERYone "FREE STUFF!"!

I think you know who I'm talking about.

Of course we do, she has a short sighted answer for every plea yet no REAL answer when questioned about it deeply!

She reminds me much of my Kidney stone, can't wait to be rid of both.

That's a pretty good analogy and I can't say I disagree with you Lars.

You do understand she's following the President's playbook but with a liberal spin.

Absolutely!
But the problem is we KNOW it's his playbook..and we know what's in it for the most part.
Plus she's doing it so badly it's both laughable and usless.

They need to come up with something new or they're never gonna get power back.

Nor to those watchers of the Corrupt News Network.

You know, this meme keeps going around and yet she has made very clear how she plans to do all of this. At this point some people are just purposely being obtuse.

Maybe to you but she has to convince Mr. and Mrs Average and if she keeps using Trumps play book that's gonna be an uphill battle no matter how popular she thinks she is.

Change is utterly inevatable. It is the only constant. There is a very real change rolling through our political system and our country ..and ultimatly the world. And there are many people frightened or threatend by that change.

The Gerreymander lost in Michigan.

Remember the Containment Unit failure in the original Ghostbusters?

This will be the financial equivalent of that. It will be bright, it will be hard to miss, and there will be people who will manage to do so anyway.

"roughly half the US real-estate market is now a giant money laundry for foreign kleptocrats."

I take it that you've heard of Chinese "billionaires" buying up residency visas in the west, not because they want to immigrate there, but because they need a safe place to hoard it all. Particularly to keep it out of reach of the Chinese government. They weasel their way out of paying taxes, and hardly ever invest in the western economies.

So not only do they take up space for poor immigrants, they also drive up property prices for average citizens.

Motherfuckers.

When we let people amass that kind of wealth, they have to find a way to both protect it and increase its value, if only because that's all they know how to do. There is only so much in the world one can legitimately invest in, by which I mean increase wealth by generating real value, like financing a fledgling business. When those run out, what's left is to hoard things in the hope they increase in price. With enough money and/or enough co-conspirators' money, markets can be cornered and the price of goods driven artificially high for a profit, as is being done with real property in western North America. We recognized the dangers this sort of behavior posed the last time our economy got wrecked by profit chasers, and the New Deal was enacted in response. We went about 40 years where there was just no reason to behave like that in the US, then forgot why we'd done that and undid it. Now we're back to square one.

To quote one of my favourite authors: "If the American military decides they want American civilians dead, your choices are joining the Army or dying with a lot of valid questions."

We're well past the age when "voting from the rooftops" had any chance of doing anything but committing complicated self-destruction. Man, I respect the angst at the system, but you need to stop looking at the solution as one "a small subset" can solve. Not really a realistic viewpoint.

Really? The US military, whose soldiers are all US citizens, are going to launch a full-on war against US citizens? Bombing their own families without hesitation? That's not a realistic viewpoint, dude.

Obviously he's not familiar with the Posse Comitatus Act or the concept of "illegal orders". I'd bet that the American military would wind up turning on such leaders acting in bad faith... and the ones that didn't would wind up essentially prisoners in their own base.

P'raps you should run that comic of yours showing Predator base vs. loaded semi?

You really think it's unlikely that if a bunch of your citizens started "voting from the rooftops" you wouldn't be declared terrorists and dealt with by the national guard if the local police couldn't kill you fast enough?

You think, for some reason, that the individual soldiers in the military would somehow side with you against a commanding officer who designated you armed insurrectionists? What kind of happy-go-lucky fun land are you living in over there where armed and deadly acts of political unrest DON'T result in armed military response? Sure, they might start with beanbags and tear gas, but see how long that would last as soon as you got a few of their soldier buddies killed.

Imagine if your whole town just up and declared that it wasn't paying taxes or obeying any laws but their own, then killed a few local and federal politicians to make sure the rest of the country got the message. In your worldview, the rest of the states just goes "Welp, seems like they thought this one out and they all have small arms, guess we just let them be and go on their merry way"?

Nice dodging of the issue. My question was, do you really believe the US military is going to bomb US cities, essentially at random (because the guerillas are NOT going to be standing out in the open, holding cardboard targets over their heads)? Then you're a lot more paranoid than I am, dude. Oh, and https://www.furaffinity.net/view/17925967/

I agree with you Karno, Lorker doesn't know any of those soldiers or former soldiers, just talking out his ass.

I'm avoiding an issue you invented, specifically the US army bombing US cities, which I agree is nuts. Why would they destroy all that valuable infrastructure? Why would I argue against an extra requirement that you added? Armies don't just fight by bombing everything in sight man. I said if the army decided it wants you dead, you'll be dead. You think you can shoot a bunch of folks and just what, fade into the forest? Stephen Paddock was 32 floors up and a thousand feet away from his target zone and it took 12 minutes to locate him. He was shooting for 10 of those minutes. Unless you're thinking of killing like, one politician a week or something and laying low the rest of the time? Well, let's not get side tracked: If an armed, secessionist militia took over a town and declared it no longer a part of the US, the national guard would roll in and you would die. Maybe not right away, but man, even guerilla armies take losses, how long do you think you're going to hold out against tanks?

I'm trying to tell you "I'll grab my gun and right the world" is a power fantasy, it isn't based in reality. In reality you'd kill a handful of people and then either die or live the rest of your life on America's Most Wanted. The only way your world works is if your act of violence somehow makes everyone else suddenly agree with you. All the people in your town, every soldier the military could call in, all of them have to suddenly start agreeing that you're in the right. Otherwise the headlines are "Right-wing extremist terror group massacres elected US officials, national guard deployed in force. 'This attack against our freedoms, security, and safety will not stand!', political gasbag exclaims"

Seriously though, I'm interested, what's your plan after you and presumably a group of like-minded individuals shoot a bunch of people from the rooftops? Do you all go home and make lunch? Burst into a news station and issue a proclamation with reporters at gunpoint? Youtube video? Like, follow and subscribe? What's the actual plan here beyond "shoot some people we think are crooked"? Tell me where this goes from your point of view. In my head that situation reads as complicated suicide, I want to know how you think it would turn out.

"Seriously though, I'm interested, what's your plan after you and presumably a group of like-minded individuals shoot a bunch of people from the rooftops? Do you all go home and make lunch? Burst into a news station and issue a proclamation with reporters at gunpoint? Youtube video? Like, follow and subscribe? What's the actual plan here beyond "shoot some people we think are crooked"? Tell me where this goes from your point of view. In my head that situation reads as complicated suicide, I want to know how you think it would turn out."

That apparently was this person's plan:

https://thenectarine.ca/wp-content/.....1/landeros.png

He was training others to do the same and he was a card carrying fringe leftist.

"That apparently was this person's plan:

https://thenectarine.ca/wp-content/.....1/landeros.png

He was training others to do the same and he was a card carrying fringe leftist. "


Why would I care about this? Are you trying to say "crazy fringe dudes commit violence regardless of political leanings"? Then we agree, the crazy fringe is indeed crazy!

Seriously, I'm confused. I kind of just asked how the scenario would play out in Karno's mind because I want to know if he's looking past the point that the violence happens too or if the violence itself is the end of the scenario.

And you walked in like "Yeah, okay, sure, but look at this picture of an orange." Where... where am I supposed to take this information? What am I expected to do with it?

Honestly I'm not sure either. I thought he was going somewhere else with this but I guess I misread his intention.
I'll get back to you when I'm sure I understand what's going on myself. Sorry'bout that.

Nah, you've convinced me with your flawless reasoning: Mere civilian scum can't ever defeat trained soldiers. That's why Ireland is still fully possessed by England, why Vietnam is an American territory, and Afghanistan is now a part of Russia.

Ahh, I see, in your scenario you're going to be part of a widespread uprising with the backing of foreign powers, got it. No wonder that all sounded like wishful thinking, you just hadn't made the situation clear.

Look man, if you don't have an answer to or just don't want to answer a criticism, that's fine, I'm not trying for some "gotcha" moment here, I just want people to think more about the things they say. You talk glibly about civil war like you're looking forward to it man.

"I'll defend my family under the banner of the Laughing Bandit."
"Hey, you gotta laugh at something so ridiculous as the mess we've got ourselves in"
"Have some fun with the situation. Why the hell not?"

I hear a lot of people talking like this, not just you, and it worries me. Not because I'm going to be personally in danger if you all go nuts and start shooting each other (I mean more than you are already), but things are going to get difficult all over the world if the US implodes in an orgy of violence. Maybe you think you'll be fine and all the bad stuff will only happen to other people who deserve it but how likely is that? You said it yourself, civil wars get messy. Yet you talk about Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Ireland as if those conflicts didn't scar their entire societies for years if not permanently.

You want a modern example of popular uprisings? Don't look for one decades in the past, look at Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Syria. Are your issues so dire that turning into one of those war-torn slag holes is a fair price to you? If you aren't willing to plan around your friends and loved ones being rolled into a mass grave for the cause, maybe stop thinking in terms of blowing stuff up and more in terms of how to build a world you like instead. This is the problem with collecting hammers man, every problem starts to look like a nail.

you are aware that with Vietnam the US withdrew from South Vietnam because the war was deeply unpopular among the American public and the government couldn't keep it up as a result of that. Guerilla warfare contributed to the withdrawal of the US military but the war being deeply unpopular which eventually led to congress withholding funds. Plus there was the Arab Oil Embargo which also impacted the military because vehicles need fuel to work. To sum up the Veitnam war, "mere civilian scum" didn't defeat the US military, the military was starved of resources by an embargo and Congress doing it's job.

If you're talking about Ireland as a whole, both Ireland and the UK signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty on the 6th of December in 1921 which was ratified on the 5th of December 1922. If you mean the Northern Ireland Troubles the IRA's political wing Sinn Fein and the UK government entered an agreement after two failed ceasefires known as the good friday agreement. For the case of North Ireland, both parties in the conflict held negotiations and compromised to end a bloody conflict between a military and a group of insurgents

The soviet invasion of Afghanistan is different in terms of it being a war where insurgents fought against the soviets and won but they only managed to do so with foreign help from the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. If there was a hypothetical conflict between the American public and its own military. Would you want to take weapons offered by our adversaries such as North Korea? Iran? or even Russia when they have ulterior motives for supplying you with the weapons necessary to fight back?

If gun controllers want to be murdered and raped by a draconian government, it's their problem. But I don't see why gun owners/enthusiasts should give up their arms and not even put up a fight, just because the defeatists are feeling lonely being sodomized by government thugs.

I also like that a good deal of the citizenry rebelling against a draconian government, may also be military veterans, special forces even, though rare as they may be. And certainly not retarded enough to stand in the open and be an easy target, when they can strike from the shadows without even being in the same place.

Then there's also how the same military personnel tasked with enforcing a corrupt government's will, may realize with great remorse, given the atrocities they are ordered to do, that they are fighting for the wrong side. And thus, will gladly defect over to the citizen militias, taking their skills and equipment with them. Figures, a despot without people to carry out his/her will is nothing.

There's also the way they dehumanize gun owners/enthusiasts, and then in the same breath, shriek about how the government under Trump is "fascist" and should be overthrown using the same guns/2nd Amendment they want to ban forever. They really think singing Kumbaya will solve everything.

Fuck them all to hell.

" I don't see why gun owners/enthusiasts should give up their arms and not even put up a fight"

Are you sure you want to try going against the US armed forces with a rag tag group of like-minded people who probably have little to no training in Urban warfare, have selective fire rifles, hand grenades, air support and dedicated vehicles including the A-10 warthog and the m1 abrams?

"I also like that a good deal of the citizenry rebelling against a draconian government, may also be military veterans, special forces even, though rare as they may be"

Even if these citizens rebel, chances are they will panic as they are shelled by artillery, nailed by snipers, mowed down by air strikes and pinned down by suppressive fire.

It's one thing to say these grandiose things but it's another to actually follow through with it.

Even if we want to "vote from the rooftops," how could we? Sure, people can protest, even riot, and a man with a gun might take out a few cops or shoot up a public place and kill a bunch of bystanders, but the people who are doing all this to us are essentially untouchable. Who's gonna take out Putin or Trump, or ferret out all the anonymous, nation-less moneymen who are bankrolling our downfall from the sidelines? The people could rise up in revolt, and we'd kill a bunch of cops and soldiers, and maybe just enough middle managers and chicken inspectors to make everybody think we've made our point, but I really do believe that all the top level troublemakers are untouchable by the likes of you and me. The only way those people ever get taken out is by each other.

What exactly is stopping you from doing some research and finding out the names, dates and places of these real villains?

Stopping me? Probably not knowing where to even begin. Maybe the Panama Papers or the names that go seven levels deep on the titles of all those vacant homes on the west coast. What I'm getting at is that they are secretive and well protected. You see the episode of 'Rick and Morty' where they were on the purge planet and the rich and powerful sat out the purge in a castle? A revolution would be kinda like that, except none of us has a suit of power armor.

Yes - the widespread delusion that the ultra-rich are somehow magically immune to retaliation is very useful to them. After all, if you believe you can't possibly succeed in an endeavor, you'll never try in the first place, yes?

I think we can still beat them at the polls. We did the New Deal once and it worked for the US and Europe. We need to bring it back and fight to make its constraints on the top takers global instead of merely local.