The terrorism label gets applied very easily these days.
It doesn’t matter what it should be called. When was the last armed “rebellion” in a western democracy?
What does that have to do with anything?
Who is the arbiter of the legitimacy of the response, given that it’s obviously not the government?
I guess it depends on your definition and western. Syria is at least on paper a democracy, Ukraine is pretty democratic and many citizen consider themselves part of the west and has an ongoing armed rebellion. But I’d argue that break up of Yugoslavia meets your definition. It is part of the west, at various stages there were mostly fair democratic elections, and variety of armed rebellions ensued.
Yeah, none of those are real democracies. Citing Syria as a democracy is the biggest joke since the comintern claimed the USSR under Stalin was democratic. And of course it’s not western. Ukraine made some attempts in the direction of democracy to be sure, but their government has always been pervasively corrupt, both before and after their little putsch. They may perhaps be more sympathetic than Russia to us, but they’re not more democratic. And Yugoslavia? Seriously? Democratic Yugoslavia? Okay, it was a nicer place pre-breakup than Syria ever was, but come on.
Ukraine wasn’t really a rebellion so much as an invasion, and if Yugoslavia is an example then so is the USSR, because it’s breakup was basically a similar return to the old divisions. A lot of the Syrian Rebels are called terrorists, and if it weren’t for our own disapproval of Assad (who is the kind of tyrant the founders feared), I suspect all of those rebels would be called terrorists.
To list some other examples, the IRA, the PLO, and everyone resisting the government in Iraq for past decade. Is there any doubt that our modern understanding would see de Gaulle as a terrorist if we hadn’t been on his side? The reality is that the whole idea of a rightful rebellion vs an illegal terrorist operation seems be more about who won than some abstract justness of the cause.
The Carter center monitored most of the Balkan elections and found them free and fair, but I take your point. Establshed stable democracies don’t have armed rebellions. But there is contium in democratic government and among the shakey democracy the threat of armed rebellion acts as incentive for the losing party to give up power. I’m thinking of country like Turkey, where the military acted a protector of the democracy. Although I am not sure that’s particularly true now
It’s certainly true there’s a continuum. After all we are not much of a democracy in the US, either, though at least our elections are kinda sorta fair in the sense that there’s not too too much ballot-box-stuffing or other gross cheating. But of course who gets to be on the ballot is hardly very democratic in most elections, and there are any number of government institutions, federal and state laws, and electoral rules that were deliberately introduced to reduce the power of the popular vote in this country.
But for anything vaguely resembling western democracy, I think all the candidate nations that have had recent revolutions are well beyond the democratic pale.
Quoting this so that someone can help it make sense someday.
(Seriously though, Erdogan is a fucking cartoon and the whole Turkish regime is a nightmare.)
Read a book about Attaturk and modern Turkish history.
Fair point. Again if you want to say that the recent Dallas incident was a legitimate response to a tyrannical government, ok that is your opinion.
We may not think it was legitimate, but in the mind of the shooter it was, and that’s all you need when you have high powered rifles and a culture that thinks that the reason you have that rifle is to resist government oppression.
Compare with the Bundy gang; again few would think their response was legitimate, but surely a lot of them believed they were resisting tyranny.
And more importantly, that’s all you can ever really have - anyone in armed resistance against the federal government would necessarily be illegitimate.
No, that’s why you write a manifesto. Duh.
But you see, that’s the point?
That guy was doing exactly what you suggested was the justification for his needing to own that weapon. He did exactly what you were arguing that you needed to be able to do.
Your justification for needing to own an AR15 directly leads to this guy’s actions, because you are specifically arguing to preserve the capability to do it.
As long as you feel you must be able to take up arms against the government, then there is literally no way you can prevent this type of action, because it is merely the actualization of your position.
As the old adage goes: one mans freedom fighter is another’s terrorist.
Well I can’t disagree that it happened, because it did. I can disagree with why it happened. The shooter abused his 2nd amendment rights and paid the ultimate price for it. It’s sad and unfortunate that it cost the lives of 5 cops. The shooter clearly bought into the false narrative that groups like BLM preach.
None of that changes why the 2nd amendment exists, or why I think it should continue to exist. One guy abusing a right is not going to make me think the right should be abridged or suspended or taken away entirely.
I think it’s actually, “One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s 2nd Amendment abuser”.
Look we all know black people don’t get to use that aspect.
Now tax-dodging white dudes out West? Yeah, of course they do. That’s what it’s all about.
And as far as that aspect of the Amendment… even as a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment, I think the Founding Fathers proved where they actually stood on it pretty early on with the Whiskey Rebellion. Yeah, you can have your right to a weapon, say hello to the Army.