white supremacy doesn’t function without invisible and implicit state support and sponsorship.
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At the risk of being pedantic, I was asked what I think about the word. My thinking is not strictly true to thinking from a couple hundred years ago.
Their vision was rather optimistic. We still have to deal with yahoos here and now.
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Wonder what they’ll do when Trump declares Marshall Law and takes away their rights. What to do… oh what to do…
It says ‘This video is unavailable.’
Wait, here it is.
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Whether we’re using your personal definition of the word or the original one, it doesn’t support the sales-friendly position taken by the firearms manufacturers’ lobby (AKA the NRA).
Part of America’s current firearms problem is that both the pro- and anti-gun control forces, but especially the latter, have completely twisted the original intent and language, to the point where so-called “originalist” SCOTUS Justices essentially ensured (in DC vs. Heller) that the untrained yahoos we have here and now could have all the guns they want because of the Second Amendment.
The Framers’ original vision was not really optimistic but practical. They’d had recent experience with both guerrilla/irregular warfare (amateurs taking potshots at Redcoats) and conventional battles (e.g. Yorktown) and had learned that the latter were more effective in kicking out invading troops. For that kind of battle you needed citizen-soldiers who had been trained how to handle their weapons within the context of their unit and following orders.
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Yup. Looks like it got taken down.
Maybe the 3%ers got offended at Vice’s use of free speech and threatened to exercise their 2nd amendment rights on them.
I think there’s a problem with weapons of war being so freely available in the US. It means that any threat of direct violence, with a gun, is always plausible. Nobody’s got the legal authority to stop irate stupid people from buying guns specifically to slay other people over a grudge. That sucks. I feel there ought to be a test of some kind for appropriateness. Like, you’ve got to provide an actual reason to own a gun in order to have one. And it can’t be “to destroy the government” or “to settle grudges” or “I want one, none of your business”.
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redneckrevolt is honestly one of the few points of hope i often think of—not because their work is somehow “above” those of blm, latinx, muslims, queer folks, but that they exist as a possibility of an ‘exit plan’.
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One minor edit:
“one of America’s right-wing, pro-Trump,
anti-terror militias.”
FTFY.
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Hopefully it won’t come to that; armed resistance vs the US military is not a practical option.
But in less drastic circumstances, RR do two very useful things:
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Outreach to the rural white working class.
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Deterrence. The point of their armed protest attendance isn’t to start a gunfight, it’s to let the fascists know that they can not casually shoot up the anti-racist counter protesters without taking some fire in return. The reported experience of their protest involvement is that the right wing militias try to avoid the RR folks as much as possible; armed socialists make them nervous.
Also:
https://twitter.com/joeprince___/status/917130796049338371
https://twitter.com/theleftfarmer/status/917133740089978880
https://twitter.com/ghost_chad/status/917152639699312642
https://twitter.com/ghost_chad/status/917152904573747201
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ghost_Chad/status/917153496138440704
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ghost_Chad/status/917153626665123840
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sorry! by ‘exit plan’ i mean ideological exit plan, not life-death exit plan. i simply meant: a landing place for those questioning white supremacist ideology, and precisely what you said: outreach and deterrence.
i remember those who were at UVA the night before charlottesville who mentioned that RR was doing security for their interfaith resistance rally… because allowing your comrades to be beat up and shot at by nazis isn’t a good leftist strategy.
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Well, they HAD just finished freeing themselves from one government. Why wouldn’t they want to allow their kids to do the same thing? Didn’t Jefferson say something about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants?
Thanks for that link. I haven’t heard of them and listened to their podcasts. It was good to hear what their doing and that they’re out there.
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Perhaps because they themselves had created a new government, one that they were confident was constitutionally strong enough to resist internal tyrants and which also provided for defense from external tyrants.
Madison, who drafted the Second Amendment, disagreed with Jefferson’s position that the country needed “a little rebellion now and then.”* The purpose of the citizen Militias under discussion in the Amendment was defined clearly in Article 1, Section 8 of the main document (which these modern-day militia buffoons claim to have read) as follows:
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
Nothing there about the militias rebelling against and overthrowing the U.S. government – quite the opposite. For example, the federal government would have been within its constitutional rights to sic the Oregon National Guard (an actual state militia) on the fake and unregulated** militiamen who occupied the Malheur Wildlife Refuge (fortunately for Bundy & co., in the U.S. middle-aged white males who do this are not considered insurrectionists or terrorists).
Again: Second Amendment != Constitutional suicide clause.
[* one would assume that slave rebellions were an exception for Jefferson]
[** the National Guard is prepared enough once it activates that it doesn’t have to beg ideological allies for groceries and toilet paper after the fact]
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Yes - that is the proper definition for the context, with the addition of properly equipped being part of it. You can see examples of what that looked like reading the Militia laws of the time that included all the equipment they had to have (so you were an asset, not a liability) as well a time requirements.
Yes, that was the reason for the Militia model. Though to point out (not saying you were saying other wise) that it extends to every one, not just the Militia. The point was to have as large of a pool as possible to pull from.
No, but that is basically what they got. Only the rich ones had canons as well. The draw back of this system included things like the rich and well equipped being the leaders by default, or sometimes just because of status. This lead to a lot of leaders who weren’t really great military leaders. You also had widely different degrees of preparedness and equipment. Even back when each rifle was hand built and parts weren’t interchangeable, you would have the issue of multiple sized musket balls within one unit. As one can see, our first try out with it in the War of 1812 revealed we needed to revise some things.
Eh - sorta. They had Maryland units going by that name in the 1630s. But it was mostly a hodge podge of state Militias for the longest time. Many of them were not that well trained, nothing like we have now where it is down to a science to get the lowest common denominator able to function as a unit. It didn’t really get their shit together until the Militia Act of 1903 but they were still State controlled. 1933 is when it became a dual state-federal entity and resembled what we have today.
I agree, but the sentiment of many at the time was that being disarmed was the first step to slavery (Not like literal slavery. It’s rather ironic they used such dramatic language when real slavery still existed.) While there were people who did write things like how the people should have the arms to stand up to the government, it should be pointed out there are degrees to that. That is one doesn’t have to literally overthrow the government for arms to act as a deterrent for over reaching authority.
While I agree these militia members aren’t nearly as ‘well regulated’ as the modern National Guard, they are more so than the average gun owner, and possibly more so than some militia in the late 1700s.
I did finally see the whole thing and want to comment may wait to do so later as this keyboard suuuccckkks.
Do you even speak American?
I suppose we should point out too that with the 2nd Amendment and a lot of other things the Founding Fathers did not see 100% eye to eye on everything. They bickered about it just like today. Only instead of inane tweets they had beautifully calligraphic letters quoting Latin. i.e. “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787
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…other than themselves.
Tyranny was already in effect for the slaves, the poor, the women, the Native Americans…
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