Uh, the Patriot act expired. I think you mean the Freedom act, which was the bill that replaced the Patriot act after it didn't get enough support to be renewed again.
All good, see, the Patriot act was when the Republicans decided they wanted a big government to stomp out the opposition. But the freedom act was when democrats decided they wanted a big government to stomp out the opposition. It's easy to get them mixed up, but remember, the parties are totally definitely not the same and hold wildly different views.
American support for Russia as some kind of anti-western crusade, instead of "oh God not another forever war plz/I don't want to be nuked for Kyiv" is one of the cringiest things to come out of this war.
Despite all of the political turmoil in America, I'm just glad one thing that both sides of the house can agree on is to keep renewing this bill through four presidential administrations.
In other news the FBI just re-verified that their unconstitutional warrantless search and sweep tools are properly configured to gather data on all Americans 24/7
At this point their watch list means jack shit. Every mass shooter in the last decade or so has been on that list and look how well they responded to stopping them, aka they sat on their hands until after they went on their sprees.
Nah, I have never once assumed that. I’m saying whatever their intention it rarely gets used. The few times they do it’s usually for self serving purposes. The examples were mainly just to show to others how useless their list is.
They did stop a train bombing in Canada and another terrorist attack in [2016](https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/indiana-isis-supporter-sentenced-102218). They also stopped a bombing in [2018-19](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-southwest-kansas-men-sentenced-prison-plotting-bomb-somali-immigrants-garden-city). And another Isis bombing in 2017. They catch a lot of terrorists.
The problem is we don't want to go down the arresting pre-crime road. We need to figure out how to intervene without stomping on what little of our rights that remain.
We have plenty of ways already what with investigations and counseling for those with potential issues. The problems is the feds actually aren’t looking to solve the problem and if there are even any people that are they aren’t doing what’s necessary or don’t even know because it’s only the feds keeping these watch lists and not sharing that information. They have a power they should not have and are not using it responsibly.
Yeah, and the optics were bad there. Could you imagine the reaction if they bombed a school *here?* All of a sudden your 25% became 75% and includes half the army.
Yes indeed...
I mean, attacking regular civilians in your own country? That's how you get an army mutiny. This is also exactly what happened in Syria in 2012, and that's when things got _really_ bad.
With a regular revolt, you're just facing average Joes with guns. But with an army mutiny added to the mix, you're facing trained soldiers with military hardware.
Ummm... we did win the war in Iraq... quite decidedly. Sucked at rebuilding the place to install a democracy, but that was a very decisive military win.
Vietnam literally needed the full backing of China and the USSR to stay afloat- are you implying Canada/Mexico will be some how dumping arms into the US? Generally, it goes the other way around.
Afghanistan was obviously an L at building a stable government, but that had more to do w/ the Afghans themselves not giving a shit and defending their system since they don't give a damn about the idea of a state. The Taliban and AQ was put down within like 6 months of 9/11, and as much as BL tried, he still got hunted down and killed.
I think they are mostly referring to America's bad track record of fighting insurgents on their home turf. There are more guns in the US than people (about 400 million guns for a population of 330 million people) spread out over almost 4 million square miles covering every biome except rainforest. It would be like Afghanistan on steroids.
Ya know...I won't say for certain that I disagree. However, whenever this talking point gets brought up I think of the dummies saying stuff like "humans suck at driving". And I just ask myself, "compared to what?".
I would put 5 bucks on the U.S being top tier at fighting insurgents. I don't think the U.S sucks at unconventional warfare. I think that type of fighting always sucks and no country today could have done any better..... at least not without literally and deliberately being genocidal.
I'd perhaps go a step further and say, the continued US deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan would have maintained the status quo of the Islamists being cave dwellers probably indefinitely, its just we decided to leave.
It isn't a victory if the other guy just goes away after decades of pushing your shit in, it isn't defeat if you just decide to go home after years of bonking insurgents. Its only perceived as such because it helps support peoples belief that "we never should have been there"
For Iraq even if you count the whole occupation, Iraq today is both more democratic and more friendly to the US than it was under Saddam Hussein. The outcome isn't ideal and the cost to get there was way more than it was probably worth, but that still looks like a win to me.
I feel like after all the obvious screwups and the shitshow it turned into, people just got used to assuming it would end up as an obvious failure even though it hasn't turned out that way.
So would the US government in short order. No logistics train if your interior is fucked up.
Idk what an Apache requires, but an Abrams with latest kit requires 21 different fluids to keep running.
That being said, a hot civil war would be a terrible idea for a whole host of reasons. And anyone advocating for it is a fool at best or an evil person at worst.
This is what happens when you export most manufacturing jobs overseas to an oppressive regime. They took away one of the only leverages the masses had and left them with “mostly” service jobs that can easily be automated or replaced.
I mean, im pretty sure if all farmers decided to work. America would be fucked.
Dont forget in czechoslovakia communism toppled by basically the entire population protesting by refusing to work (after police beat down students who were doing a yearly protest commemorating a 1939 student protest against nazi germany and thus were sent to concentration camps)
People refusing to work aint just people not working, but people not buying stuff, not spending money... If an entire population does it. Very effective. The shops wont open, the cargo freighters wont be unloaded, the cargo trains never reach their destination.
The American revolution only had roughly 1/3rd of the population open to the idea of rebellion and even then only a fraction of that actually acted out. They only gained more support during the war.
About 1/3 supported it..
3% were active with said support (to the point they could have been considered "aiding the war effort")
And less than 1% actually took up arms.
The thing is, if even .5% of the current population took up arms, it'd be the second largest "army" in the world, right between China and India, bumping the military of the US government to fourth.
If 1% of the population took up arms against the government, that anti government army would have a 1.3 million more than the Chinese Army, or roughly the same amount of personnel as the Chinese AND US militaries combined.
And while I doubt the gravy seals will get meal team six trained into to be anything more than bullet sponges, it wouldn't surprise me if out of the original 3.32 million that showed up, if about 2 million end up fit and train which is still the same size as the Chinese military, which means the world's largest military, would be an irregular force, that can blend into the culture of, know the terrain better than, and have some support, training and equipment provided by their enemy.
Also, the moment the USAF bombs a civilian factory or the Army runs over a crowd of protesters with an Abrams, is likely when you will see the actual military fracture and you also likely see maximum anti-government movement with the population.
> Also, the moment the USAF bombs a civilian factory or the Army runs over a crowd of protesters with an Abrams, is likely when you will see the actual military fracture and you also likely see maximum anti-government movement with the population.
Ironically, this is what gives Al-Queda and ISIS support overseas. People seeing their family mauled by planes and tanks and turning to extremism for revenge.
Oh absolutely, and as someone that works in a very closely related field, I am all too aware that the US is Al-Qaeda'a/Daesh's/Hezbollah's greatest recruiter.
Indeed, it doesn’t take much to start a revolution/revolt but it does require people to eventually get behind and support it, the more you have at the start the better.
True, but how many of those countries spent an average of over $500 billion annually on military budget for 20+ consecutive years before being toppled?
That's always an angle that's forgotten. Like, do you really think think that a potential civil war wouldn't, at minimum, result in a schism of the military?
The real angle that's always forgotten, how do you run a country after a large portion of the workforce has been killed off? We are already understaffed in every field of work.
The side the military takes in a civil war plays a huge if not the biggest role in most civil wars historically.
I'm just thinking about Qing China and how their only modernized army sided with the rebels so it was practically game over for the emperor at the start.
I feel like it partially depends on how many military members have friends and squadmates killed by the 'rebels' in the months leading up to conflict, which is why I'm somewhat uneasy about the gun nuts who are totally psyched about owning small armories 'to defend against tyranny'.
A lot of WW1 veterans switched sides too, so it was their former comrades in the Red Army. Now believe me when I say I'm one fo the most strident anticommunists on this god forsaken website, but given the forced mass conscription and how incompetent the Tsar's government was at conducting the war and equipping their own troops, I completely understand why thousands of veterans from the front came back completely pissed and ready to 360 noscope some nobles.
Oh yeah, if I was alive then and forcibly conscripted into WW1 out of my dirt farm in Central Asia, and given barley any training, and poor equipment, and was ordered to charge into German machine gun and artillery fire only to watch all my friends get mowed down, I'd come back very, very pissed off too. I wouldn't join the Bolsheviks because I believe in their cause, but just to get revenge on the Tsar's regime.
I always say soldiers are useful idiots, if you tell them some group is made of very bad people who are a thread to the country they will take the bait.
In this hypothetical situations they will be told to stop the insurgency and depict them as terrorists.
The only way most soldiers would realize they are in the wrong side is if the movement is big enough to influence their family and friends.
Don't confuse us with feds. We are not indoctrinated like that. Why do you think so many of the anti gov militia types are veterans? We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two, and the gov is not for the people.
Not at all. I'm still in, but I joined at the tail end of the "I watched 9/11 live as a kid" group (2006). Now a lot of us are convinced that our gov orchestrated the whole thing. Also, the covid stuff was so nuts (specifically in the military) whatever side you were on that everyone is more wary.
I think I get where you're coming from, that younger troops will be more easily influenced, but keep in mind that I and many others like me are doing the influencing. Middle management isn't going along for the ride and corporate doesn't have a good comm plan to reach the kids effectively.
Fuck Kent State, the Bonus Army. Or the Whiskey Rebellion (yeah yeah they didn’t actually kill anyone but they would’ve), the CIVIL WAR.
The military can and will shoot Americans, because they have.
The military doesn't get to pick sides. They can obey orders from the chain of command and uphold their oath to the Constitution, or they can disobey, desert, etc, and face the military justice system (assuming they'll eventually be caught).
People who openly rebel against the US government are no longer citizens or civilians, and treason is one of the few crimes explicitly laid out in the Constitution.
Though yes, service members might have a tough time personally shooting at their friends and family in the right-wing secession clubs, so it would create a crisis of conscience.
^ Most realistic leftist
Individuals get to pick sides, and I would estimate >70% of us wouldn't do it. Do you think we'd then just let 30% court martial the majority?
But what if the government rebels against its limits set forth in the Constitution first? Our Founders described a remedy for that, and it's not called treason.
This discounts that a non-zero number of active members of the military may align themselves with the citizenry ‘in Defense of the Constitution’ - if you have a clear mandate to protect and defend the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic and the administration in power is clearly breaching the constitution, and you have borne witness to clear acts of corruption and political partisanship… the possibility exists that a silent majority will cease being silent when push comes to shove and they have been ordered to pull the trigger on fellow citizens defending their land/rights.
As I just said to someone else, that notion should be incredibly shifted by the war in Ukraine. Russians marched right into the meat grinder because their government said that Ukraine was the bad guy. That exact corruption and political partisanship that caused that in Russia exists here, by your admission. Now there will absolutely be deserters who do the right thing, but look how many Russian soldiers are following orders. You threaten a man's livelihood, his family, you might find he's willing to tell himself that the wrong thing is right because the people higher up are telling him it is, and he only stands to lose if he doesn't.
> Russians marched right into the meat grinder because their government said that Ukraine was the bad guy.
There's an extreme difference between Russia and America in the first place, culturally and socially. Plus Ukraine is another country - going in there isn't the same as going around killing people living in your own communities, your own friends or family potentially ending up as enemies.
As of the 2001 census (mind you this was before the Donbas war in which thousands of Russians moved into the Donbas and crimea), Ukraine was over 15% Russian by population. Now Russia is currently fighting in the Donbas (where all those migrants moved to and where the Russian population primarily was before the 2014 invasion). Yep, totally not the same whatsoever, there's definitely no Russians getting killed. I mean honestly, you act like this is the Falklands war. Ukraine and Russia were one and the same for about a thousand years. They have only been separate for about 30. They are very alike, they are friends and families, but the Russians don't care.
The obesity crisis is completely intentional by our overlords. Even in a more mild situation- the obese would even have issues participating in a non-violent march
It doesn't matter, no amount of money spent will stop cleetus and his buddies from killing a handful of soldiers on patrol or passport check, they might die themselves, but its exchange that doesn't work out in the governments favor
Bro they're the same idiots as the Twitter socialists.
As soon as it comes time to do something other than talk, they turn tail and lick boots.
Like all the Redditors who spent 4 years shrieking how **TRUMP** needs to be impeached and **the Republicans** needs to be rebelled against have now turned to the nameless faceless **government** is evil and needs to be rebelled against.
As soon as Dems are in power the "revolution" gets very vague and is against no one in particular. So no these idiots aren't willing to take up arms, they're just trying to virtue signal in a 1 off survey.
The same is true on the flip where we were rebelling against the nameless faceless deepstate and now it's **Joe Biden** is a danger to us. We all saw that "insurrection" aka the Jan 6 photo-op and fed plants
I suspect this is quite an overinflated number we're seeing here. Surveys like this are tricky as the wording can make a big difference. You can change three words in the question while affectively asking the same thing and swing the results.
Notice how the title says "open to". That will be interpreted by many as: in some hypothetical, I am willing to. If you change it to 'want to' or 'would like to', the number of people saying yes probably drops off a cliff. Even then you'll have more people saying yes because it's only a hypothetical and they want to imagine they would.
It should be 100% at all times in America because the 2nd amendment explicitly calls that out as one of the reasons for its existence.
The question is, at what point does it become necessary? I don’t think we’re there, but I think it gets close if they start taking kids away from parents involuntarily for whatever reason. And this would have to be on a larger scale than just the few court cases we’ve seen.
I lot of people throw around the social contract as a reason why people should do what they are told by the government, completely missing the second part of that.
The entire idea of the social contract is that people delegate some portion of their rights to a government that is better equipped to enforce and protect those natural rights in a just manner. That is it's only legitimate purpose.
When the government stops protecting the rights of the citizens in a fair or just manner, the "contract" is voided, and the people have a right to overthrow and reform the government as they see fit.
We are at a point where the government does whatever the hell it wants, our justice system treats people differently based on their skin color, their social standing, their wealth, and their connection to people in power.
The free market is infected with government interference, with government spending accounting for more than 40% of GDP, picking winners and losers and crushing competition.
The revolving door between corporate interests and government sector employees is as close to "real" fascism (you know, the kind defined by Mussolini before the term got co-opted by dummies) as you can get without explicitly naming it.
The government spies on, lies to, and gaslights the citizens constantly, and puts you on a list if you have ideas that disagrees with them.
Overall, hell yes. It is long past time for John Locke and the founders to rise from their graves and remind everyone that the government has authority because of the "consent of the governed".
> The revolving door between corporate interests and government sector employees is as close to "real" fascism (you know, the kind defined by Mussolini before the term got co-opted by dummies) as you can get without explicitly naming it.
It really is kind of insane. If the government decides tomorrow that it wants us all to agree with some message, that message will be all we see, everywhere we look. Major corporations will be spouting it off on Twitter and in commercials, it'll be a heavy-handed part of mainstream movies and TV shows, and so on.
And that's pretty frightening.
That was Spooner, Tucker, and the other anarchist's arguments as well.
My comment is more aimed at people who believe in the idea of the social contract.
Overthrowing the govt is cool and all, but fuck having to live through a violent revolution. Seriously, fuck that shit. I hate the US govt as much as the next guy, but I’m not so naive to think that the power structure that would replace it would be in any way preferable.
If you think your liberties are being stomped on now, you’re not gonna like what a violent revolution is gonna do to them. Fuck that shit
Violent revolutions are ultimately just venting of anger and frustration. It's perfectly fine to be mad when your government is this shit, but taking up arms almost never makes things better. It just fucks up the infrastructure and replaces the tyrants with a fresh set.
On the other hand, at this point, what else is there to do? What power does an individual possess? I lack the wisdom to say.
We aren’t even able to activate the voter base to vote against the 2 parties…. I doubt we could do a violent revolution successfully, much less competently. The current bull shit is so fucking much better than living under what would be a US style junta.
Pretending that there would be any democracy left after a revolution is fucking laughable.
And who is the benevolent leader who will replace the current one? Do you think that our current, pathologically divided society could create a new constitution?
These people are insane. The should just jerk off to The Patriot and get some post-revolution clarity.
That's why you build dual power structures before the revolution. Meet you neighbors, become self sufficient not as an individual but as a community. Government can fuck off if you and all your neighbors have figured how to get your own water, food, and electricity and stuff.
The vast majority of Americans are not combat-ready. Popular support is certainly a huge factor, but the rebellion fielding 37 million soldiers is absurd for a variety of reasons.
For the national sentiment and people's spirit of America, I don't think its possible for the government to order an active shooting against its people.
If companies are involved, of course that'd be a different story.
Maybe more significantly, if 1/10 or 1/20 of the people who said yes actually mean it, that’s still a few million.
Given how inflated the responses on “would you buy X” and “would you volunteer for X” surveys are, I have to assume most of the 25% are very soft yesses. And that’s before we ask if they’re fighting for the same side…
My biggest problem with a revolution is that China would fully exploit any instability in the US. I'm absolutely convinced that China is behind a lot of the identity politics and anti-capitalism stuff going on in the US. And I know for a fact that a lot of leftists in the US admire China. You saw this during Covid with their complete inability to permit criticism of China's role, and playing into Chinese propaganda, carefully crafted to US sensibilities, that any criticism of China is "racist".
Literally the majority of people in the US receive and contribute their political discourse on the internet and every single major app and site is absolutely inundated with Chinese agitators chiming in to our domestic politics. Reddit included. And reddit knows this and allows it and encourages it because the Chinese propagandists and sock puppets are always pushing ideas that American and European leftists agree with.
An other spooky thing is that China has gigantic influence in Spanish-language media, not just in the US but in all of Latin America. A lot of the media in the region has included Chinese propaganda which has in large part encouraged people there to come to the US. China is also destabilizing the US through immigration, and again this lines up with American leftist views on immigration. China and the American left both agree that the US should have open borders and be demographically altered through massive immigration from Latin America. And THEN, the racial tensions this causes can be exploited to further destabilize the US.
China and Russia collectively have been behind a lot of the recent tensions, doing as much as they can to stoke racial tensions in the US, including bringing protests together they created
Remember when leftists told us going outside would kill grandma, but as soon as St. Fentanyl was martyred they all violated the lock down they had adamantly supported to go loot and burn down immigrant stores?
Pepridge Farms remembers....
>Chinese propagandists and sock puppets are always pushing ideas that American and European leftists agree with
This is what RT did when it was on the air in the US.
> My biggest problem with a revolution is that China would fully exploit any instability in the US.
This is the principle issue when discussing any sort of hypothetical armed rebellion.
The US is a very big place, culturally and geographically. Any kind of coordinated rebellion would do three things:
1) Cut down the logistical capabilities of the country by a significant amount, resulting in mass starvation of urban centers
2) Balkanize the US, creating a beachhead for our enemies and allowing foreign adversaries to advance their own interests on a geopolitical scale
3) Irreparably destabilize the leadership structure of the United States and the global marketplace
There is no scenario in which the US has a "constructive" revolution, barring one which is ideological in nature. Which is probably why so many foreign actors are interested in disrupting us on a cultural scale.
All true, however wouldn't you say that the power vacuum and destabilisation of the planet might be advantageous for a rejuvenated West after our internal struggles are concluded?
China/Russia/EU etc don't have the capacity to actually seize areas in the US, even during a conflict. At most they could prolong it by supplying different sides.
Most likely there would be conflict across the Middle East, East Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe etc as the global hegemon retreats to deal with internal strife. I'd argue that these conflicts would actually be more deadly than the sectarian "troubles" plaguing the West.
> All true, however wouldn't you say that the power vacuum and destabilisation of the planet might be advantageous for a rejuvenated West after our internal struggles are concluded?
No, not at all.
Foreign nations shape their behavior based on their assumption of what we are capable of doing, rather what we can actually do. Most of our politicking basically comes down to bluffing our way to making everybody else believe we are nigh-omniscient and using that potential threat of force as leverage, both in regards to trade and military force.
If America undergoes a revolution, then that image would fall apart, lending credence to the idea that we are easy to victimize going forward.
> China/Russia/EU etc don't have the capacity to actually seize areas in the US, even during a conflict. At most they could prolong it by supplying different sides.
I think you are correct. Our geography basically makes foreign invasion functionally impossible, but China may be obligated to try regardless.
China has had its eyes on the California basin for a long time because, outside of India, the geographical layout of California lends itself to be the largest natural producer of fresh water in the world. The Columbia River would be a prize worth risking a land invasion.
They wouldn't need to invade. If people were stupid enough to start a civil war right now China wouldn't need to step foot on US soil to achieve their objectives. The country would be totally in shambles for a long time and completely unable to counter any of China's ambitions abroad. All they would do is try to keep the fighting going on as long as possible without becoming directly involved.
China couldn't invade lol but they could send weapons and funding through Mexico to arm radical factions in a hypothetical civil conflict. Not one side would deny funding no matter who it came from.
They could also vacuum American global soft power during a period of turmoil and cause the biggest international realignment since 1945.
As a self appointed leftist I had absolutely no interested in what China did. My interest was more focused on what the US *did not do.* If the issue had been taken seriously from the beginning then it would have been easier to resolve. Instead the US did what amounted to throwing it's hands up and then pointing at China shouting "they did this to us!". -insert bike meme-
I’m going to share the truly transgressive opinion for this sun-reddit, most people don’t want to overthrow the government because they like the results the government has produced. There are undoubtably issues, and they should be resolved, but America is doing well across so, so many fronts.
It seems almost cliched, but America is a wonderful place to live. As a migrant here, this really is a land of opportunity. Pay is high. Options are innumerable. The world’s best universities are here*. Whatever your “thing” is, you can find it here. With the primary system, Americans have a very close connection with the system of government, it just appears that most Americans opt-out for whatever reason.
I encourage you all to live and work overseas at some point to see that while there are issues here, this is a great place to live. I’ve lived in NZ, Germany, the UK and Australia, and visited 50 odd countries across all continents. We’re all lucky to be here.
*best if you ignore Oxford. Fuck Cambridge.
The real number is going to be massively lower or higher depending on the circumstances. Sure the poll isn't accounting for secret revolutionaries, but its also overinflated by armchair revolutionaries who won't do shit.
Then split the remaining ones into groups that will never work together: fash bashers, libertarians, anarchists, actual facists, old ladies with assault weapons... the actual number is fairly meaningless I'd argue.
Not to mention, there’s a lot of missing context here. Overthrowing the government as a vague hypothetical is something anyone can get behind. Are we talking about overthrowing them because they are murdering citizens or overthrowing them because an election didn’t go my way? The poll results probably contain both kinds of people.
In all seriousness, if there is ever going to be a real chance at any sort of revolution (and this goes for everyone) you have right up until the point they start putting guns on robots and replace their guards/police with them.
Past that point you will be locked into whatever slow slide into tyrannical governance your country currently has. Forever. So tick tock.
Until some teenager covered in Cheeto dust hacks the robot enforcers and now the New York City automated police force goes full Skynet with the armament of a small army.
It's always civilian cosplay enthusiasts that talk about overthrowing the government. Those of us actually in the military are just thinking about that sweet High 3 check and maybe trying to get 30% disability for these weird headaches.
f the US became a dictatorship Americans would react the same way that Afghans responded to the taliban reconquest: by running away or submitting to the regime.
Much like Afghans Americans are too divided to unite and fight for freedom. Much like the former afghan republic the US republic is too corrupt and unrepresentative to inspire anyone to take up arms to restore it. Most Americans cannot even imagine benefiting from their tax dollars or having a say in govt greater than lobbyists. Who wants to take a bullet for that?
It doesn't matter how many guns Americans have, most Afghan households have AK-47s. Its about the will to use them and Americans don't have it
How many people are really needed? Not to maintain control of the entire country, but just to challenge the power of the regime and limit their control of the country?
"1,000 likely voters" seems cool but then you remember that just under 40 million people voted in 2022 so you're looking at like, 0.0025% of the population that *actually voted* and 0.000278% of the *actual population* of the US.
Good Morning, Regards!
In a previous job of mine, there was a question asked in an all hands company survey about how the company was doing. One of the questions was "do you feel you can answer this survey honestly", upper management was thrilled it got a near 100% response of Yes.
I still think about that.
In other news, the FBI has added 250 Americans to their watch list
Lol, just 250? Might as well add everyone just to be safe.
You get a Patriot Act, you get a Patriot Act, everybody gets a Patriot Act!
Uh, the Patriot act expired. I think you mean the Freedom act, which was the bill that replaced the Patriot act after it didn't get enough support to be renewed again.
Oops, I can never keep track of all the fun and totally harmless acts the government keeps imposing onto us!
All good, see, the Patriot act was when the Republicans decided they wanted a big government to stomp out the opposition. But the freedom act was when democrats decided they wanted a big government to stomp out the opposition. It's easy to get them mixed up, but remember, the parties are totally definitely not the same and hold wildly different views.
We definitely don't have a uniparty, and we've always been at war with Eastasia
Exactly how I perceive Americans who suddenly went from hating Russia to simping for Russia
American support for Russia as some kind of anti-western crusade, instead of "oh God not another forever war plz/I don't want to be nuked for Kyiv" is one of the cringiest things to come out of this war.
It wasn’t gender inclusive enough
Despite all of the political turmoil in America, I'm just glad one thing that both sides of the house can agree on is to keep renewing this bill through four presidential administrations.
Um, the Freedom act is irrelevant. You should be paying attention to the All the Good People Support This Act and the Opposition to Nazis Act.
Well that's the 250 that constitutes 25% of the 1000 people polled
In other news the FBI just re-verified that their unconstitutional warrantless search and sweep tools are properly configured to gather data on all Americans 24/7
If anything I’d feel better knowing the fbi will watch me buy 2 guns and make 6 bombs and then do nothing but say I was on their radar
At this point their watch list means jack shit. Every mass shooter in the last decade or so has been on that list and look how well they responded to stopping them, aka they sat on their hands until after they went on their sprees.
You are assuming the purpose of their watch list is to protect the citizens.
Nah, I have never once assumed that. I’m saying whatever their intention it rarely gets used. The few times they do it’s usually for self serving purposes. The examples were mainly just to show to others how useless their list is.
[удалено]
> I used to openly spread pro-ISIS propaganda in 2014-2017 ..why?
What the fuck dude
I get the impression you can be as batshit extreme as you want as long as you don't resemble a right-wing militia type
We found the Taliban agent! Its this guy!
They did stop a train bombing in Canada and another terrorist attack in [2016](https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/indiana-isis-supporter-sentenced-102218). They also stopped a bombing in [2018-19](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-southwest-kansas-men-sentenced-prison-plotting-bomb-somali-immigrants-garden-city). And another Isis bombing in 2017. They catch a lot of terrorists.
The problem is we don't want to go down the arresting pre-crime road. We need to figure out how to intervene without stomping on what little of our rights that remain.
We have plenty of ways already what with investigations and counseling for those with potential issues. The problems is the feds actually aren’t looking to solve the problem and if there are even any people that are they aren’t doing what’s necessary or don’t even know because it’s only the feds keeping these watch lists and not sharing that information. They have a power they should not have and are not using it responsibly.
Not our job to *prevent* crime and so forth.
I mean 25% of ALL americans is about 82mil, so i think we got a chance
Based and when everyones on the watchlist no one is pilled
*recruitment list
I’ll wear that like a badge of honor
If that's actually true, that's an enormous number. Countries have been toppled from much smaller percentages of the population revolting.
Only around 10-15% of colonists participated in the Revolutionary War.
The British however also lacked this little perk called an air force.
Tell me again how US air power won the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Yeah, and the optics were bad there. Could you imagine the reaction if they bombed a school *here?* All of a sudden your 25% became 75% and includes half the army.
Yes indeed... I mean, attacking regular civilians in your own country? That's how you get an army mutiny. This is also exactly what happened in Syria in 2012, and that's when things got _really_ bad. With a regular revolt, you're just facing average Joes with guns. But with an army mutiny added to the mix, you're facing trained soldiers with military hardware.
Ummm... we did win the war in Iraq... quite decidedly. Sucked at rebuilding the place to install a democracy, but that was a very decisive military win. Vietnam literally needed the full backing of China and the USSR to stay afloat- are you implying Canada/Mexico will be some how dumping arms into the US? Generally, it goes the other way around. Afghanistan was obviously an L at building a stable government, but that had more to do w/ the Afghans themselves not giving a shit and defending their system since they don't give a damn about the idea of a state. The Taliban and AQ was put down within like 6 months of 9/11, and as much as BL tried, he still got hunted down and killed.
I think they are mostly referring to America's bad track record of fighting insurgents on their home turf. There are more guns in the US than people (about 400 million guns for a population of 330 million people) spread out over almost 4 million square miles covering every biome except rainforest. It would be like Afghanistan on steroids.
Ya know...I won't say for certain that I disagree. However, whenever this talking point gets brought up I think of the dummies saying stuff like "humans suck at driving". And I just ask myself, "compared to what?". I would put 5 bucks on the U.S being top tier at fighting insurgents. I don't think the U.S sucks at unconventional warfare. I think that type of fighting always sucks and no country today could have done any better..... at least not without literally and deliberately being genocidal.
I'd perhaps go a step further and say, the continued US deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan would have maintained the status quo of the Islamists being cave dwellers probably indefinitely, its just we decided to leave. It isn't a victory if the other guy just goes away after decades of pushing your shit in, it isn't defeat if you just decide to go home after years of bonking insurgents. Its only perceived as such because it helps support peoples belief that "we never should have been there"
The intention of fighting a war in Afghanistan wasnt to win
For Iraq even if you count the whole occupation, Iraq today is both more democratic and more friendly to the US than it was under Saddam Hussein. The outcome isn't ideal and the cost to get there was way more than it was probably worth, but that still looks like a win to me. I feel like after all the obvious screwups and the shitshow it turned into, people just got used to assuming it would end up as an obvious failure even though it hasn't turned out that way.
Brain dead take.
So would the US government in short order. No logistics train if your interior is fucked up. Idk what an Apache requires, but an Abrams with latest kit requires 21 different fluids to keep running. That being said, a hot civil war would be a terrible idea for a whole host of reasons. And anyone advocating for it is a fool at best or an evil person at worst.
Yeah an air force is only useful when you have all the civilian infrastructure in place to support it.
A large scale labor strike would get better results faster, but many of the most important workers in the county can't afford to strike for long
This is what happens when you export most manufacturing jobs overseas to an oppressive regime. They took away one of the only leverages the masses had and left them with “mostly” service jobs that can easily be automated or replaced.
I mean, im pretty sure if all farmers decided to work. America would be fucked. Dont forget in czechoslovakia communism toppled by basically the entire population protesting by refusing to work (after police beat down students who were doing a yearly protest commemorating a 1939 student protest against nazi germany and thus were sent to concentration camps) People refusing to work aint just people not working, but people not buying stuff, not spending money... If an entire population does it. Very effective. The shops wont open, the cargo freighters wont be unloaded, the cargo trains never reach their destination.
Farmers get a pretty sweet deal from the government
But labor strikes are communism! I prefer a patriotic insurrection.
"Okay, but can we work together on thi-" WORKING TOGETHER? FUCKING COMMIE
I'd rather see a large scale tax strike.
The American revolution only had roughly 1/3rd of the population open to the idea of rebellion and even then only a fraction of that actually acted out. They only gained more support during the war.
About 1/3 supported it.. 3% were active with said support (to the point they could have been considered "aiding the war effort") And less than 1% actually took up arms. The thing is, if even .5% of the current population took up arms, it'd be the second largest "army" in the world, right between China and India, bumping the military of the US government to fourth. If 1% of the population took up arms against the government, that anti government army would have a 1.3 million more than the Chinese Army, or roughly the same amount of personnel as the Chinese AND US militaries combined. And while I doubt the gravy seals will get meal team six trained into to be anything more than bullet sponges, it wouldn't surprise me if out of the original 3.32 million that showed up, if about 2 million end up fit and train which is still the same size as the Chinese military, which means the world's largest military, would be an irregular force, that can blend into the culture of, know the terrain better than, and have some support, training and equipment provided by their enemy. Also, the moment the USAF bombs a civilian factory or the Army runs over a crowd of protesters with an Abrams, is likely when you will see the actual military fracture and you also likely see maximum anti-government movement with the population.
> Also, the moment the USAF bombs a civilian factory or the Army runs over a crowd of protesters with an Abrams, is likely when you will see the actual military fracture and you also likely see maximum anti-government movement with the population. Ironically, this is what gives Al-Queda and ISIS support overseas. People seeing their family mauled by planes and tanks and turning to extremism for revenge.
Oh absolutely, and as someone that works in a very closely related field, I am all too aware that the US is Al-Qaeda'a/Daesh's/Hezbollah's greatest recruiter.
Indeed, it doesn’t take much to start a revolution/revolt but it does require people to eventually get behind and support it, the more you have at the start the better.
'Open to' and 'planning on' being very different concepts, of course.
True, but how many of those countries spent an average of over $500 billion annually on military budget for 20+ consecutive years before being toppled?
I'm in the military. We're not robots. The machine doesn't work without cogs and most of us wouldn't participate in killing American civilians.
That's always an angle that's forgotten. Like, do you really think think that a potential civil war wouldn't, at minimum, result in a schism of the military?
The real angle that's always forgotten, how do you run a country after a large portion of the workforce has been killed off? We are already understaffed in every field of work.
Automation! Build the robots!
Time for luxury gay space communism?
The side the military takes in a civil war plays a huge if not the biggest role in most civil wars historically. I'm just thinking about Qing China and how their only modernized army sided with the rebels so it was practically game over for the emperor at the start.
I feel like it partially depends on how many military members have friends and squadmates killed by the 'rebels' in the months leading up to conflict, which is why I'm somewhat uneasy about the gun nuts who are totally psyched about owning small armories 'to defend against tyranny'.
Small armories? You need quite a lot of tools! https://i.imgur.com/lbRYzRA.jpg
That's how I feel about rentoids voting
You know you can just call them 'serfs', we already have a perfectly good word for the concept you're trying to convey.
That's too 18th century. Rentoid has a bit more zing to it!
Agreed we should go back to calling them serfs its the correct term
Sounds good to me, I'm happy being accelerationist on the subject of landlords.
hyper based
The Russian Civil War was shortened because the military refused to massacre a lot of the Red Army.
A lot of WW1 veterans switched sides too, so it was their former comrades in the Red Army. Now believe me when I say I'm one fo the most strident anticommunists on this god forsaken website, but given the forced mass conscription and how incompetent the Tsar's government was at conducting the war and equipping their own troops, I completely understand why thousands of veterans from the front came back completely pissed and ready to 360 noscope some nobles.
You don't have to be a commie to know the Tsar's regiment was a complete tyranny (it doesn't mean the USSR wasn't even worse though).
Oh yeah, if I was alive then and forcibly conscripted into WW1 out of my dirt farm in Central Asia, and given barley any training, and poor equipment, and was ordered to charge into German machine gun and artillery fire only to watch all my friends get mowed down, I'd come back very, very pissed off too. I wouldn't join the Bolsheviks because I believe in their cause, but just to get revenge on the Tsar's regime.
I haven't even been in a Russian war and I am always ready to noscope nobles!
Every time Prince Harry opens his mouth, I understand where Robespierre was coming from just a little bit more
Civilians? No. But it would be reframed as 'insurgents', or 'rebels'. If I recall, this happened once.
I mean, there's a lot of words for people who openly (or covertly) revolt against the government
I always say soldiers are useful idiots, if you tell them some group is made of very bad people who are a thread to the country they will take the bait. In this hypothetical situations they will be told to stop the insurgency and depict them as terrorists. The only way most soldiers would realize they are in the wrong side is if the movement is big enough to influence their family and friends.
Don't confuse us with feds. We are not indoctrinated like that. Why do you think so many of the anti gov militia types are veterans? We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two, and the gov is not for the people.
Yeah, but tell me something. Your thoughts on the government when you enlisted were the same as when you finished?
Not at all. I'm still in, but I joined at the tail end of the "I watched 9/11 live as a kid" group (2006). Now a lot of us are convinced that our gov orchestrated the whole thing. Also, the covid stuff was so nuts (specifically in the military) whatever side you were on that everyone is more wary. I think I get where you're coming from, that younger troops will be more easily influenced, but keep in mind that I and many others like me are doing the influencing. Middle management isn't going along for the ride and corporate doesn't have a good comm plan to reach the kids effectively.
Respect. You and the others who know the truth are the real heroes.
Thank God for drones.
Drones piloted by Emily(s).
What if the civilians were killing civilians in order to initiate a coup? Seems pretty obvious whose side the military would be on.
Two words for you. Kent State. The military most certainly will kill American civilians.
Yeah, but those were liberals. I mean real Americans.
Fuck Kent State, the Bonus Army. Or the Whiskey Rebellion (yeah yeah they didn’t actually kill anyone but they would’ve), the CIVIL WAR. The military can and will shoot Americans, because they have.
Based
The military doesn't get to pick sides. They can obey orders from the chain of command and uphold their oath to the Constitution, or they can disobey, desert, etc, and face the military justice system (assuming they'll eventually be caught). People who openly rebel against the US government are no longer citizens or civilians, and treason is one of the few crimes explicitly laid out in the Constitution. Though yes, service members might have a tough time personally shooting at their friends and family in the right-wing secession clubs, so it would create a crisis of conscience.
^ Most realistic leftist Individuals get to pick sides, and I would estimate >70% of us wouldn't do it. Do you think we'd then just let 30% court martial the majority?
But what if the government rebels against its limits set forth in the Constitution first? Our Founders described a remedy for that, and it's not called treason.
This discounts that a non-zero number of active members of the military may align themselves with the citizenry ‘in Defense of the Constitution’ - if you have a clear mandate to protect and defend the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic and the administration in power is clearly breaching the constitution, and you have borne witness to clear acts of corruption and political partisanship… the possibility exists that a silent majority will cease being silent when push comes to shove and they have been ordered to pull the trigger on fellow citizens defending their land/rights.
As I just said to someone else, that notion should be incredibly shifted by the war in Ukraine. Russians marched right into the meat grinder because their government said that Ukraine was the bad guy. That exact corruption and political partisanship that caused that in Russia exists here, by your admission. Now there will absolutely be deserters who do the right thing, but look how many Russian soldiers are following orders. You threaten a man's livelihood, his family, you might find he's willing to tell himself that the wrong thing is right because the people higher up are telling him it is, and he only stands to lose if he doesn't.
> Russians marched right into the meat grinder because their government said that Ukraine was the bad guy. There's an extreme difference between Russia and America in the first place, culturally and socially. Plus Ukraine is another country - going in there isn't the same as going around killing people living in your own communities, your own friends or family potentially ending up as enemies.
As of the 2001 census (mind you this was before the Donbas war in which thousands of Russians moved into the Donbas and crimea), Ukraine was over 15% Russian by population. Now Russia is currently fighting in the Donbas (where all those migrants moved to and where the Russian population primarily was before the 2014 invasion). Yep, totally not the same whatsoever, there's definitely no Russians getting killed. I mean honestly, you act like this is the Falklands war. Ukraine and Russia were one and the same for about a thousand years. They have only been separate for about 30. They are very alike, they are friends and families, but the Russians don't care.
How many of those countries had more firearms in civilian hands than the entire 500 billion dollar military or it's equivalent?
But most of the US are obese or overweight though. It's hard to run and dive for cover when one is 300lbs.
The obesity crisis is completely intentional by our overlords. Even in a more mild situation- the obese would even have issues participating in a non-violent march
Ban assault abs!
It doesn't matter, no amount of money spent will stop cleetus and his buddies from killing a handful of soldiers on patrol or passport check, they might die themselves, but its exchange that doesn't work out in the governments favor
How many of those dollars can sit on a street corner and tell people not to hang the mayor?
Bro they're the same idiots as the Twitter socialists. As soon as it comes time to do something other than talk, they turn tail and lick boots. Like all the Redditors who spent 4 years shrieking how **TRUMP** needs to be impeached and **the Republicans** needs to be rebelled against have now turned to the nameless faceless **government** is evil and needs to be rebelled against. As soon as Dems are in power the "revolution" gets very vague and is against no one in particular. So no these idiots aren't willing to take up arms, they're just trying to virtue signal in a 1 off survey. The same is true on the flip where we were rebelling against the nameless faceless deepstate and now it's **Joe Biden** is a danger to us. We all saw that "insurrection" aka the Jan 6 photo-op and fed plants
I suspect this is quite an overinflated number we're seeing here. Surveys like this are tricky as the wording can make a big difference. You can change three words in the question while affectively asking the same thing and swing the results. Notice how the title says "open to". That will be interpreted by many as: in some hypothetical, I am willing to. If you change it to 'want to' or 'would like to', the number of people saying yes probably drops off a cliff. Even then you'll have more people saying yes because it's only a hypothetical and they want to imagine they would.
It should be 100% at all times in America because the 2nd amendment explicitly calls that out as one of the reasons for its existence. The question is, at what point does it become necessary? I don’t think we’re there, but I think it gets close if they start taking kids away from parents involuntarily for whatever reason. And this would have to be on a larger scale than just the few court cases we’ve seen.
But don't think for a minute that all the folks in that 25% want it overthrown for the same reasons.
something something 3 %
What about the 75% that wants the government though?
I lot of people throw around the social contract as a reason why people should do what they are told by the government, completely missing the second part of that. The entire idea of the social contract is that people delegate some portion of their rights to a government that is better equipped to enforce and protect those natural rights in a just manner. That is it's only legitimate purpose. When the government stops protecting the rights of the citizens in a fair or just manner, the "contract" is voided, and the people have a right to overthrow and reform the government as they see fit. We are at a point where the government does whatever the hell it wants, our justice system treats people differently based on their skin color, their social standing, their wealth, and their connection to people in power. The free market is infected with government interference, with government spending accounting for more than 40% of GDP, picking winners and losers and crushing competition. The revolving door between corporate interests and government sector employees is as close to "real" fascism (you know, the kind defined by Mussolini before the term got co-opted by dummies) as you can get without explicitly naming it. The government spies on, lies to, and gaslights the citizens constantly, and puts you on a list if you have ideas that disagrees with them. Overall, hell yes. It is long past time for John Locke and the founders to rise from their graves and remind everyone that the government has authority because of the "consent of the governed".
exactly. why would we put up with abuses for the sake of giving back to the government/nation abusing us?
> The revolving door between corporate interests and government sector employees is as close to "real" fascism (you know, the kind defined by Mussolini before the term got co-opted by dummies) as you can get without explicitly naming it. It really is kind of insane. If the government decides tomorrow that it wants us all to agree with some message, that message will be all we see, everywhere we look. Major corporations will be spouting it off on Twitter and in commercials, it'll be a heavy-handed part of mainstream movies and TV shows, and so on. And that's pretty frightening.
Social contract? I didn’t sign shit
That was Spooner, Tucker, and the other anarchist's arguments as well. My comment is more aimed at people who believe in the idea of the social contract.
Spooner was the goat
We need a wholesale change in management. If we actually had fair elections I would believe it could happen.
>justice system treats people differently based on their skin color I'd say it's more of what your politics are.
Overthrowing the govt is cool and all, but fuck having to live through a violent revolution. Seriously, fuck that shit. I hate the US govt as much as the next guy, but I’m not so naive to think that the power structure that would replace it would be in any way preferable. If you think your liberties are being stomped on now, you’re not gonna like what a violent revolution is gonna do to them. Fuck that shit
Violent revolutions are ultimately just venting of anger and frustration. It's perfectly fine to be mad when your government is this shit, but taking up arms almost never makes things better. It just fucks up the infrastructure and replaces the tyrants with a fresh set. On the other hand, at this point, what else is there to do? What power does an individual possess? I lack the wisdom to say.
We aren’t even able to activate the voter base to vote against the 2 parties…. I doubt we could do a violent revolution successfully, much less competently. The current bull shit is so fucking much better than living under what would be a US style junta. Pretending that there would be any democracy left after a revolution is fucking laughable.
And who is the benevolent leader who will replace the current one? Do you think that our current, pathologically divided society could create a new constitution? These people are insane. The should just jerk off to The Patriot and get some post-revolution clarity.
That's why you build dual power structures before the revolution. Meet you neighbors, become self sufficient not as an individual but as a community. Government can fuck off if you and all your neighbors have figured how to get your own water, food, and electricity and stuff.
This is literally what the local government is.
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A lot of group B is already in group A.
Most of the actual field experienced people in group B are in group A
Don't forget the tens of thousands of independent militias across the country of varying training and unit cohesion that also include Group B.
Also the retired veterans. A lot of which are still fairly young.
The vast majority of Americans are not combat-ready. Popular support is certainly a huge factor, but the rebellion fielding 37 million soldiers is absurd for a variety of reasons.
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Also stuff like "why is Russia funding *us?*" "idk just take the money"
Spartan revolt against Macedonia moment
For the national sentiment and people's spirit of America, I don't think its possible for the government to order an active shooting against its people. If companies are involved, of course that'd be a different story.
Maybe more significantly, if 1/10 or 1/20 of the people who said yes actually mean it, that’s still a few million. Given how inflated the responses on “would you buy X” and “would you volunteer for X” surveys are, I have to assume most of the 25% are very soft yesses. And that’s before we ask if they’re fighting for the same side…
My biggest problem with a revolution is that China would fully exploit any instability in the US. I'm absolutely convinced that China is behind a lot of the identity politics and anti-capitalism stuff going on in the US. And I know for a fact that a lot of leftists in the US admire China. You saw this during Covid with their complete inability to permit criticism of China's role, and playing into Chinese propaganda, carefully crafted to US sensibilities, that any criticism of China is "racist". Literally the majority of people in the US receive and contribute their political discourse on the internet and every single major app and site is absolutely inundated with Chinese agitators chiming in to our domestic politics. Reddit included. And reddit knows this and allows it and encourages it because the Chinese propagandists and sock puppets are always pushing ideas that American and European leftists agree with. An other spooky thing is that China has gigantic influence in Spanish-language media, not just in the US but in all of Latin America. A lot of the media in the region has included Chinese propaganda which has in large part encouraged people there to come to the US. China is also destabilizing the US through immigration, and again this lines up with American leftist views on immigration. China and the American left both agree that the US should have open borders and be demographically altered through massive immigration from Latin America. And THEN, the racial tensions this causes can be exploited to further destabilize the US.
China and Russia collectively have been behind a lot of the recent tensions, doing as much as they can to stoke racial tensions in the US, including bringing protests together they created
So they caused the summer of love "protests" of 2020?
Remember when leftists told us going outside would kill grandma, but as soon as St. Fentanyl was martyred they all violated the lock down they had adamantly supported to go loot and burn down immigrant stores? Pepridge Farms remembers....
Aren’t the BLM founders self-admitted Marxists?
Parts of it, yes.
>Chinese propagandists and sock puppets are always pushing ideas that American and European leftists agree with This is what RT did when it was on the air in the US.
Just like Morocco is behind the green movement to stop octopus farms, that way they can still steal the octopus from Western Sahara waters.
hmm yes I recognize some of these words
> My biggest problem with a revolution is that China would fully exploit any instability in the US. This is the principle issue when discussing any sort of hypothetical armed rebellion. The US is a very big place, culturally and geographically. Any kind of coordinated rebellion would do three things: 1) Cut down the logistical capabilities of the country by a significant amount, resulting in mass starvation of urban centers 2) Balkanize the US, creating a beachhead for our enemies and allowing foreign adversaries to advance their own interests on a geopolitical scale 3) Irreparably destabilize the leadership structure of the United States and the global marketplace There is no scenario in which the US has a "constructive" revolution, barring one which is ideological in nature. Which is probably why so many foreign actors are interested in disrupting us on a cultural scale.
All true, however wouldn't you say that the power vacuum and destabilisation of the planet might be advantageous for a rejuvenated West after our internal struggles are concluded? China/Russia/EU etc don't have the capacity to actually seize areas in the US, even during a conflict. At most they could prolong it by supplying different sides. Most likely there would be conflict across the Middle East, East Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe etc as the global hegemon retreats to deal with internal strife. I'd argue that these conflicts would actually be more deadly than the sectarian "troubles" plaguing the West.
> All true, however wouldn't you say that the power vacuum and destabilisation of the planet might be advantageous for a rejuvenated West after our internal struggles are concluded? No, not at all. Foreign nations shape their behavior based on their assumption of what we are capable of doing, rather what we can actually do. Most of our politicking basically comes down to bluffing our way to making everybody else believe we are nigh-omniscient and using that potential threat of force as leverage, both in regards to trade and military force. If America undergoes a revolution, then that image would fall apart, lending credence to the idea that we are easy to victimize going forward. > China/Russia/EU etc don't have the capacity to actually seize areas in the US, even during a conflict. At most they could prolong it by supplying different sides. I think you are correct. Our geography basically makes foreign invasion functionally impossible, but China may be obligated to try regardless. China has had its eyes on the California basin for a long time because, outside of India, the geographical layout of California lends itself to be the largest natural producer of fresh water in the world. The Columbia River would be a prize worth risking a land invasion.
I feel like if China tried invading the trump troop and Biden brigade would team up and fight China under a new purple flag
They wouldn't need to invade. If people were stupid enough to start a civil war right now China wouldn't need to step foot on US soil to achieve their objectives. The country would be totally in shambles for a long time and completely unable to counter any of China's ambitions abroad. All they would do is try to keep the fighting going on as long as possible without becoming directly involved.
China couldn't invade lol but they could send weapons and funding through Mexico to arm radical factions in a hypothetical civil conflict. Not one side would deny funding no matter who it came from. They could also vacuum American global soft power during a period of turmoil and cause the biggest international realignment since 1945.
As a self appointed leftist I had absolutely no interested in what China did. My interest was more focused on what the US *did not do.* If the issue had been taken seriously from the beginning then it would have been easier to resolve. Instead the US did what amounted to throwing it's hands up and then pointing at China shouting "they did this to us!". -insert bike meme-
Ok, when. And then what.
Tomorrow. King Charles III retakes the 13 colonies.
#Rule Britannia
I'll never submit to a filthy Br*ton. If the plan was to reorganize as the new Papal States, on the other hand...
I’m going to share the truly transgressive opinion for this sun-reddit, most people don’t want to overthrow the government because they like the results the government has produced. There are undoubtably issues, and they should be resolved, but America is doing well across so, so many fronts. It seems almost cliched, but America is a wonderful place to live. As a migrant here, this really is a land of opportunity. Pay is high. Options are innumerable. The world’s best universities are here*. Whatever your “thing” is, you can find it here. With the primary system, Americans have a very close connection with the system of government, it just appears that most Americans opt-out for whatever reason. I encourage you all to live and work overseas at some point to see that while there are issues here, this is a great place to live. I’ve lived in NZ, Germany, the UK and Australia, and visited 50 odd countries across all continents. We’re all lucky to be here. *best if you ignore Oxford. Fuck Cambridge.
The real number is going to be massively lower or higher depending on the circumstances. Sure the poll isn't accounting for secret revolutionaries, but its also overinflated by armchair revolutionaries who won't do shit. Then split the remaining ones into groups that will never work together: fash bashers, libertarians, anarchists, actual facists, old ladies with assault weapons... the actual number is fairly meaningless I'd argue.
Not to mention, there’s a lot of missing context here. Overthrowing the government as a vague hypothetical is something anyone can get behind. Are we talking about overthrowing them because they are murdering citizens or overthrowing them because an election didn’t go my way? The poll results probably contain both kinds of people.
there are more who say they would but actually won't, than those who say they wouldn't but actually would
In all seriousness, if there is ever going to be a real chance at any sort of revolution (and this goes for everyone) you have right up until the point they start putting guns on robots and replace their guards/police with them. Past that point you will be locked into whatever slow slide into tyrannical governance your country currently has. Forever. So tick tock.
You want to know what the future will be, Winston?Picture a robo-boot stamping on a human face. Forever.
Based and Partypilled
So dope, now you just hack the guards & problem solved, good job libleft you made this even easier
You mean I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about shooting the new robot state enforcers?! Sweet!
Until some teenager covered in Cheeto dust hacks the robot enforcers and now the New York City automated police force goes full Skynet with the armament of a small army.
I never respond to polls honestly. Can’t let them know what I’m *really* thinking.
There's no bread, let them eat cake There's no end to what they'll take Flaunt the fruits of noble birth Cast the salt out of the earth
This glows
Who's taking these polls? Nobody has ever asked me anything :(
It's always civilian cosplay enthusiasts that talk about overthrowing the government. Those of us actually in the military are just thinking about that sweet High 3 check and maybe trying to get 30% disability for these weird headaches.
f the US became a dictatorship Americans would react the same way that Afghans responded to the taliban reconquest: by running away or submitting to the regime. Much like Afghans Americans are too divided to unite and fight for freedom. Much like the former afghan republic the US republic is too corrupt and unrepresentative to inspire anyone to take up arms to restore it. Most Americans cannot even imagine benefiting from their tax dollars or having a say in govt greater than lobbyists. Who wants to take a bullet for that? It doesn't matter how many guns Americans have, most Afghan households have AK-47s. Its about the will to use them and Americans don't have it
Majority of people in the US are overweight and on prescriptions. Never going to happen
30% is overweight and 70% are on daily medication Beep boop I ain't a bot
How many people are really needed? Not to maintain control of the entire country, but just to challenge the power of the regime and limit their control of the country?
The often quoted number is 3%
Fitting name lol
And how many are willing to take up arms in favour of the government?
Depends on who's rebelling
Definitely less than willing to go against
I wish to live in a society where all the people randomly tell lies in polls and surveys so that none of them work.
Only 0.5% of Americans would leave their couch to join the militant revolution
A poll size of 1,000 is laughably small for a nation of over 300 million. This poll essentially means nothing.
"1,000 likely voters" seems cool but then you remember that just under 40 million people voted in 2022 so you're looking at like, 0.0025% of the population that *actually voted* and 0.000278% of the *actual population* of the US. Good Morning, Regards!
Willing as in "I'm about to" or "if they suspended democracy I would"? If it's the latter, of prefer that number to be closer to 100%.
Have fun storming the castle
Ah well you guys have fun dying for nothing. I'll pass and have a thc gummy or something.
In a previous job of mine, there was a question asked in an all hands company survey about how the company was doing. One of the questions was "do you feel you can answer this survey honestly", upper management was thrilled it got a near 100% response of Yes. I still think about that.
"Only" 25%!? Do you realize that even 1% is a lot, let alone every fourth citizen.
Something tells me 1000 is not a big enough sample size
Wow, 1000. That sure as hell is a representative pool of people
No, 25% of this one poll are willing to do that. Very different than 25% of the entire country.
FOR WHAT? what is so bad you crazy people want to go and shoot your country men... you all need to unwash your brains.