Random Politics & Religion #28: The Last One

Speaking of lack of observation/inputting snarkiness....

You mean exercising the freedom and rights the military exists to protect?

Damn it, I had to page that.

Here's Grape-kun for your viewing pleasure...or not:

That doesn't make it any less disrespectful to do.

A protected right for all doesn't mean we get to pick and choose who gets to express it. That goes for both sides of the argument(s).

Today's process of events: clicked latest page of thread, read, commented on what I read.

My bf does and we live together but I don't personally. Used to shoot with my brother when he had some.

I'm here!

Somebody's making a mockery of statistics!

Actually, 2 of them!

/hands Ravael a spork

Go to town man!

I was only in the Navy for 4 years, so my perspective's somewhat limited, but the observation I made about most service members that I served with(I was stationed at 3 different bases in that time), was that most younger enlistees had no political opinion really, but people who'd served one enlistment or longer were generally Conservative. Lefties were there too, but I met very few.

I'll start by saying this: finding accurate information on military political affiliation is a pain in the butt. There are a few major reasons for that.

1. Apparently the military does not collect that information, and therefore can't report it even if they wanted to.
2. There aren't many scientific polls out there.
3. Even if you could count actual military vote tallies, they would be an inaccurate measure of demographics because overseas/absentee is often a mess and discourages participation.

That being said, it's a safe, educated guess from everything that we do know that the military is skewed more conservative than the demographics of the rest of the country. And what do we know?

1. The military tends to recruit heavily from the Sunbelt, which typically leans conservative.
2. Military officers have drifted into heavily conservative territory over the years since the draft ended, suggesting that conservatives tend to stay in the military for a longer time.

And there's more than that, but that's a good place to start.

I usually trim the chrust off my Jesus.

I don't need to be an expert on American culture to point out an absurd argument.

Liberal... Dirty word! Dirty word! lol
This militant need people on both sides have, to put everyone into 1 of 2 categories based on something as wide ranging as political or social economic belief lately is quite disturbing. "With me or against me!" No wonder humanity is stagnating.

Obviously you have no clue in what guns really mean in our society (protip: Regardless of what Jimmy Fallon says, almost all gun owners, who, by the way, are legal owners who has already passed federal background checks, don't use them to kill other people), and you also have no clue about the voting habits of the US military.

I would mention the UK military, but there's only 20 of them, and who gives a *** about the UK military, those pansies.

Keep on pretending you know more than you really do. It's entertaining!

Well, legal gun owners.

Those who buy them from the black market, say, gangs and such, use them for killing each other. But they don't count because, to be honest, that's what gun control laws are supposed to target. But we all know how well criminals abide the law.

So many white Mormon dudes as Captains or Majors. I was enlisted for eight and a half years, I can say definitively that the US Military leans right and has leaned right ever since the left got infected by Communism. Recruits go in pretty agnostic cause their usually kids right out of high school, so haven't been to liberal indoctrination camp aka University yet. Deal with military stuff, all the details, extra duties and random *** and then hear some middle class privileged non-white person complain about "oppression" and "living wage".

He's already gone full retard, and we all know you never go full retard.

Who really cares about the voting habits of less than 1% of the US population? Why is this a topic again?

Do you even know what my original point was or are you just jumping in on the bandwagon because someone labeled me a liberal?

I already said 2 or 3 times that I don't know what the voting habits of the US military are and it's not relevant anyway because as agreed:
a: A conservative led govt. would never oppress their citizens, and
b: A liberal led govt. couldn't gather liberal armed forces to pointlessly fight against the US military with guns, because of conservative leaning national guard outposts etc. surrounding liberal leaning areas ready to defend the constitution.
(Not my words)

My point was that saying people need guns to fight back against a radical government is an absurd argument to be making in 2017. You agree the military would prevent it from happening.

You mean the UK military who have supported you in every major campaign except the one you lost. The ones who don't hit their allies convoys by mistake?

I'm pretty confident I've forgotten more than you know about anything that actualy matters.

...I'm putting that down to ignorance.

This.




Personally I wouldn't say it's a question of patriotism, but targeted recruiting.

Pains me to agree with this but I have to. Recruiters are known to target people from economically impoverished (relatively speaking) areas when looking to fill the ranks. It's a very cynical tactic which is fed into by successive administrations keeping said areas (bible belt, rust belt etc) impoverished so one of the only career options for young men and women in those areas is to join up.

I don't agree with that. We can never know what anyone will do. There's quite a list of previous events across the globe that say it isn't as silly as you might believe. And you speak of just the US Military. We can never know what might lead up to a possible UN involvement should an armed conflict arise. And as quickly as things change, there's no real way to predict what our government might do even 10-20 years from now. Our founding fathers knew exactly what they were doing when they wrote the 2A and emphasized that it shall not be infringed.

If you don't agree the military would stop it, then we are onto the other points discussed, such as an armed civilian population just getting in the way during military operations (assuming a split military or UN intervention). The other was armed civilians in general being useless against something like the US military.

No legaly obtainable gun will stop a jet or a tank or a bomber from blowing you and your friends into tiny pieces. An armed civilian population doesn't help in either scenario in this day and age. If anything, it makes the situation worse. The gun is outdated as a weapon for fighting a radical government of a first world country.

Have you not been paying attention to any of our recent conflicts? We went to Vietnam and fought against farmers that dug tunnels. We had air support, artillery, and we didn't win. We've been in the middle east for how long and we haven't won over there. What mighty military are we fighting over there? Do you honestly believe that their armed civilians/militias have better skill sets and weapons than ours? And stopping a jet or a tank? There are ways to take down jets and whatnot. My legally obtainable firearm can shoot a pilot on the ground, unless the plane flies itself now and I'm not aware? They have to land at some point, correct? My legally obtained firearm can hold a pilot's family hostage. There are different ways to accomplish a goal. War is war. Or are we not allowed to use recon and tactics? Did you think we'd just all crowd together and run under an A-10 while throwing rocks and shooting rubberbands?

Armed civilians and militia can't even overthrow the syrian government, and they are being armed with a lot more than guns. The examples you gave had the advantage of being on home soil, using the environment to their advantage against a foreign force.

A radical government could deploy chemical weapons. How does a gun do against gas? The whole point of a radical government is they don't play by the original rules, they change them to fit their needs.

The Syrian government is also being helped by Russia and Iran. And chemical weapons??
At that point, I would hope other countries would get involved. I'm not sure how much gas would be needed to cover the US, or how many people they're willing to kill or land they're willing to destroy should they use nukes if that'll be your next argument. They won't have anyone left to rule. I don't see either of those scenarios playing out. Minus the use of many weapons of mass destruction, I think the millions of gun owners would hold up much better than you're giving them credit for. Either way, it's an unlikely scenario to ever play out...at least as long as the 2nd Amendment is around.