Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 10:35:31 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Frank Pawlak <fpawlak@execpc.com>, "Jason C. Wells" <jcwells@u.washington.edu>, "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: drifter@stratos.net, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Tiananmen square (was: Does it's true?) Message-ID: <19980629103531.B897@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <980629005417.ZM1165@darkstar.connect.com>; from Frank Pawlak on Mon, Jun 29, 1998 at 12:54:17AM %2B0000 References: <199806281732.KAA15832@hub.freebsd.org> <Pine.BSF.3.96.980628151901.2460H-100000@s8-37-26.student.washington.edu> <19980629091624.M28872@freebie.lemis.com> <grog@lemis.com> <980629005417.ZM1165@darkstar.connect.com>
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On Monday, 29 June 1998 at 0:54:17 +0000, Frank Pawlak wrote: > On Jun 29, 9:16am, Greg Lehey wrote: >> Subject: Tiananmen square (was: Does it's true?) >> On Sunday, 28 June 1998 at 15:27:43 +0000, Jason C. Wells wrote: >>> On Sun, 28 Jun 1998, Jonathan M. Bresler wrote: >>> >>>> ownership of small arms is insufficient for the task. >>>> if one embraces the purpose of the second amendment, rather >>>> then just the language, we must allow the citizentry to own >>>> heavy weapons. no one that i know of advocates this. >>> >>> I feel that a rag tag militia that has heart and the support of the >>> population is incredibly difficult to defeat. I have heard commanders of >>> the South East Asian theater make this statement. >> >> Which country are you thinking of? >> >>> I feel that an auto loading rifle is sufficient for the purpose of >>> opposing tyranny. This is a personal opinion. >> >> It may make a token gesture. It won't help if they're about to run >> over you with a tank. On the other hand, it can be quite useful for >> killing individuals, innocent or otherwise. >> >>>> what would it have availed the chinese students to have >>>> small arms in tianamen (sp) square. it would not have >>>> forestalled action by the gov't. >>> >>> No it would not have forstalled the government. Here I will avoid >>> discussion (I am a proponent) of civil disobedience as an instrument of >>> power. Still, if the citizens of the nation of China were given the >>> weapons that the only the civilians of the US owns, there would be a shift >>> in power. >> >> Indeed. There would probably have been a civil war. > > I might add a very short civil war. There is no way that an armed mass of > civilains can effectively fight a well equiped, trained, and displined army > such as China has. The slaughter would have been worse. That's one alternative. Don't think that China is just the big cities people see when they go there. They have guerillas in outlying provinces now. If they had not been so hard at Tienanmen square, they might never have been able to repress such problems. In any case, the concept "less blood now rather than more blood later" stands. >> ... >> Considering the enormous problems facing them, I think they're doing >> as good a job as anybody could expect. > > I will add just one more think to a well thought out answer. They will > probably, over time, become the dominant economic and military power. They are > taking a gradual, controlled shift to Capitalism. They also have a more > favorable infrustructure than that of Russia to make that shift. This is true, but I deliberately didn't mention it. The question here is not "are they going to become more powerful than us?" (and thus "so we'd better keep our mouths shut"), but "of the alternatives open to them, how did this rate?". Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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