Charles Rampant wrote:
Having sidearms isn't really going to help much against a two million-strong military with tanks. The idea that personal weapons help to defend the people against the government is best dis-proven by a simple consideration of every totalitarian state of the 20th century.

 whembly wrote:
If I were a betting man... Dr. Carson read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1598131621/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1598131621&linkCode=as2&tag=insta0c-20

 Ouze wrote:
Anyway, let's stipulate it was something stupid to say and drop it. We're really treading ground well covered in every gun thread ever.

 d-usa wrote:
Well, rereading Maus brought me back to one of the explanations given by a holocaust survivor: we knew about Auschwitz, we knew about the gas, we knew they were wanting to kill us all. We knew that if you tried to fight they kill the whole ghetto right away, all your friends and family. If you don't fight they will probably kill you later. But the guarantee to die is to fight, if you don't fight you might survive.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:
If I were a betting man... Dr. Carson read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1598131621/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1598131621&linkCode=as2&tag=insta0c-20

I suppose that's possible, but he certainly hasn't been reading any science books.

 whembly wrote:

Says someone who supports a guy that once believed the lack of orgasms causes cervical cancer.

So, what you're really saying is that no matter who wins, we're boned anyways.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Says someone who supports a guy that once believed the lack of orgasms causes cervical cancer.

So, what you're really saying is that no matter who wins, we're boned anyways.

Are you talking about me or do you have me confused with someone else?

 whembly wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Says someone who supports a guy that once believed the lack of orgasms causes cervical cancer.

So, what you're really saying is that no matter who wins, we're boned anyways.

Are you talking about me or do you have me confused with someone else?

Yeah... I'm confused... don't mind me.

I think Co'tor was the Sanders groupie in the OT...

 CptJake wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Says someone who supports a guy that once believed the lack of orgasms causes cervical cancer.

So, what you're really saying is that no matter who wins, we're boned anyways.

Are you talking about me or do you have me confused with someone else?

Yeah... I'm confused... don't mind me.

I think Co'tor was the Sanders groupie in the OT...

I thought Frazz was the Sanders guy.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Anyway, let's stipulate it was something stupid to say and drop it. We're really treading ground well covered in every gun thread ever.

It's stupid to say that it's harder to coerce armed citizens into death camps than it is to coerce unarmed citizens into death camps?

 Ouze wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Anyway, let's stipulate it was something stupid to say and drop it. We're really treading ground well covered in every gun thread ever.

It's stupid to say that it's harder to coerce armed citizens into death camps than it is to coerce unarmed citizens into death camps?

Kind of, yeah.

The Nazis wound up ultimately killing 13,000 Jews and rounding up 50,000. The Nazi's lost 17, and another 93 wounded. So, I guess it was a little harder, but ultimately, barely so. This is a terrible example and the more we flesh it out the stupider it looks and you guys should feel bad for fronting it, team spirit or not.

And that's only if we let you move the goalposts to where you did, that it would have been more difficult!

Carson actually implied that the Jews could have prevented the holocaust if they had been armed; which, beyond setting a new gold standard in "blaming the victim", uses an example that really, really doesn't bear out at all. There were 234,000 Jews in Germany, and it's safe to assume since that's where things started, that is where the resistance would also start, yes? Assuming they were as well armed as the Warsaw uprising, and that they were all men and women of fighting age (which of course they all weren't, but when you're knee deep in intellectual sewage, what's another few gak nuggets) they would have killed as many as 85 Nazis and wounded perhaps 500. Now, I'm not that great at math, but I feel like even with those 600 losses, the Nazi's still would have been able to keep on trucking with their remaining 2,699,400 remaining troops.

Just stop, FFS. Just stop.

“I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed,”

 Ouze wrote:
No. Stop.

 whembly wrote:
No... I will not stop, as there are lessons to be learned. Anyways, this isn't the thread for that, other than countering this criticism on Dr. Carson.

 whembly wrote:
Anyways, this isn't the thread for that

 whembly wrote:
Um... they also disarmed the less "desirables" and I believe the Social Democrats. Or anyone who won't play ball either.

Carson is appealing to those who believes an armed citizen keeps their government in check.

*shrugs*

Same sort of thing the Hillary Clinton proposing more gun control laws to appeal to the "do something!" crowd.

 whembly wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Says someone who supports a guy that once believed the lack of orgasms causes cervical cancer.

So, what you're really saying is that no matter who wins, we're boned anyways.

Are you talking about me or do you have me confused with someone else?

Yeah... I'm confused... don't mind me.

I think Co'tor was the Sanders groupie in the OT...

 CptJake wrote:


Don't expect the AR-15 armed guy to deliberately go head to head with an infantry or armor unit. Having served in the military, you're smarter than to assume that, and have seen what relatively untrained and poorly equipped guys can do in mountainous and urban terrain.

And Son1 did enlist but not stay in, and Son2 is an infantry ossifer right now. So I'm doing my part.

 Ouze wrote:

 whembly wrote:
No... I will not stop, as there are lessons to be learned. Anyways, this isn't the thread for that, other than countering this criticism on Dr. Carson.

What are the lessons to be learned, other than just how willing people are to whore out their intellect to service their political beliefs?

The Red Army had 7 million men and they were armed. They had tanks and planes and mortars and mines and were on their home turf. The Nazis cut through them for half a country, and it weren't for the weather, they might have won.

 whembly wrote:
Anyways, this isn't the thread for that

Yeah, it's probably time for the thrice-daily Hillary post.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 CptJake wrote:


Don't expect the AR-15 armed guy to deliberately go head to head with an infantry or armor unit. Having served in the military, you're smarter than to assume that, and have seen what relatively untrained and poorly equipped guys can do in mountainous and urban terrain.

And Son1 did enlist but not stay in, and Son2 is an infantry ossifer right now. So I'm doing my part.

The difference being that the Nazis didn't care at all about collateral damage. Fighters hiding in buildings? Burn them all down. Fighters hiding in mountains? Bomb those mountains to destroy cover and food sources.

 CptJake wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 CptJake wrote:


Don't expect the AR-15 armed guy to deliberately go head to head with an infantry or armor unit. Having served in the military, you're smarter than to assume that, and have seen what relatively untrained and poorly equipped guys can do in mountainous and urban terrain.

And Son1 did enlist but not stay in, and Son2 is an infantry ossifer right now. So I'm doing my part.

The difference being that the Nazis didn't care at all about collateral damage. Fighters hiding in buildings? Burn them all down. Fighters hiding in mountains? Bomb those mountains to destroy cover and food sources.

My post had zero to do with WW2, and was in response to someone mentioning modern armies against folks with AR-15s, specifically the US army. Don't add your context to my post.

Hillary Clinton used her private email account to pass along the identity of one of the CIA’s top Libyan intelligence sources, raising new questions about her handling of classified information, according to excerpts from previously undisclosed emails released Thursday by Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

On March 18, 2011, Sidney Blumenthal — Clinton’s longtime friend and political adviser — sent the then secretary of state an email to her private account that contained apparently highly sensitive information he had received from Tyler Drumheller, a former top CIA official with whom Blumenthal at the time had a business relationship.

“Tyler spoke to a colleague currently at CIA, who told him the agency had been dependent for intelligence from [redacted due to sources and methods],” the email states, according to Gowdy’s letter.

The redacted information was “the name of a human source,” Gowdy wrote to his Democratic counterpart, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, and was therefore “some of the most protected information in our intelligence community.”

“Armed with that information, Secretary Clinton forwarded the email to a colleague — debunking her claim that she never sent any classified information from her private email address,” wrote Gowdy in a letter to Cummings.

Clinton has repeatedly said she never sent or received classified information on her private email server “that was marked classified at the time that it was sent or received.” But the FBI, at the request of the inspectors general for the intelligence community and the State Department, is investigating the handling of classified information on the private server.

And while there is nothing that indicates that the email from Blumenthal (who was not a government employee) was marked classified at the time Clinton received it, the sensitive nature of its contents should have been a red flag and never should have been passed along, according to a former veteran CIA officer.

“She is exposing the name of a guy who has a clandestine relationship with the CIA on her private, unprotected server,” said John Maguire, who served for years as one of the CIA’s top Mideast officers.

In addition, he noted, the email should trigger a “crimes report” by the CIA to the Justice Department seeking an investigation into who within the agency revealed the information to Drumheller.

“Unless Tyler was blowing smoke, it’s an unauthorized disclosure of information,” said John Rizzo, a former CIA general counsel. “And it’s the most sensitive kind of classified information — the identity of a human source. She should have told Blumenthal, ‘delete this — and don’t send me that again.’ And then she should have reported it to State Department security.”[whembly: finally, a description of what SHOULD be done when there's a spillage]

Asked for comment, Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon emailed: “Trey Gowdy continues to release selective and misleading information about emails sent to Hillary Clinton, even as he refuses to make public any of the transcripts from the closed-door witness interviews that actually relate to Benghazi. This letter is one more example of the partisan approach taken throughout his thoroughly discredited investigation.”[whembly: nice spin... 'bout the only thing that could be said]

A Clinton campaign official, who asked not to be identified by name, said that as described in Gowdy’s own letter, “the information at issue was not only unmarked, but also was transmitted by no fewer than two individuals who were outside the government before it ever reached Hillary Clinton’s inbox.”[whembly: doesn't matter... still a serious security breach. Like, how did this info jump the "air gap"??]

A CIA spokesman declined to comment. Drumheller, a 25-year CIA official who had once headed the agency’s European division, died in August.

Gowdy’s 13-page letter to Cummings, ranking member of the Benghazi panel, comes as the committee prepares for Clinton’s long-awaited public testimony, scheduled for Oct. 22. It was aimed at rebutting mounting Democratic criticism that the investigation into the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans — including Ambassador Chris Stevens — has morphed into a partisan political exercise designed to damage Clinton’s candidacy. Gowdy says he is simply “following the facts.”

The letter also came the same day that Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who had been considered the likely successor to House Speaker John Boehner, dropped out of the speaker’s race. McCarthy has apologized to GOP members for comments that seemed to support the charge that the investigation was, in fact, aimed at driving down Clinton’s poll numbers.

Cummings immediately shot back that Gowdy’s letter only proves the Democrats’ point. The letter “is a defensive and desperate attempt to save face, but it only proves that McCarthy’s statement is true — [Gowdy’s] new proposal to selectively release yet another subset of emails reveals his obsession with Secretary Clinton and no new information about the Benghazi attacks,” Cummings said in a statement.

The letters contained multiple excerpts from over 1,500 emails to and from Clinton about Libya — one-third of them from Blumenthal, a former journalist and longtime political adviser who had forged a business relationship with Drumheller and with Cody Shearer, another longtime friend of Clinton’s. The two were helping a security company called Osprey Global Solutions, headed by retired Army Major Gen. David Grange, a former Delta Force commander.

In one of the emails, Blumenthal informs Clinton about Osprey’s efforts to get a contract to provide “field medical help, military training, organize supplies and logistics” to Libyan rebels. “Tyler, Cody and I acted as honest brokers, putting this arrangement together though a series of connections, linking the Libyans to Osprey and keeping it moving,” Blumenthal wrote in the July 14, 2011, email to Clinton, according to Gowdy’s letter.[whembly: starting a war for some crony's profit motif? Say it ain't so yo!]

Blumenthal’s emails also included derisive remarks about others in the Obama White House, referring in one to then national security adviser Tom Donilon’s “babbling rhetoric” and Drumheller’s assessment of then Secretary of Defense Bob Gates as a “mean, vicious little prick.”[whembly: example of how much of a dick Sid was towards the Obama crew...]

Gowdy in his letter called the contents of the Blumenthal emails “quite remarkable” and referred to the fact that Clinton relied on him for advice as “mind boggling.” James Cole, Blumenthal’s lawyer, did not respond to a request for comment.[whembly: not much to say here.]

 d-usa wrote:
The Jedi were armed and tried to resist the clone troopers to stop their own massacre, but it didn't work and even Yoda was forced to retreat. This was followed by strict lightsaber control measures by the emperor. When a totalitarian regime tries to wipe out resistance they will simply do it, it won't matter if you are armed or not.

Spoiler:

 LordofHats wrote:
Can't we all just live with and accept, that lightsabers are totally fething kick ass? When you really get down to it, that's the only reason we want them. Awesomeness.. Anything else is just some childish fantasy that has no real baring on reality at all, and just makes us all look unbelievably stupid. Some people just like lightsabers. What's so wrong with simply admitting that and living with it? No need to demean ourselves and our intellectual integrity with really dumb 'but what if' scenarios that will never play out in actuality like we dream they will in our heads.

 Ouze wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Anyway, let's stipulate it was something stupid to say and drop it. We're really treading ground well covered in every gun thread ever.

It's stupid to say that it's harder to coerce armed citizens into death camps than it is to coerce unarmed citizens into death camps?

Kind of, yeah.

The Nazis wound up ultimately killing 13,000 Jews and rounding up 50,000. The Nazi's lost 17, and another 93 wounded. So, I guess it was a little harder, but ultimately, barely so. This is a terrible example and the more we flesh it out the stupider it looks and you guys should feel bad for fronting it, team spirit or not.

And that's only if we let you move the goalposts to where you did, that it would have been more difficult!

Carson actually implied that the Jews could have prevented the holocaust if they had been armed; which, beyond setting a new gold standard in "blaming the victim", uses an example that really, really doesn't bear out at all. There were 234,000 Jews in Germany, and it's safe to assume since that's where things started, that is where the resistance would also start, yes? Assuming they were as well armed as the Warsaw uprising, and that they were all men and women of fighting age (which of course they all weren't, but when you're knee deep in intellectual sewage, what's another few gak nuggets) they would have killed as many as 85 Nazis and wounded perhaps 500. Now, I'm not that great at math, but I feel like even with those 600 losses, the Nazi's still would have been able to keep on trucking with their remaining 2,699,400 remaining troops.

Just stop, FFS. Just stop.