What is the best defense against one's government?

[runningbird]

The history of governments is largely the history of governments oppressing and enacting genocide on their people.

How do citizens protect themselves? I suppose the right to bear arms helps prevent the more atrocious slaughterings, although I'm not big on gun ownership.

What else can be done?

[magi13]

are you talking about the present?

[Inthon]

Gun ownership - Genocides don't happen when the population is well armed.
Wealth - cash, gold, jewelry
Freedom - Sources of income/food/shelter that can be acquired with limited interference from the government.

If you're worried about the government, buy a gun and increase your income.

[runningbird]

LOL Oops...this is most definitely not the World Affairs forum.

[runningbird]

Magi - past and present. Yahoo answers to 'is there genocide in the world today?': Is there genocide in the world today? - Yahoo! Answers

Inthon - that may be an okay last resort - well, except increasing wealth may not be possible if one is repressed in the first place. And guns may not be available to everyone.

I am think more long term strategies. What can citizens do before it gets to the point where they need a gun?

Mods - sorry about the thread placement. Can it be moved to World Affairs?

[magi13]

What do you think should be done?

When I think about, there is a need for consent from all the people in order to have peace in that area = education = in order to teach the people to conform with the way things work. A good defense against a government is to make that government good. Prevention is better than cure. Otherwise, civil war is always an option but that's on killing too. :3. No easy answers mate.

ff:

There should be an education to conform - transition and practical = good flow

There should be a free voice to speak out when things are getting chaotic.

There should be fast government action to think about the issues for that sole purpose of doing damage control.

And I believe in freedom or religion without any preference to any religion. If ever I wish religion to be abolished but that's asking to much.

[darkun]

Originally Posted by Inthon

If you're worried about the government, buy a gun and increase your income.

Guns and money? Are you serious? You think that is the answer to oppressive governmental control?

Guns = Fear
Money = Power

How can fear and power ever work against a system based on power and fear?

It doesn't matter which government you are talking about, they all work the same way - either conform to the standard, (get a job, believe what we tell you, follow the rules) or face the consequences.

Here in Australia, owning a gun is illegal. (and always has been unless required for your occupation, farmer, security guard, hunter etc) Not having access to guns saves lives (basically because most people are too stupid to operate one or keep it from being used against them)
That added with soaringly higher standard of public and private education that has taught us that peaceful protest (albeit slow) is the best way to stand up to a government.

Not with Guns!

Allow me for a second to throw a few figures in

FACT: Comparison of U.S. gun homicides to other industrialized countries:
In 1998, handguns murdered:

* 373 people in Germany (approx pop) 82mil = 1 death in 220,000
* 151 people in Canada (approx pop) 30mil = 1 death in 200,000
* 57 people in Australia (approx pop) 19mil = 1 death in 333,000
* 19 people in Japan (approx pop) 126m = 1 death in 6,331,000!
* 54 people in UK (approx pop) 58m = 1 death in 1,074,000

* 11,789 people in the United States (approx pop) 276m = 1 death in every 23,000 people!

You think more guns and more money will keep the people safe? It's a stupefying concept. How many militia led coups in poverty stricken African nations have led to a stable government system? Can you name one?


Peaceful protest is the best, however if you really want to change a system, you cannot fight it, you have to stop supporting it, you must let it fail.

[schola]

darkun,

You're being disingenuous. Of course crimes committed with firearms would be lower in countries where they are hard to obtain. What about the general homicide rates? Surely you're aware that you can kill someone without a gun?

In fact, the truth is that murder rates in your country have remained the same since gun control legislation was enacted: Buyback has no effect on murder rate - National - smh.com.au

[darkun]

Schola: The gun buyback scheme was known to be flawed before the previous government introduced the policy for the simple reason that criminals would not (and have not) hand in their guns.

The percentage of homicides committed with a firearm continued a declining trend which began in 1969. In 2003, fewer than 16% of homicides involved firearms.

Homicide statistics

That's out of a total of 260 homicides - in 20million people! My point remains,

Guns will only ever lead to more death.

[Brutha]

The history of governments is largely the history of governments oppressing and enacting genocide on their people.

Do you know what genocide means?
Genocide is about killing people because there not your people.
It's per definition something that government don't do with their people.

At the moment most Americans don't even want that Bush gets prosecuted for being a dictator in the classical sense of the word.
In ancient Greece dictator was the position that allowed one person to take absolute power to rule the country in times of war. That exactly what Bush did.
If the American people would care about living in a democracy that's ruled by laws you would have millions of people demonstrating to bring criminal charges on Bush administration officials.
Evidently the people in America don't seem to care enough about the fact that they lived in a dictatorship to do anything.
They rather care about the economy, the war in Iraq or healthcare but nearly nobody cares democracy enough to demonstrate to bring charges on those Bush administration officials.

Every American who doesn't has no business saying that they are defending democracy.
You don't have to defend yourself against the specter of the government but against the big group of Americans who don't demonstrate for living a state of laws.
Everyone of them is as morally responsible for letting democracy die as the people in Germany who supported Hitler.

Guns haven't prevented Bush from ruling as dictator and are therefore worthless in defending democracy. There are also worthless for bringing Bush to justice.
If you would get 20 million people demonstrating every week for criminal charges for Bush you would get those charges.
You would only need under 10% of American who support democracy for such a thing.

But there aren't 10% left who actively support democracy.

Peaceful protest is the best, however if you really want to change a system, you cannot fight it, you have to stop supporting it, you must let it fail.

Failure of the state means that those group who have the most weapons will get into control.

[Dave Kaminski]

Demand the full menu of rights at all times.

You might end up getting yourself killed, though!

[schola]

Originally Posted by darkun

Schola: The gun buyback scheme was known to be flawed before the previous government introduced the policy for the simple reason that criminals would not (and have not) hand in their guns.



Homicide statistics

That's out of a total of 260 homicides - in 20million people! My point remains,

Guns will only ever lead to more death.

I don't want to hijack this thread since it's not about gun control so I'll make one last reply on this subject. You're welcome to create a new thread though.

According to the stats you posted, your murder rate was low and it has only dropped slightly in spite of the government gun control. That suggests that murder rates are affected by other factors.

The violent crime rate in the United states, while still high by Western standards, has dropped for the last 10-15 years as well, without any major gun control measures, besides an assault weapons ban. Source: Crime in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[schola]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Do you know what genocide means?
Genocide is about killing people because there not your people.
It's per definition something that government don't do with their people.

You're nitpicking. The OP used the term correctly. Genocide requires an "Us vs them" mentality but its purely a psychological division.

Governments have killed their own people.

The German government killed its own people in the 1930s and 1940s.
The Ottoman Empire killed its own people in 1915.
Rwandan revolutionaries killed their own people in the 90s.

[runningbird]

Brutha, but isn't post-dictator justice too late?

If you think of a nation as a human body,
then it seems incarcerating a dictator would be like going in for a round of chemo,
but that the chemo could possibly be prevented in the first place by a healthy lifestyle / strong immune system.

How does a country keep a strong "immune system"?

[schola]

I support the right to bear arms to defend ourselves against our government, but here's another method:

Salt Satyagraha - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Greensboro sit-ins - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I think maybe non-violent methods wield more power. But a participant in civil disobedience should be prepared to experience violence and be killed just as if they were a soldier in an armed revolution.

[Brutha]

You're nitpicking. The OP used the term correctly. Genocide requires an "Us vs them" mentality but its purely a psychological division.

The psychology is the thing that lets people do those acts.
If you want to prevent Genocide you have to focus on those things that produce it.
Ignoring the psychology behind it is an error.

[Andrew Brunelle]

Probably getting out of whatever country they're in that's conducting this type of genocide. If this isn't a viable option, creating an army to defend against it is in order. However, if you're not so candid on gun ownership, then what about canons or torching the buildings of the government that's conducting the genocide? Christ, if someone is trying to wipe out an entire race, you have to fight fire with fire otherwise you'll end up dead or have to flee.

[runningbird]

I was inspired by Douglas Rushkoff's idea of Open Source Democracy; having a government and legislation built on the model of open source software. How many people are oppressed by linux, for example? If you don't like something, you can just change it. But how many people are oppressed by Windows? Well, its resource intensive so you have to pay more on computers, it is susceptible to identity theft, susceptible to viruses, etc.

I don't know exactly how this translates to individual action with government.

[Brutha]

Brutha, but isn't post-dictator justice too late?

There will be always people who violate the law. In a society where there a rule of law those people who violate them will be punished.
The punishment will show politicians that there aren't above the law. Otherwise politicians will continue to think that they are above the law and can do everything when they think that the action is the right thing to do.

I was inspired by Douglas Rushkoff's idea of Open Source Democracy; having a government and legislation built on the model of open source software.

The open source model of software development is that you have benevolent dictators who direct open source projects.

If one benevolent dictator doesn't do what the users want those can go and form another open source community.
States need a monopole on violence on the area that they govern. You simply can't have multiple states competing on the same area against each other and not expect to see blood. Especially if they are each ruled by "benevolent" dictator.

For that matter laws are already "open source". All laws are public and there nothing that prevents France to implement laws that exist in Germany.

If you argue that every citizen can choose which laws to follow laws use there meaning.
If everybody can choose whether murder is forbidden for him the concept of a law loses it's sense.

Additionally discussing the ideological concept of applying open source to government is just distraction if you aren't even willing to put a simple concept like the rule of law into practice.
If you aren't willing to do something in practice those people with the power in society will rule as they please regardless of your ideology and you are tolerating it.

But maybe I'm just behind the time and still believe in things like laws to rule society from the center...

[runningbird]

The open source model of software development is that you have benevolent dictators who direct open source projects.

If one benevolent dictator doesn't do what the users want those can go and form another open source community.
States need a monopole on violence on the area that they govern. You simply can't have multiple states competing on the same area against each other and not expect to see blood. Especially if they are each ruled by "benevolent" dictator.

I don't think that's how it works. Is there a group of "benevolent dictators" in charge of wikipedia articles? No, everyone has equal power to add relevant information. If someone doesn't like what the past group of people has written, they don't go off and start a different open source article on the same topic - that would be redundant - they simply make the change where it needs to happen.

[escapee]

But maybe I'm just behind the time and still believe in things like laws to rule society from the center...

Yes, a great nation/republic should only be governed by the laws and constitutions, not the people. The leaders are only elected to carried out the constitutional obligation or obligation of laws on behave of the people. This makes the content of the supreme laws as important as the officials who are elected to carry out the obligation.

IMHO, US supreme laws provide the best defense against the emergence of murderous tyrannical government by allowing private gun ownership, militia & the rights to secede. One of the side effects of these is you may have higher rate of mass homicide or suicide with guns instead of less destructive weapons such as knife or other tools.

Even the Swiss is moving to ban rifles at home .... Hmmm...
Move to ban guns at home gathers pace in Switzerland - swissinfo

You gain something, you lose something ...