theneointellectual: Second Amendment FAQS : Gun Control argument : ” Why do you fear our troops?”

RRD: This is a variant of the ”it can't happen here” argument. The implication being that since the government is not presently a dictatorship,that it can never become one & that to think so is to ”fear our troops” which is ”un-american” & ”unpatriotic”. This is absurd on several levels:

It's hypocritical to voice this objection if you have ever expressed the fear that the country could ever become a dictatorship. It is no slight to the heroism of today's soldiers or our nations past soldiers to fear that the Military could become corrupted ,or that it could be dismantled & be replaced by a secret police force someday. (Perhaps a ”counter-terrorism” force would be created in the wake of a nuclear first strike,to ”take up the slack domestically” in the ”Homeland” while the military is bogged down overseas. A counter-terrorism unit whose motto would be ”if you have nothing to hide,you have nothing to fear” .)

Indeed the popular novel Seven Days in May was about a US MILITARY coup,& it received largely positive reviews & spawned two film adaptations Seven Days in May & The Enemy Within. It certainly was not denounced by the left as being ”an attack on our troops”.
And that is but one of countless examples in a long tradition warning prophetically that America or Britain could become a dictatorship. From Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here (a title which has entered the lexicon as a phrase),to Orwell's 1984 ,to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451,to V for Vendetta to Blue Thunder to A Very British Coup to non-fiction books like The End Of America (fn1) to the writings of such ”wingnuts” as Jefferson,Madison,Washington,& George Mason ,& all the other Founders (fn2) plus Sandra Day O'Connor (fn3) & virtually all of the American left & most of the world left during Bush's presidency (fn4),this is a long established & often distinguished tradition.
One need only look at the (often legitimate) opposition to the NDAA & The Patriot Act,plus the repeated declarations by the left that Bush & Obama have committed war crimes
to see the manifest absurdity & hypocrisy of these arguments ,which Leftists only make when they attack the Right to Keep & Bear Arms . Most of the Founders who opposed the Constitution did so in part on the grounds that it,permitted the establishment of a standing army, viewing that as being innately threatening to liberty & as being a tool for despotism.
The fact that many Conservatives such as ”tough on crime types” & many Bush supporters are also indifferent to certain liberties : such as the Fourth Amendment,& the Fifth Amendment (at least when a Republican is in office) ,does not negate the hypocrisy of liberals on this matter. It is not hypocritical for someone to believe that free speech is a right & that gun ownership is not a right (wrong but not hypocritical) but it IS blatantly hypocritical to warn that the country can become a dictatorship when you are objecting to a law that infringes on the Fourth Amendment ,& then to turn around & declare that it is ”slanderous” to our troops to express fear that our country could ever become a dictatorship when you are critiquing supporters of the Individual Right interpretation of the Second Amendment.
Nor does it make sense to argue that since the government is not currently a dictatorship that we don't have the right to own guns now,but would if the country became a police state! One can hardly argue ”ban guns now & then legalize them when the country looks like it is about to become a dictatorship”,by then it would be too late. Nor does it make sense to claim that ”a resistance movement would stand no chance”,as this is simply belied by history. Such resistance movements have succeeded & failed & achieved partial success throughout history.
Whether such a movement could succeed or fail is unknowable. But it is clear simply by looking at history that defeat is not inevitable.
I will address other arguments for gun control in subsequent posts ,but this argument is invalid.

Footnotes:

fn1

A bibliography & filmography of LEFT - Wing dystopias alone could easily fill several hundred pages & that would exclude those works that have anti-totalitarian themes as a element of the story ; e.g. Star Wars ( particularly the prequels) ,Firefly etc.

Seven Days in May - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_in_May

Seven Days in May (1964) - Overview - TCM.com

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/16136/Seven-Days-in-May/

The Enemy Within (TV 1994) - IMDb

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109730/

It Can't Happen Here - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here

Nineteen Eighty-Four - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

Fahrenheit 451 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451

V for Vendetta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta

Blue Thunder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Thunder

A Very British Coup - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_British_Coup

“The End of America”: Feminist Social Critic Naomi Wolf Warns US in Slow Descent into Fascism

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/11/28/the_end_of_america_feminist_social

A Documentary Focuses on Civil Liberties in the Wake of 9/11 - NYTimes.com

http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/movies/03end.html?_r=0

fn2

Madison,Mason,Adams,Coxe,Webster,Patrick Henry etc on the supposedly non-existent right to own guns #tcot #tlot #secondamendment - fightingstatism

http://fightingstatism.posterous.com/madisonmasonadamscoxewebsterpatrick-henry-etc

Madison on Europe ”the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” #tcot #tlot #secondamendment - fightingstatism

http://fightingstatism.posterous.com/madison-on-europe-the-governments-are-afraid

Excerpts from Federalist 41 by James Madison :

.....”How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could prohibit, in like manner, the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation? The means of security can only be regulated by the means and the danger of attack. They will, in fact, be ever determined by these rules, and by no others. It is in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-preservation. It is worse than in vain; because it plants in the Constitution itself necessary usurpations of power, every precedent of which is a germ of unnecessary and multiplied repetitions. If one nation maintains constantly a disciplined army, ready for the service of ambition or revenge, it obliges the most pacific nations who may be within the reach of its enterprises to take corresponding precautions. The fifteenth century was the unhappy epoch of military establishments in the time of peace. They were introduced by Charles VII. of France. All Europe has followed, or been forced into, the example. Had the example not been followed by other nations, all Europe must long ago have worn the chains of a universal monarch. Were every nation except France now to disband its peace establishments, the same event might follow. The veteran legions of Rome were an overmatch for the undisciplined valor of all other nations and rendered her the mistress of the world.

Not the less true is it, that the liberties of Rome proved the final victim to her military triumphs; and that the liberties of Europe, as far as they ever existed, have, with few exceptions, been the price of her military establishments. A standing force, therefore, is a dangerous, at the same time that it may be a necessary, provision. On the smallest scale it has its inconveniences. On an extensive scale its consequences may be fatal. On any scale it is an object of laudable circumspection and precaution. A wise nation will combine all these considerations; and, whilst it does not rashly preclude itself from any resource which may become essential to its safety, will exert all its prudence in diminishing both the necessity and the danger of resorting to one which may be inauspicious to its liberties.”.....

Excerpts from Federalist 29 Alexander Hamilton

......”If standing armies are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia, in the body to whose care the protection of the State is committed, ought, as far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext to such unfriendly institutions ”....

.....”To render an army unnecessary, will be a more certain method of preventing its existence than a thousand prohibitions upon paper ”......

....”By a curious refinement upon the spirit of republican jealousy, we are even taught to apprehend danger from the militia itself, in the hands of the federal government. It is observed that select corps may be formed, composed of the young and ardent, who may be rendered subservient to the views of arbitrary power. What plan for the regulation of the militia may be pursued by the national government, is impossible to be foreseen. But so far from viewing the matter in the same light with those who object to select corps as dangerous, were the Constitution ratified, and were I to deliver my sentiments to a member of the federal legislature from this State on the subject of a militia establishment, I should hold to him, in substance, the following discourse:

The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.

This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.”....