I hope these nuts don’t hurt anybody, but I have some respect for the revolutionary sentiment here:
18 percent of Democrats, 27 percent of Independents, and 44 percent of Republicans agreed with the statement: “In the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties”.
I’m not sure how real Applebee’s salad bar going Americans feel about armed revolution. It might turn off the security moms but play well with NASCAR dads. That’s just a guess, though.
Baud
Ha. CNN just sent an alert that 4 in 10 Americans would give up some liberty to make us more secure. So CNN thought it sufficiently important to alert us of how a minority of Americans feel.
Waldo
That’s why they’re arming their 5-year-olds. Fuckin’ kooks.
ranchandsyrup
@Baud: Seen a lot of paultards flogging the Ben Franklin quote re: liberty and security. I naively sent some of them some context on the quote, like that would make a difference. http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/07/what-ben-franklin-really-said/
pluege
How on Earth could anyone respect those nuts – you know damn well nearly all of them would be shaking like leaves under their beds with pee-stained pants if a real revolution ever broke, and the ones that weren’t under their beds are just the criminally insane looking to kill and should be locked up or under professional psychiatric care.
But it is useful to know that at least 44% of republicans are completely full of shit. The number was only 35% under recent reign of bush the lessor.
ranchandsyrup
Also, too, I have taken to telling false flaggers that they’re just projecting what they’re gonna do to start the “revolution”. They do not like that sort of insinuation.
Baud
@ranchandsyrup:
I’m shocked. I really hope this practice of taking things out of context doesn’t extend to religion, or things could get really messy.
ranchandsyrup
@Baud: Heh. I needed the LOL, thanks Baud. Leviticus! But only parts of it……
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
The idea of armed revolution is popular because everybody gets to imagine that they would be the heroic and victorious revolutionaries and their enemies would be the ones to be dumped into the mass graves and then pissed upon in the history books written by the victors. This is nothing more than the nation of “We will be greeted as liberators..” admiring itself in a mirror while dancing to the tune of I’m too sexy for my
shirtcurrent form of government.Chris
@ranchandsyrup:
I imagine you were treated to some choice words as to your intellectual elitism and otherwise unamerican nature.
David Hunt
I look at those stats I what take out of it is that Republicans don’t have a lot of confidence in their prospects for the next Presidential Election. The moment the President has an “R” after his name, 99% of those Don’t Tread On Me militia types will disappear like fog on a sunny day.
ranchandsyrup
@Chris: Yeah. I just told them that Agenda 21 would protect me with FEMA coffins.
RaflW
Just seeing the sanitized videos from Kosovo, the West Bank, or Iraq makes it plain as day that the 44% of Repubs (and, shamefully, the 18% of Dems) have no damned idea what the hell they are talking about.
Any purported armed revolution would not be fought with fife and drums out on the fields of some farmer. Your fucking apartment building will be blown up, you shitheel. Your grocery store will be lucky to be open for a couple random hours in any given week, and Hagen Daas will most certainly not be available.
Jacked up morans, all of ’em.
penpen
@ranchandsyrup: Great article, thanks for sharing.
jl
Jefferson’s ‘water the tree of liberty’ quote in context, with emphasis added:
Where did [anarchy in the U.S.] ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion.[1] The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order.
Jefferson Encylopedia
The tree of liberty…(Quotation)
http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/The_tree_of_liberty…%28Quotation%29
So, Jefferson will respect DougJ and the gun nuts too. And from what he said, I suppose Jefferson would expect them to settle down, take their (hopefully moderate) disciplinary action when their rebellion gets shut down, and they give up their misconceptions when true facts are explained by the majority in a democratic republic.
DougJ might follow that playbook. Not sure about the reactionary gun nuts.
Edit: in other words, a person like DougJ would consider pacification after the rebellion was crushed, but I suspect the gun nuts would consider him a ‘squish’.
Mustang Bobby
From whom? Are the Romulans amassing a strike force on the edge of the Neutral Zone?
And this from pluege:
They’re like rebellious teens who demand to be LEFT ALONE and YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME! as they’re holding out their hands for their allowance and wanting to know what time dinner is.
SatanicPanic
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: The Dunning-Kruger Effect rules them all. For my part, I know I’d get tired, cranky and most likely shot, so count me out.
Sly
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Or they think that someone else will be doing all the fighting while they sit at home watching it on TV. I’d say that covers 9 in 10 of the
27%29%.Chris
@David Hunt:
Indeed. That’s one of the most remarkable things about militia activity in the last twenty years. It peaked under Clinton and returned with a vengeance under Obama, but during the eight years in between in which the government granted itself the right to torture, the right to detain indefinitely and the right to wiretap without a warrant (for starters), the militia nuts simply sat the whole thing out and twiddled their thumbs, unless they were part of the crowd out there screaming their support for the Dear Leader.
Reinforcing my long-held belief that if there were ever actual fascism in America, they wouldn’t be the Resistance taking up arms to fight it, they’d be the Brownshirt volunteers helping it to track down Undesirables.
celticdragonchick
@pluege:
I think it would be a serious mistake to make that assumption in a country with a long history of political violence and armed insurrections.
Gin & Tonic
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I have (had?) blood relatives who not that long ago, were the ones dumped in mass graves and pissed on, in pursuit of nationalist causes. But they knew the deal, and signed up for that possibility, all while hoping against hope they’d come out on the other side. These bedwetting “revolutionaries” have *nothing* in common with them.
belieber
but what do the cousin fuking casual meth user rednecks think?
celticdragonchick
@Chris:
Yeah, I suspect that a lot of those folks would do exactly what you think. Not all of them by any means, but more then a few.
NotMax
Well, can’t deny that those cited in the blockquote are revolting, in the Life of Riley (“What a revoltin’ development!”) sense.
OT: On a lighter note, again wish all a Happy Lei Day.
May Day Is Lei Day In Hawaii, a contemporary version.
ranchandsyrup
@belieber: They think that the Galtian superheroes will want to keep them around once they win because they’re white. Which is just adorable.
jl
@jl: Just notice the linky widget for my comment can’t handle the URL for the quote. But search
The tree of liberty…(Quotation)
and it will come up.
28 Percent
Just right now, do yourself a favor and don’t start reading up on late 18th century France. You’ll sleep better if you leave that alone.
GarColga
I wonder what an armed revolution looks like to these idiots. I mean, the US is not some banana republic where you seize the radio station and it’s all over.
SFAW
Just 7 percent more, and they can make it Official that they’re the Party of Treason und Sedition! (Fuck Yeah!)
Because that’s about the only way they’ll get a Rethug called “PoTuS” anytime soon.
Instead of peeing his diapers about the mean-mean-mean cartoon in the SacBee (or wherever it was), Governor Dickless Perry should make good on his Dumbfuckistan-secedes-from-the-US threat. As long as he leaves Austin alone. (I gots family there, and they’re all libs.) But
NuevoAztlanTejas is big enough to cram all the right-wingers in, and the rest of the country could get back to fixing things.celticdragonchick
That is terrifying. One quarter of the voting population seems to have gone headfirst into deranged conspiracy land.
This kind of paranoid, hyper-tribalization is how democracies get broken beyond repair.
Mr Stagger Lee
In 1791 a group of farmers protesting the tax on their corn products like whiskey, set fire to a customs house s well as tar and feathering tax collectors, this pissed off George Washington, had a militia formed to crush the rebellion. One of the generals sent by Washington was none other than Henry Lee, father of Robert E Lee. Short version, the tax rebels cooled their heels, and the revolt was over. This was known as the Whiskey Rebellion. I don’t think that many a patriotic gun nut knows about this use of the militia by George Washington who was only too willing to deal with the tax rebels.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@SatanicPanic:
We need a new tag: My golden vault is full of Dunning-Krugerrands.
gocart mozart
@Waldo:
Well if those Sandy Hook kids had been armed, things might have turned out a bit different you pansy ass libtard squish.
Heliopause
It might be but, please, do you really think this society is ready to give up $7/cup drive-thru coffee and do the hard work?
As ever I refer you to St. George of Carlin: “This country is finished, it’s been sliding downhill a long time, and everybody’s got a cell phone that makes pancakes so they don’t want to rock the boat, they don’t want to make any trouble. People have been bought off by gizmos and toys in this country and no one questions things anymore.”
“They don’t give a fuck about you, they don’t give a fuck about you, they don’t care about you, at all, at all, at all. And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on, the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red-white-and-blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day. Because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
Loneoak
All snark aside, I really don’t understand what they think they would be rebelling against.
gocart mozart
@celticdragonchick:
It’s 27%,two per cent margin of error in the poll.
Gex
I guess the poll might be necessary to let others know how reactionary the GOP is.
I was clued in by the “real” American references, constitutional amendments restricting freedoms, and an Oedipal gun fetish played out by running around at town halls with assault weapons.
They said “We didn’t shoot. Yet.” on their signs for crying out loud.
Gex
@Loneoak: Gays, immigrants, and blahs. We all know what they are against. They have opinions on people, not policy.
celticdragonchick
@SFAW:
If you haven’t noticed, that is exactly what they have been accusing the Democrats of for the last 15 years. In their minds, they will be cleansing the traitors and seditionists. They really believe this shit, and I do think that there is a non-negligible chance that some group will try to start some sort of armed resistance. Fear of federal gun control may well be the “trigger”. Look at how much damage McVeigh did with one accomplice. Think about 500 McVeighs spread around 5 states..
SFAW
@celticdragonchick:
I question the data. The actual number should be 27 percent, as has been shown time and again.
Can the missing 2 percent be ascribed to a
Rogaine and BraveheartRogoff and Reinhart screwup? Or was the sampled population not large enough to reduce the “dimensional” tolerance of the result?priscianus jr
Here’s a question: 44% of Republicans is what percentage of Americans?
Well, according to the latest Gallup Poll (2013 April 4-14), 26% of those polled identify themselves as firm (as opposed to “leaning”) Republicans.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
44% of 26% is a little less than 11.5% of those polled.
So while it’s interesting that a little more than a tenth of the population are Republicans who think armed revolution is likely, the fact that this represents close to half of all republicans says to me that today’s GOP constitutes a very crazy sector of the American population that fortunately is not very big.
Independents in the same poll come in at 40%, and 27% of that is about the same, a little more than 10%.
Democrats at 18% of 33% are a little less than 6.5%.
This totals about 27% of the American population. I had a feeling that at the end of the day we’d once again find the well-known 27% Loony Tunes of America in there.
John Arbuthnot Fisher
Does this mean we get a chance to remind them of how the “armed revolution” of 1861 – 1865 went?
Senyordave
Hey, it worked well in Red Dawn, didn’t it
SFAW
@celticdragonchick:
Yeah, it’s funny how projection works.
Kidding aside … it would not surprise me if that happens. Actually, it would surprise me more if it didn’t. They’re envisioning Gilead, and I’m reasonably sure that there is a non-zero number of persons who would be more than happy to sacrifice their life/lives, if they thought they could kill all Demoncrats currently (whenever “currently” might be) in power. The ironic thing is that they think they’re different from jihadi suicide bombers.
SFAW
@John Arbuthnot Fisher:
But this time, they’ll make sure not to attack Chancellorsville when there’s a full moon.
Calouste
@SFAW:
FTFY
? Martin
Cue the freakout:
Jim C
This reminds me:
Does anyone remember a MMORPG* from around 2009 where you could play the insurgent patriots trying to overthrow the tyrannical Muslim forces of Obama?
*at least I thought it was an MMORPG. Maybe it was just plain old online game.
Keith G
@ranchandsyrup: That is an interesting account of one person’s take on this. I wonder what the Franklin scholarship says about this.
Anyway, revolution, or its cousin rebellion (or even, unrest) needs to always be a doable option in the course of human government. My fear is that our wonderfully massive security/intel state will make these next to impossible.
If there is no practical fear of rebellion, the oligarchy served by the leadership of our two political parties will have little to fear. There will be no curbs to their avarice. Rulers expect three things from the ruled: Provide food; Provide soldiers; Provide docile obedience.
A willingness, ability, and desire to participate in unrest is, in essence, a bargaining chip. While this is not the best way to confront injustice, nothing would cheer the unjust more than a population pacified by the high self-regard of so many of it’s members.
MikeJ
@Loneoak:
They want to overthrow the government because aren’t forced to sing Proud to be an American at baseball games in between the national anthem and God Bless America.
Older_Wiser
Shoot if you must this old gray head, but fuck no!
And this poor guy, an Army vet/reservist who just happens to be a Muslim immigrant from Somalia, looking for a better life, didn’t seem to understand that he might pick up a fascist, either. http://freakoutnation.com/2013/05/01/video-iraqi-war-veteran-called-a-fcking-muslim-by-a-man-who-then-allegedly-fractures-his-jaw/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=video-iraqi-war-veteran-called-a-fcking-muslim-by-a-man-who-then-allegedly-fractures-his-jaw
muddy
They say they need their guns in case the government takes their freedom. But the only amendment they give a shit about is the 2nd. And they actually think that is the important one, more than the 1st it seems like. They are idiots.
ranchandsyrup
@? Martin: slippery slope’s gonna get a workout over that.
Mike E
And if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao,
You ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow.
@jl: This quote is in response to Shays’ Rebellion, that shoot-the-moon ploy that nearly got a hold of the Springfield Armory, and it would’ve then been
to Times Square, bitchez!on to Boston to raze the banks who were screwing the farmers. Out of the thousands who participated, two were hanged (prolly for being psycho war criminals). Harsh, right? Not really, no. Context!@Mr Stagger Lee: This is what leniency gets you with a bunch of proto-Southerners: they move their stills to the Appalachians, then invent NASCAR.
SatanicPanic
@? Martin: I thought this was what they wanted. But reading the comments there- “damn Nazis!” vs. “duh you should have already been enforcing this law, lazy liberal!” – seems they’re not sure what they actually want.
celticdragonchick
@Jim C:
Local Greensboro uber wingnut Orson Scott Card wrote a book on a similar subject that was supposed to also be a game, called Empire, where the lefties became traitors and start a civil war against the God-fearin’ Republican owned White House.
You have to see it to believe it, and this coming from the asshole who suggested that armed revolution would be justified in the event that teh gheys started gettin’ hitched.
danimal
@Senyordave: WOLVERINES!
Somebody had to do it.
celticdragonchick
@Keith G:
I am sure I was not the only one to notice the hysterical police reaction to Occupy protests around the country. It seems that hippy protestors with drums will not be tolerated, and must be met with fists, butt stocks of submachineguns (which happened here in North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and copious use of chemical agents.
I saw nothing similar when Teatards started carrying AR-15 rifles to their protests. Law Enforcement in this country is overwhelmingly right wing, and any hint of protest from the left is utterly crushed.
RaflW
That’s pretty much where we are. Not 100%. I don’t think all Dems are fully in hoc to the oligarchs, but we’re gettin close. And any possible rebellion here will be by the brownshirts, in support of the moneymen, not to put the rich in the tumbrels.
different-church-lady
Tale. Idiot. Sound. Fury. Nothing. All that, all that.
Keith G
@celticdragonchick: Yeah…that might have been because the rednecks with a gun (in the circumstances you cite) were known to be window dressing, pure theater.
The Occupy kids were first gassed because they were a nuisance – that action then made them a “cause” and therefore a catalyst for further action. That in turn meant that they had to be disbanded or at least disabled.
Tripod
Well, if you shot your household savings on bubble inflated guns and ammo….
celticdragonchick
@RaflW:
That is what I am afraid of.
Anna in PDX
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Love that, dunning-krugerrands.
SFAW
@Calouste:
I appreciate the thought, but run-of-the-mill Reich wingers have ALWAYS been happy to sacrifice the lives of others.
It’s the hardcore, true believer, willing to pull a “Debt of Honor” final scene (probably with lots of explosives), that is atypical, and what scares me. I’m pretty sure there are at least a couple of them out there.
Omnes Omnibus
The vast majority of people claiming that a violent revolution is necessary are blowhards. They aren’t going to do a damned thing.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
18 percent of Democrats, 27 percent of Independents, and 44 percent of Republicans agreed with the statement: “In the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties”.
Oh yeah – scary threat there.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_u8eOybfYCgM/S6-UOiL2aHI/AAAAAAAADCo/8VWAB3m-dNE/s400/Searchlight+Tea+Party+Rally+20100328.jpg
Pseudonym
What percentage of that group actually believes this and what percentage is just posturing? Also, “might” is doing a lot of work here.
AxelFoley
@Omnes Omnibus:
Exactly.
These fools crack me up with this “we need guns to protect ourselves from the government” bullshit.
They need to understand this: Every type of gun or weapon you have, the government has. And it has more of them. And it has bigger guns. And the government has every type of experimental weapon there is. And the government has tanks, jets, bombers, bombs, rockets, missiles, DROOOOONES, and nukes.
If the government wanted to fuck you up, there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
momus
Its the end result of depopulating the mental wards during the Reagan Administration.
Shalimar
@celticdragonchick:
McVeigh was successful because he only had one accomplice. You don’t get 5 conspirators together anymore without 1 of them being an FBI informant, let alone 500.
low-tech cyclist
Good Lord, DougJ, where did you pull that one from? I’m certain that I hadn’t thought of that song in 40 years at least.
fuckwit
@Mustang Bobby: a great many are on welfare and ssi and medicare.