• 7 Posts
  • 33 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • Personally, I’ve yet to see a single American successfully use guns to protect any other constitutional right from government infringement.

    The Battle of Athens is probably the most uniquely clear-cut example of what you’re asking for, unless we count the American Revolutionary War itself.

    Other successful examples mostly involve activists using non-violent protest to push for change, while using firearms to protect themselves from violent reactionaries that would otherwise murder them. Notably, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. For a modern example, there’s various “John Brown Gun Clubs” and other community defense organizations providing security at LGBTQ events against fascist groups that seek to terrorize event-goers.

    It’s also worth noting that resistance is often worthwhile even if it doesn’t result in unqualified victory. For example, the Black Panthers’ armed cop-watching activities saved a lot of Black folks from brutal beatings at the hands of the police, even if the organization was eventually crushed by the federal government.

    I have seen lots of examples like Waco and Ruby Ridge, where the government should have tried harder to deescalate, but in the end, everyone died. The closest example I can think of where the government did backoff was the Bundy standoff and all those guys were “defending” was their ability to let their cattle graze illegally on federal land because they didn’t want to pay for access like everyone else.

    It sounds like you might be in a bit of a filter-bubble. I don’t mean any offense by this, it’s a normal thing that tends to happen to people. If the news sources you read and the people you talk to don’t mention these things because it doesn’t mesh with their worldview, how would you hear about them?









  • I’ve never been particularly enthused about voting, but I don’t think Obama-era arguments against it have aged well. At least in the US, the rise of Trump and the MAGA fascists makes “both parties are the same” sentiments look silly and out of touch. I read your follow-up too. While there is some truth to it, I don’t think the argument is very solid. You seem to place a bit too much faith in liberal institutions as a bulwark against the fascists.

    Overall, “voting isn’t very effective, so what else are you doing” is a much better approach on this topic than “voting is bad so you shouldn’t do it”.



  • The quality of their arguments doesn’t really matter though, nor does it matter whether they’re able to convince a majority of people. What matters is that they can reach the few people that will find their overall presentation intriguing enough to merit further investigation, and then pull those people down the rabbit hole. It’s the same strategy that fascists use, just red-flavored instead of brown.

    It also makes the space overall less appealing to your actual target audience, which is a cardinal sin of online community management.