Of course they’re rifles. But to most people, that word is redolent of old yeller, Davey Crockett, and the wild frontier. It’s like musket; something benign from another age.
The assault rifles everyone buys at box stores or online now may be mechanically similar, but culturally they are action hero tradetools and represent a capacity for civil violence at once both incredible and breathtakingly naive.
Despite embodying much of what you likely loathe, I think I like you man. So I want to keep this civil. Could you please straighten me out, and explain how the following would not be the case? About to write an article around it, but you can have a sneak peak:
Though with you in spirit, even were I to possess a class three license and vehicle-mounted cannon, I would not be with you on the frontlines in the coming armageddon against ZOG.
Because the 2a crew stands little to no chance against whatever they replace the warthogs with. Nor against apaches and comanches. Not unless fellow travelers embedded on military bases gunrun real shit out to you guys, avail you of radar, or mutiny to join you.
They name attack helicopters after the scariest indians not to strike ancestral fear into Chinese hearts, but ours. All this of course assuming they don’t escalate to airstrikes. In which case broad, outright mutiny would be the only meaningful opposition.
If they ever come for us, I trust in the racial, economic, and educational diversity of our armed forces. Don’t believe much, but I do believe our own boys will not open fire on Iowa.
That’s why democratic control and civilian oversight of the armed forces is paramount. Dilute units with all kinds of people from all over and you reduce the risk they will open fire on their own kind.
Patriotism to me is the willing suspension of my worst fears and darkest suspicions about what lurks in the halls of power on our coasts. If I lose faith in the prospect of the world’s number two immigrant destination as a potential force for good, I would be utterly faithless.
Fuck gods, nations, and moneys. I know everything I see, experience, and love — family, friends, new adventures — is real, so no need for faith. But you’re kind of right: faith in good offices of the state is intangible. Even viewed from within, its intentions are unclear and ineffable.
I have questioned and beleaguered abuses of state power my whole life, and most of my other writing is dedicated to it, but that’s no way to live. People always tell me to cheer up. So I try to restrain my heritable apocalypticism.
