(August 19, 2011 at 2:01 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Honestly, neither of you are uncomfortable with the idea of an armed government and an unarmed populace?
I am comfortable with armed government and unarmed populace. The bayonnets of the government must be overwhelmingly more powerful than the pitchforks of the populace, otherwise either the government can not wage foreign wars, or the population can gratuitously provoke foreign wars.
So the pitchforks of the populace is in the final analysis no barrier to tyranny so long as the tyranny has the unlimited fedelity of its bayonnets. What stand in the way of the tyranny is not the pitchforks, but the limited nature of the fedelity of the government's bayonnets.
So what is more likely to constrain the fedelity of the government's bayonnets? Is it the aversion to stabing unarmed civilian? or aversion to overwhelming an armed mob who, if not overwhelmed, could hurt the soldiers?
