Politics

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Thomas Jefferson

This quote seems to be coming to the front of my mind more and more lately. The second amendment is not there to allow us to protect ourselves from thieves and muggers, but rather to protect us from the government. It's a slow process to ensure that people can't rise up, but let's take a look at some logical steps.

There's 300 million people in the US. That means if everyone had a gun who could hold one, that's probably 200 million soldiers. The Us military, all branches employs 1.5 million people. This means that in a war of attrition the Us military has little chance of winning a rebellion of 100% of the population. As it's unlikely everyone would rise up, those who'd rebel would be a much smaller force. So, given that the US government does not want to change and does not want to be overthrown, what steps can be taken to ensure that even if people to rebel, it can be dealt with

Technological Advantage:
US Citizens are not allowed to wield automatic weapons. The Military is. This simple fact, put in place to protect us from the drug dealers that threaten us around every corner, puts the average American at a severe disadvantage in warfare. Think it'll stop there? There's current talk of reinterpreting the second amendment so that "right to bear arms" means "right to have a police force that bears arms." Read more at the Wall Street Jounal, Nov 23, 07. People like being alive. If they don't feel like they can win, survive, or make a difference, they won't rebel.

Outside Focus:
When the US has a cause behind which to rally, it's easy to forget our domestic problems. Look further at some of the steps taken to ensure an outward look over the last 10 years. I won't go into the whole 9/11 thing except to point out that gas prices, one of the biggest problems the average person has to face daily, were at almost the lowest point in history, relatively. Kinda makes things home feel like everything is okay when there's war to be fought, and plenty of money on the table. If people feel justified, happy, or uncertain, they don't rebel.

Alienation:
The overclassification of "terrorists" lately means that us, those of you reading this, and me writing it, are currently classified terrorists. We can (but probably won't) be thrown into a prison with no due process and no trial, and left there to think about what we've done wrong. We know it's happening, but what can we do about it? We assume most of the people in there are shady. That some of them are actually terrorists, and to make an omelette you have to break some eggs. It's all fine until it's you or someone you know. But how many people are there now? Thousands? more? Where does it become unacceptable?

Combine all these things into one, and I personally start to realize that my threshold has not been crossed. That all I want to do is work, make money, drink beer, and watch TV on occasion. I don't really care if the world's going to hell in a handbasket, especially when there's a new episode of Heroes on. The issue is accessibility. If rebellion was at my fingertips, and risk a minimum, or benefit at a maximum, I would consider it. As it is, people who write things like this seem to be a radical outlier on the edge of a problem so large that people have to die to right it. So, keep it, file it away, and remember it as one more possible change that needs to be made.