[scotty79]

> if we allow our government

This is so tiresome when people who don't have a single tank think they are in a position to allow people with tanks to do this or that.

Things happen because their value for people in power exceeds the value of your consent. And you have fewer and fewer ways to make your consent any more valuable to cross the threshold of relevancy.

I know it's an attractive illusion to believe that people have a say. But it's time to shake it off because this veil is one of the things used for control.

[Ancapistani]

You underestimate both the capacity of an armed citizenry and the hardware that we have at our disposal.

There are in fact privately owned tanks in the US.

[larkost]

This is misleading. While there are privately owned tanks, they are all old, and lack any weapons (other than as a battering ram).

They likely could cause a lot of trouble for a local police force, but would not stand up to any infantry force in the world.

So in an actual conflict with the U.S. government, none of those tanks would be more than symbolic. And whole a general gorilla insurrection in the U.S. would be nasty, examples like Wako demonstrate that even mid-sized stands would be severely overwhelmed.

The whole idea that a Second-Amendment rebellion in the U.S., absent the military joining on the side of the rebellion, is just a fantasy.

[Ancapistani]

It is misleading, but not for the reasons you state.

There are private tanks in the US with functional weapons, including both mounted MGs and the cannon. In fact, there’s a place in Uvalde, TX that will let you come drive and shoot theirs for a couple grand.

> none of those tanks would be more than symbolic

Correct, but that’s not why. A tank would be worse than useless in an insurgency.

> The whole idea that a Second-Amendment rebellion in the U.S., absent the military joining on the side of the rebellion, is just a fantasy.

No one is seriously suggesting going up against the US military with an irregular force in the US. The point is that an armed citizenry cannot be subjugated without destroying everything worth having. It’s a suicide pact between the People and the state.

[seanmcdirmid]

I thought the point of an armed citizenry is so that they could shoot at each other as both sides think the other has gone bad. Let’s face it, even right now it isn’t the people unified for or against the government, it’s roughly two groups of people that hate each other, one side has control of the federal government, the other side has control of some local and state governments, either side sees the other as tyrannical, and it’s just luck that they haven’t started shooting at each other yet.

This idea that citizens would somehow unite against a tyrannical government has always been a fantasy, even during the revolutionary war.

[psunavy03]

Tell that to the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, the Viet Cong, Mao, and George Washington.

Just because the government has tanks does not mean "we have tanks and nukes, therefore we'll win" has proven true across military history.

[Hasz]

The US has lost multiple wars to goat herders in pickup trucks with small arms.

As Ukraine has demonstrated, a shaped charge and consumer drone is highly effective against even heavy mechanized armor. ERA doesn't work well for multiple hits, and drones and HMX/RDX are cheap.

[scotty79]

Tell your history lesson to a Reaper drone. You can see how modern version of people's insurgency could look like in modern Gaza. This is exactly how would citizens vs. US play out. With Palantir painting the targets on the appropriate backs and declaring anyone in the blast radius as domestic terrorist.

[bluGill]

What makes you think the army will go along with it? Sure some will, but expect many soldiers will rebel.

[_DeadFred_]

The Navy is currently blowing up random boats in the Caribbean (including double taps on survivors) because reasons.

[ben_w]

Sure, and from what I hear that's at the level of "war crimes", but those civilians the US armed forces are killing aren't US civilians.

People sign up for a variety of reasons; to keep their own safe is one of them, and that reason is incompatible with being the aggressor in a civil war.

[_DeadFred_]

Bro the way you brush off the US military already moving into the 'murderous war crimes' phase and thinking there is an upper bounds of the direction already in motion.

Did you think you would ever so casually brush off the US Navy straight murdering people with 'sure, we're doing that but...'?

Edit: A large group of Federal agents just murdered a 37 something American on the street, on video. He had a permit to carry, and his largest crime appears to have been traffic tickets. Prior to shooting him to death they were video'd pistol whipping his face.

These people are just fine with murdering Americans.

[mrguyorama]

They went along with Iraq despite knowing it was a lie.

"We knew they didn't have weapons of mass destruction when we rolled up and didn't immediately get gassed"

[scotty79]

Army goes along with anyone that ensures continual financing of the army. Review history of any putsch ever.

[ben_w]

The current US administration is not competent to ensure continual financing in real terms.

If the White House keeps up current threats against allies it may find nobody willing to lend them money, and therefore the government will be forced to inflate its way to balancing the books each year; if they follow through with kicking out the undocumented migrant workers (even if they improve their current behaviour and limit themselves to *only* undocumented migrant workers), they mess up US agriculture at the same time; there is also visible corruption and self-dealing within the government.

The question is the level, rather than the existence of these factors.

There's been another authoritarian in my lifetime who messed with farms by actually kicking out non-native people in the way Trump threatens, demonstrating even worse corruption, and that actually did try to fund the government with inflation rather than my hypothetical of "will be forced to": Mugabe. It didn't go well for Zimbabwe, and the US military can observe what happened there and decide if that's what they want to see in the US.

[bdangubic]

0 of them will “rebel”

[AngryData]

You really think the US government can bomb its own citizens with impunity and not completely destroy their own industrial base that makes bombing citizens possible? The US government would very quickly collapse.

Refineries and factories don't work without people and are exceedingly vulnerable to locals.

[scotty79]

At the moment the government with 15% hardcore support is rounding up people on the streets en masse, violating decades of established practices, while harming industrial base that depend on work of those people. And somehow pretty much everyone peacefully goes along with it. Or get occasionally shot.

[amenhotep]

That is exactly the point. It's working because everyone is peacefully going along with it. They have the consent - or at least acquiescence - of the governed. That's why they have no issues.

It is, therefore, not remotely relevant to your post starting this whole thread off saying that the consent of the governed is irrelevant and all you need is tanks.

[scotty79]

> They have the consent - or at least acquiescence - of the governed.

They don't have the consent. And all they needed to get acquiescence was a bunch of poorly trained goons with masks, weapons, suv-s and official mandate. Not a single tank was needed yet.

Consent is irrelevant.

The only saving grace is that actual people with tanks (ie military) might at some point say 'nah'. Which I think they did in case of Greenland. Simply because it was too weird for them as opposed to Venezuela and Iran.

[AngryData]

And? Minnesota is under strike right now and Arizona's AG just told its citizens that they can legally shoot ICE if they don't properly identify themselves or have a warrant or legal cause to arrest them. Still 95% of the nation is operating as normal, but that isn't possible when people are being actively bombed.

[scotty79]

You can't imagine 95% of the nation operating as normal when they see in the news that another armed domestic terrorist cell got bombed every few days while being told the country is safer now?

[tartoran]

Fear makes a lot of well intended people comply.

[nilamo]

The US government has made it pretty clear that we're two countries. There's the USA, and "democratic-controlled cesspools". Dropping a bomb on Chicago isn't that nuts when you don't think of Chicago as part of your country.

[pjc50]

Jan 6th worked, and they didn't even successfully take and hold the Capitol.