Originally Posted by
Esq.
Much to unpack in that.
First, I'm NOT a vet and I don't pretend otherwise. It makes no difference whatsoever and is a bullshit place to start such a discussion in my opinion.
It's often trotted out as a "qualifier" for having an opinion on anything involving politics, societal upheaval, war- without any real discussion of how Exactly it makes any difference. How many vets served in REMF units, in peacetime, never left the US of A-- and NEVER fired a shot in anger- and yet they are somehow arbiters of whether resistance to tyranny etc is warranted?....It's a meaningless attempt to discredit an opinion and I see it as nothing more than the logical fallacy of "appeal to authority".
Here's what I DO have- Degrees in Political Science and History and Law. I've studied the collapse of many societies due to economics, tyranny, war etc... I'm fairly well traveled- including South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Most of the former Eastern Block, Mexico, Guatemala, Argentina, most of Western Europe. I've seen dead people lying face down in the gutter covered in flies and their own shit...So don't tell me, "You don't know what it's like outside the U.S.". I damn sure do.
Peaceful. Is peace the "most important thing"? Yes or no?
Me, I say no. The Gulags were peaceful. Mass graves are peaceful once the shooting stops etc....I don't accept peace at the price of slavery as a fair exchange. I am a peaceful man, but I absolutely will fight for my God Given rights- and if you can't see or understand that they are currently in grave peril, I cannot help that. I am not praying for war at all. But the problem is that what YOU or I want, doesn't mean a damn thing-- and it never has. Do you think the Tutsi's of Rwanda wanted a "war" ? Did 1 million Cambodians want the Killing Fields? The Ukrainians the Holmodor? What they "wanted" mattered not, nor will it here- we're not that special, history has it's way.
Further, there are MANY examples of entirely peaceful Secession's in history. Secession, over Civil War, is vastly preferable to me. It's the very last possibility to AVOID a much larger and crippling conflict in my opinion.
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