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Old 2012-04-14, 02:14 PM   [Ignore Me] #7
Figment
Lieutenant General
 
Re: A brief history on Dutch influence on America


I can agree with a lot of that and did wonder if the effect I was aiming for would be reached regardless. It's however quite frustrating to debate with people who basically state your nation cannot exist, even if it has existed far longer and gone through many more cycles and stages than the USA.

A disarmed society is a powerless society. It has been proven throughout history too many times to be refuted.
This though I have to completely and utterly disagree with. Our society is disarmed, but we are in full control, I'd even say far more than you.


In another topic, Wildguns stated that Luxembourg may be better in a lot of things, but that they still succombed to Germany in WWII, which he claimed would not have happened had the male, able bodied portion taken up arms as a militia. Apparently he doesn't even realise with just how much armour, aircraft and troops the Germans were and that Luxembourg only had a few thousand able bodied people. Did the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Luxembourg and many other nations fall in war fast to the Germans? Yes, because the defensive strategy was based on WWI combat and several lines of heavy fortress and in our case, water defenses and believing in neutrality (which we were, we did not intend to pick sides). The allied nation did not expect violation of neutral nation's sovereignty, the concept of paratroopers, the sheer speed at which the war was waged logistically and lastly the concept of using civilians as hostage by bombing entire residential areas from the air was unprecedented. A prolonged fight would have done nothing but get more civilians killed and would have meant we'd never have a chance to put up any resistance.

The argument becomes even dumber when you consider that the Soviet Union lost millions and millions of troops to the Germans. So to make the assertion that a dutch, Belgian, Luxembourgian or Polish militia could have fought German occupation is simply stupid, disrespectful and naive and lacks any sort of reality checks. There's nothing militias could have done anything about fighting that sort of tyranny, it'd just have gotten more people killed.


Instead, connecting economies and establishing wealth, signing treaties, pacts and in general use words, backed up by standing armies within alliances, as well as a properly setup democracy are the true strengths of a free nation. Militias are an obsolete idea and tbh have been so since the reforms of the late Roman Republic.

Guns among civilians have absolutely no impact on the protection of your other freedoms. IMO it only makes you more paranoid of other people because you feel you apparently have to protect yourself (and your freedoms) physically from others. In a nation where you feel so threatened you need to physically defend yourself, how can you trully claim to feel free?

I don't think a lot of Americans can envision a populace without guns, because they've only known a populace with guns. Yet all of Europe can and we exist and are as free if not more free than Americans. Just because America calls itself the land of the free, doesn't mean that all other populaces are oppressed. That's merely propaganda too many US citizens believe.

Besides, what worked better in establishing and protecting freedoms, Martin Luther King, or the Black Panthers? Ghandi or Bin Laden? Do you see the difference between political developments in Birma and Syria?

Have the Palestinians come closer to peace and an own nation under Arafat's PLO with weapons and Hamas, or under the PLO that tries to negotiate peacefully with Israel over independence? In fact, since Israel's citizens are, have been or will all be part of the Israeli army/militia, they are all considered viable targets by terrorists. Children included.

One of the best examples is Nelson Mandela. His group and he himself started by taking up weapons and ended up achieving their goals through peace.

Another example is the Dalaii Llama for Tibet. You honestly think that if the Tibetans had been armed, they'd been able to fight millions and millions of Chinese occupational forces and immigrants?

Plus the whole militia notion forgets that for every person that wants to fight over a certain "right" there may be one that disagrees. That just leads to Civil War. Capital letters intended. Look at Afghanistan. The "militias" of the Mujahadeen with a lot of help from the CIA defeated the Soviets, only to start fighting each other. In Lybia and other tribal nations (Yemen for instance) the same thing can still easily happen and civil war can erupt. In many African nations, militias have been oppressing the populace for years. The Farc in Columbia is another example of a militia that is a danger to the populace and became a criminal movement.

Remember that any action creates a reaction. Violent actions tend to cause violent reactions and a stronger backlash.



And then just look at how poor the militias of the US have fared in combat throughout history while fighting standing armies of other nations.


No, a disarmed society is not powerless. Power is not measured in firepower and round house kicks, even if Steven Seagal and Chuck Norris would have you believe so.
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