Political Memes

Yes, Karl Marx wrote:

"Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary."

"To be able forcefully and threateningly to oppose this party [bourgeois], the workers must be armed and organized."

Like, I'm all for gun laws. But unfortunately a lot of crazy shit is legal, and a lot of people are crazy.

Prepare for the world you live in, not what you think it should be like.

Mussolini didn’t end up hanging upside down in an Italian town square because of protests.

While you're right that the people who killed Mussolini were armed dissidents, it's worth remembering that he was allowed to be taken after being deposed after a vote of no confidence from the fascist government of Italy after they got their shit kicked in a few times militarily, and it was the King who removed and presumably arrested him before the citizens did their thing.

And also, the Allies were plowing a path of destruction towards Italy.

Moral of the story: no great story is as simple as we need it to be. There is still politics, there are still decisions by the ruling class that allow the next steps to happen and that ruling class can have their will bent. We still need to be involved in the political system, armed mobs cause as much harm as good even in the best of circumstances, so we want to avoid that if possible, but we need to also have that force behind us or the politics won't work.

To rephrase this line

Protests only work if the person you're protesting gives a shit what you think.

Protests only work when you directly affect their vested interests. They don't care about you or what you think. Period. Yet, they do care about something.

Organize. Find out what those vested interests are. Hold them hostage. Create the credible threat that if they do not start representing our interests, as is their assumed role of the position they have been appointed to, then we will royally fuck it up and hit them where it hurts.

Then, it doesn't matter if they care what we think, we have established our authority and made it known that it will be enforced with immediate consequences. If they want their authority as a government official then they will respect our authority as their constituency or else.

Most of all, be prepared for them to retaliate and defend their interests. To deter us and threaten us to stand down. These are the times in history where we can't back down. We cannot give in to them just to save our own skin when it comes at the cost of, if allowed to continue, the skins of millions of others under the boot of their oppression.

We fight and stand our ground knowing that we may possibly die, but also possibly survive and save millions of lives, or we do nothing, let millions fall to their atrocities, until they finally turn their sights on us and we die with regret that we didn't even attempt to stop them.

They can't do this without us so, if they want to go this route, we need to be ready to sink the whole goddamn ship so they don't get their cake and eat it too. Mutually assured destruction is not just a nuclear deterrent. The best part is, us workers can rebuild. We built this all to begin with. The owning class assholes, if they get rid of us, will live out their final moments in a burned out husk surrounded by resources with no ability to use them. They will be Kings of nothing, to die of thirst surrounded by water with nothing but their imaginary wealth to keep them company.

It's honestly crazy that we have the "right" to bear arms and the "right" to protest, but half the country cannot protest while bearing arms. Meanwhile, police are shooting people's eyes out and trampling them with horses.

I tried several times in the last few days to articulate the points you're making. well said

And if any gun-grabbers think the cops and ICE and politicians are fascist enough as-is, imagine how they would be acting if they could kick down doors with full impunity and zero fear. Yeah, the local cops could get a squad of 20 and take this house apart. But somebody's getting hurt. I guarantee it.

And there's the real case for private ownership.

If you have the choice of being disappeared and killed...or being disappeared and killed while taking a few of them with you, definitely choose the latter.

It won't help you, but if you do it, your neighbor does it, and the next 10, 20...50 people do it, eventually two things are going to happen: if it's local forces, they're gonna start needing help, and if it's not local, it forces those powers into a more difficult decision of having to either get more overt with their fascism or backing off. It's not ideal but that's pretty much the options you have.

If they want to do all the shitty fascist things, don't let them do it easily and for free. The higher ups might not care, but that local cop in the red hat might start to think twice when "his" government keeps asking him to haul away people, and each time, another of his friends goes down. If not from a place of shifting world view, then maybe from self preservation.

Turns out they hate women more than they love guns.

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Mag dumping each other for fun and profit.

I'm not American, but I consider myself left wing, and I am pro gun but I am also pro gun control. I don't think outright banning them is a solution but I also don't think letting them out in the world unchecked is a good idea either.

Being pro gun, doesn't have to mean you're against sensible gun laws though

Definitely just the USA. I mentioned earlier that I really respect NZ deciding to disarm after their last public shooting. That's something that could really happen when corruption is that low and people are educated and healthy.

It's definitely not just an American thing.

"Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." -Karl Marx

America does have a "unique" culture around guns, but that's not all that prevalent on the left. What's driving interest in guns is the sad fact that we might need to use them.

In a civilised society, you don't fear every random passerby will try to kill you, so it is irrelevant what they are carrying.