this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2024
749 points (96.9% liked)

News

23627 readers
2075 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
749
Women and LGBTQ+ people take up guns after Trump’s win: ‘We need to protect ourselves’ (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
294 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 102 points 3 weeks ago (68 children)

I do not blame any woman or queer person arming themselves in the U.S. right now. But I think that you should think of it as personal protection rather than preparation for something larger.

Be aware of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disarmament_of_the_German_Jews

The Jews of Germany constituted less than 1 percent of the country's population. It is preposterous to argue that the possession of firearms would have enabled them to mount resistance against a systematic program of persecution implemented by a modern bureaucracy, enforced by a well-armed police state, and either supported or tolerated by the majority of the German population. Mr. Carson's suggestion that ordinary Germans, had they had guns, would have risked their lives in armed resistance against the regime simply does not comport with the regrettable historical reality of a regime that was quite popular at home. Inside Germany, only the army possessed the physical force necessary for defying or overthrowing the Nazis, but the generals had thrown in their lot with Hitler early on.

Obviously, women and queer people are a lot more than 1% of the population, but you can't count on every queer person being on the right side and you certainly can't count on every woman to be on the right side.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

As an alternative, if we assume that a significant portion of the left is armed instead of just a minority, Rojava would be a good modern day example of the realistic effectiveness of an armed populace, as they employ horizontal citizen militias to survive against both ISIS and Turkey.

The Spanish Civil War is another interesting example, as the initial response from the left/anarchists when the fascists began their coup attempt was made up of civilian militias formed quickly and armed with whatever they had or could source from a local armory, and they were able to effectively fight off the initial coup in almost half the country, and gather themselves up for a protracted conflict. It's not quite as direct an example, as the leftists in that conflict we supplemented with tanks and airplanes and artillery from the USSR, but firearms were an essential piece to their resistance, and had the populace been more armed before hand, it would've been helpful, as they had trouble producing and acquiring enough through trade.

There's a great series on the Spanish Civil War here that gets into the nitty gritty, if you're interested. :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Sorry, you're calling what is happening in Syria a good example? Do you know how many people died? Also in the Spanish Civil War?

It's great how people here are willing to sacrifice so many innocent lives on their behalf.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Both conflicts are horrific, but what was their alternative? We saw what happened in Germany when few fought back, and that was just as horrific an outcome, if not more so (6 million Jews killed vs 300 thousand on the left side in the Spanish civil war, though estimates vary).

Tens of thousands died under Mussolini in labor camps and via execution, and the same would've happened under Franco in Spain (and eventually did, post civil war)

To be clear, I'm not advocating that any country rush to armed conflict, but history seems to indicate that it's better to be capable of defending yourself vs. not having the option at all.

If you have examples of pacifism being effective against fascism, I'm quite open to having my mind changed. In fact, I would prefer if that were the more effective option, if evidence supports it.

load more comments (64 replies)