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Which accomplished nothing, except getting our government to make their suppression of such groups quieter and less of a big media show.
Explain how "20+ man SWAT team takes out 4-5 'domestic terrorists' with no losses, then another 4-5 'domestic terrorists' with no losses, then another, then another…" ends in victory for the folks on the losing end of every single engagement, rather than being picked off, tiny packet by tiny packet, until none are left?
The last several years are best modelled as a massively distributed search for ways to hurt the outgroup as badly as possible without getting in too much trouble. You are betting that the methods this search has discovered so far are more or less the best methods available. Having examined the question at some length and with a particular frame of mind, I am confident that your assessment is wrong.
It's more "what's available to one side that they're willing to use" than just "what's available."
And I don't see the basis for your confidence. I believe that there's basically nothing that the Red Tribe is both capable of and willing to do "to hurt the outgroup badly," and you — and others — have provided no real evidence to change my mind on that.
"Never give up, never surrender" might be great when it's coming from Tim Allen in a movie, but even the Japanese, with their "kamikaze attacks" and "banzai charges," eventually gave up and surrendered. At some point, one has to admit that war is lost. If the Red Tribe has not yet clearly passed this point, then where is that point?
Most people don't. That seems like a good thing, on balance.
When our will to fight is broken. At the moment, we're still ramping up toward conflict, and it's still possible that conflict can be precluded through more-or-less peaceful resolutions of the existing points of contention. Once conflict actually starts, it will be too late for talking about it. To the extent that the risks of such a conflict are not generally appreciated, it seems to me that no benefit to Reds is derived by elaborating them. If the only reason Blues might not oppress Reds is that they're not sure they'd be able to do so without mortal consequences, fighting is probably preferable than perpetuating the existing "peace". In which case, overconfidence and obliviousness on the part of Blues is a strategic asset worth preserving.
Your position, it seems to me, could come from one of a couple premises. Either you think Reds lack the awareness, the will, or the capability to successfully prosecute a fight with Blues. I think the Culture War demonstrates sufficient Awareness. Will and capability are intertwined: the greater the capability, the less will is required, and vice versa. You are assuming that people wait in their homes for the SWAT teams to come for them, which it is not clear they will do. Further, you are assuming that the capability is limited to our ubiquitous autoloading cartridge-firing weapons, and that assumption is most certainly not valid. The value of personally-owned firearms is primarily political, not strategic; the political fights over gun control are useful to coordinate within Red Tribe over the question "is it time to fight?". Once the question is answered to the affirmative, it seems to me that autoloading cartridge smallarms largely go to the sidelines.
As for what defeat looks like, if blues can successfully confiscate personal firearms, inflict serious social and legal consequences on non-woke Christianity, and maintain something approaching the current economic and socio-political conditions, that would pretty clearly be a victory for them in my book. I think it very unlikely that such an outcome is achievable, but you are free to think otherwise if you wish. Time will tell.
Also:
If Emperor Shōwa had taken that position in 1945, instead of the one he did — consider the Kyūjō incident, or Onoda Hiroo — where would Japan be now?
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Because that's what all the fellow Red Tribers I talk to proudly declare they're going to do, and sometimes going on about how they'll shoot anybody who calls on them to do more. "We're the people who, when someone tells us to breathe, suffocate to death. It's our superpower." "'Fourth generation warfare' means the 'lone wolf' with no coordination, supplies, logistics, plan will automatically win over any superior number of well-supplied, well-coordinated troops!"
Plus some limited explosives, crudely-assembled technicals, etc. The problem is that amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. And logistics require coordination. As in the German Peasants' War, it's these that win the war. One side is highly coordinated (read David Hines), while the other is practically allergic to coordination (at least partially due to the other side's ability and willingness to come down hard on any attempts to build it, but also due to fundamental temperament).
Except that from what I see — particularly given the Left's deft hand at proverbial "frog-boiling" — the answer is consistently never. "This is not the hill to die on." Nor is the next, when we retreat to that one. Nor the next, nor the next. I've seen fellows on the right lay out some "redline" where the Left will have truly "gone too far" if they cross it… and then a decade later, when it's indeed crossed, well, pick your battles, "this is not the hill to die on," and David French may have a point with his latest "the Conservative Case for [Insert latest left victory here]" piece, don't you know?
It never will.
In favor of, what, McVeigh truck bombs? Light aircraft crashed into IRS offices (full of nothing but entirely replaceable cogs in the vast Federal machine)?
I think they'll mostly just keep salami-slicing, plus anarcho-tyranny if you use them in self-defense, plus demographic trends, to make that increasingly small and irrelevant without any big, triggering mass confiscation
Beyond what they're already doing? Plus, again, demographics ̉— sure, the Amish and Mormons have the birthrates, but the Left have education, and Wisconsin v. Yoder and homeschooling are both doomed long term
This, I don't think they can do, but one can very easily stay on top in a decline. Tocqueville's Law — it's when improving conditions begin to slow that people rebel. When things decline, people are too busy fighting for their own individual "slice" of the shrinking "pie" to meaningfully rebel. And the Iron Law of Institutions — better to reign in Hell, and all that. There's a lot of ruin in the West, and Industrial civilization has a lot of seedcorn needed for its maintenance that can be diverted to propping up the system instead, allowing them time to crush all rivals before the arrival of the inevitable crash (which thus proves so devastating that we're knocked so far back into pre-industrial conditions that it's impossible to ever recover).
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