Kevin Drum has gently chided me for not reading and respecting Matt Yglesias more, since he’s a very smart guy. Since I respect Kevin, and respect is transitive, I started reading Matt again. (we have a history…)
My first reaction was to his post on “patriotism.” Not positive.But we’ll keep going, I say…and then I get to his casual post on the 2nd Amendment. Now there are all kinds of people who disagree with me about guns. I get it, and think there are good and smart arguments to have about gun policy. Matt & I would probably disagree about many (but not all) issues in gun policy.
But…that’s not my problem.
Matt’s post says:
Julian Sanchez says the “collective right” interpretation of the second amendment doesn’t make sense. And, indeed, it doesn’t really. But then again, neither does the “individual right” reading which would leave the right of individuals to buy anti-tank missiles and nuclear bombs “shall not be infringed.” The clearest thing about the text, after all, is that it says nothing whatsoever about “handguns” — the word is “arms” so whatever our right to arms is, that’s a right to arms not to puny guns.
Like much of the constitution, the second amendment turns out, upon examination, to be an ambiguously worded political compromise written hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Obviously, if you were going to start over from scratch nobody would write it that way.
[emphasis added]
Well, because y’know, we’re so effing much smarter than people like Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin.
How do people like this put t-shirts on? I mean with their big heads and all?
So, Kevin, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a pass on Mr. Yglesias for another year or so. He’s either far too smart or far too immature to hold my interest.
The comments thread there is interesting, though.
I’m glad to see Yglesias admit that the collective rights interpretation of the 2nd amendment is nonsense. A federal court recently agreed when they struck down the DC gun ban (Nyaah nyaah nyaah, neener neener neener).
That leaves him with the other gun-grabber interpretation, which is that the 2nd amendment means nothing at all. Not even original enough for comment, but I find funny that he tells us that the 2nd amendment was written HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of years ago. That could be up to a kerjillion centuries ago, sometime after the domestication of the dog and before the invention of Linear B. If that’s supposed to discredit it, the same would apply to the rest of the constitution, with the good stuff about separation of powers and free speech and cryptic abortion penumbras. Not smart.
Also not smart is his dismissive description of it as a “political compromise”. That’s intended to belittle it further. But the compromise was mostly between people who wanted to specify as many rights as possible, and those who were afraid that an overly-specific constitution would leave many rights unprotected. The entire Bill of Rights is therefore a political compromise, and thank God Yglesias wasn’t at the convention.
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Yglesias is right in one way: no one today would write it that way. He’s probably wrong as to why: our use of language has changed, and one of the ways in which it has changed is to become less precise and more ambiguous, thanks in no small part to Chomsky, Derrida, and their hangers-on and slavish followers.
that’s a right to arms not to puny guns.
Huh? So only weapons of a certain minimum power are allowed?
Is Mr. Yglesais aware that handguns were well-known weapons at the time the Constitution was written? The average farmer had no use for one unless he was prone to duels, but a sailor or a cavalryman would certainly carry a couple into battle.
Well, he’s right – it wouldn’t be written that way today. If the constitution were written today it would be 526 pages long and be completely indecipherable and incoherent – just like most legislation Congress passes these days.
“_The clearest thing about the text, after all, is that it says nothing whatsoever about “handguns” — the word is “arms” so whatever our right to arms is, that’s a right to arms not to puny guns._”
So what exactly is a sidearm then?
This is what MY finds persuasive?
bq. _If it’s supposed to be about protecting the prerogatives of state governments against the federal, why would it be in the Bill of Rights instead of Article IV, and why would the phrasing not, like, mention state governments instead of talking about “the people” of the United States generally?_
“Julian Sanchez”:http://juliansanchez.com/notes/archives/2007/03/say_you_got_guns_then_bring_th.php
Ummm, the Bill of Rights contains subsequent amendments to the Constititution, that’s why its not in Article IV. (The Tenth Amendment also protects the prerogatives of state governments) The Second Amendment doesn’t mention states because militias were organized by local governments as well, depending upon local custom.
I guess the right of “the people peaceably to assemble” is equally at risk then. Too bad, always thought that was a good one.
There is a language barrier here- for those steeped in socialism, ‘the people’ is of course a catch all similar to ‘the revolution’ or ‘the party’. Anything done in the peoples name (including purging the people) is permissable so long as the longer view prevails. I think hardcore leftists get deeply confused when the language of our constitution actually protects the people from the government instead of vice-versa.
I agree with your views on this issue, but there’s got to be a better method of rejecting Mr. Yglesias’s statement than an appeal to authority. It’s sloppy arguing.
One potential resolution that appeals to me is that the 2nd Amendment is about the right to “bear” arms, meaning that you’ve a right to any arms that you can reasonably carry on your person without the aid of a winch, etc. This made sense at the time, because by their comments its fairly clear that the Founders didn’t intend to express a right to own or use cannon, which was the chief ordnance available then. There have, however, been times in history where people have had a statutory right to own and use ordnance. But that’s another matter.
But that barely establishes intent of the Founders, and doesn’t work well as a prescription for modern times because there’s a lot of modern ordnance that could now be carried on one’s person. To keep the spirit of the Amendment I think we might distinguish between weapons that can be aimed at a specific person, even if doing so doesn’t guarantee that only that person would actually be hit (through either poor aim or overshoot). There’s a technical term for this sort of weapon, but it excludes all kinds of ordnance (including non-explosive ordnance). Unfortunately for the gun grabbers it doesn’t exclude fully automatic arms, since these can be aimed at specific individuals and can be carried on one’s person, even though the Founders may not have anticipated fully automatic weapons. This might be a gray area for some, but I think beyond that the principle in the 2nd Amendment is perfectly clear.
Let’s look beyond the wording to the reason there’s a 2nd amendment in the first place. The amendment is there to prevent the government from taking away the means for the people to replace that government by force, if necessary. It’s there as one of those checks-and-balances to ensure government isn’t able to oppress people and become a dictatorship.
The term “arms” is purposely vague because, I think, the founders knew that weaponry and technology changes over time. They didn’t put “non-rifled muskets smaller than 1.00 caliber” in for a reason. The vague term also allows reasonable restrictions – bans on certain weapons and permits for others. I don’t think anyone considers a backpack nuke legal for individual possession under the amendment, for example.
But the important point, I believe, is to follow the spirit of the amendment and what its intent was.
I will say that this argument (particularly Demosophist’s comment) has touched upon a true conundrum regarding the 2nd amendement.
Ok- the right to bear arms is largely based on the right of the people to have ultimate control over their government (and their lives to some extent). I dont think there is really any question for anyone that seriously has studied the context of the Bill of Rights. BUT, there is an argument that demonstrably a scratch force of civilians with muskets could at that time challenge even the mighty British Empire and ultimately defeat them.
That isnt true any more. I’ll set aside weapons systems like tanks and jets and ships for the moment and assume they are analagous to British Frigates- just something you cant do much about except maybe field a few of your own and hope for the best. But in order for a militia to reasonably challenge a Federal soldier in this day and age, he would have to be entitled to weapons like light machine guns and grenades (at the bare minimum) for it to be anything better than a cruel joke.
So we are kind of at an impass with the (very reasonable in my estimation) compromise Demosophist sets out. Either we allow civilians to essentially arm themselves as an average soldier does (automatic rifle, grenades, probably light machine guns and grenade launchers), or we bow to pragmatism and draw an even more arbitrary line over what constitutes a reasonable weapon that can both serve a miliaman but be safe in society. Can anyone shed light on this riddle?
Mark B: _Either we allow civilians to essentially arm themselves as an average soldier does (automatic rifle, grenades, probably light machine guns and grenade launchers), or we bow to pragmatism and draw an even more arbitrary line over what constitutes a reasonable weapon that can both serve a miliaman but be safe in society. Can anyone shed light on this riddle?_
Since I don’t think there is a single answer to that conundrum, the issue becomes who draws the lines? Second Amendment advocates want the courts to draw those lines. What do judges have in their background that would prepare them to decide what firearms are reasonably necessary for the purpose of the Second Amendment? (I make the complaint about military matters)
I think you have to let the legislature decide. Sure, they are just as apt to draw stupid lines, but they are more readily erasable, the checks and balances in the system will allow the gun lobby to have significant input, and the issues will primarily be pragmatic, not whether only single-action firearms were known to the colonists.
Folks, this isn’t meant to be a 2nd Amendment thread (I’ll open one soon, I promise). My point is simply that the Founders built a complicated but effective government and they are due our respect for it. And that casual “oh, I’d do it differently” from casual students reflects more on the student than on the Founders.
A.L.
On a more abstract note, why is it these days that, when people attempt to demonstrate how smart Person A is, they tend to point to resumes rather than smart things Person A has said or done? I can think of any number of prominent politicians with reputations for intelligence in whom I haven’t been able to discern anything out of the ordinary and, indeed, have heard any number of dumb things coming out of their mouths.
There’s being smart and being canny. Canny tends to build the resume.
Mark B.
Very well said. I agree that it is an unsolvable paradox either from a purely academic point of view or from all sides of the contemporary gun control debate. Every argument has to ignore some aspect of the 2nd amendment OR be totally unreasonable. Perhaps we should limit the arms which we have a right to bear to those types in existence when the amendment was written.
There is also the possibility of further amending the amendment. We are not stuck with it, though, I suppose, that is unlikely to happen.
Respect? For “Dead White Males”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_white_males ?
How quaint.
Sigh. And I thought we were about to resolve the issues surrounding the Second Amendment once and for all.
But that would be a key part of the genuis of the American Constitution — it doesn’t resolve anything, it mainly directs you to where your arguments need to go. I would say that the ambiguity is a feature, not a flaw.
Mark B:
I did a “post”:http://roblyman.blogspot.com/2002_12_15_roblyman_archive.html#86234447 about the effectiveness of civilian deer-rifle rebellion about 4 years ago. Oddly enough, most of what I say has been proven correct in Iraq, a war I supported.
The short summary is: you’re thinking tactics. But there’s a lot more to war than that.
There are many areas in the Constitution which are ambiguous. However, these weren’t the result of laziness, stupidity or oversight, they were the result of a Federalist mentality. The US Constitution was not intended to be a “social” manifesto, it was intended “to form a more perfect union” for the “United States.”
The problem isn’t the 2nd Amendment, the problem is that the relationship changed between the states and the Federal government over the years. Back then it was up to the states to raise and train militia’s, but their arms were owned by the individuals. From the perspective of the framers, this would be the case for the forseeable future. The 2nd amendment tried to avoid stepping on a pre-existing right of citizens of a state to protect themselves.
The compromises which resulted in a finalized constitution allowed the states to surrender some sovreignty and retain others. One might look at the 2nd Amendment as an explicit statement of confirming each state’s sovreignty.
Unfortunately, simply reading the Constitution does not provide enough information about itself. One musttake into consideration the environment, the times and motivations of those who wrote it. Once that is done, then changes can be made while retaining the spirit of its conception.
Rob, interesting piece. However i dont see the Iraq comparison all that well. You don’t see many insurgents armed with deer rifles. The advent of the Kalashnikov has changed the world dramatically. It runs like this- the repeating rifle created perhaps a 10-1 firepower advantage over the single shot rifle. The gattling gun/machine gun ramped up another order of magnitude- to the point where almost any number of rifleman (condition dependant of course) stood little chance against interlocked machine gun fire without additional aid. The machine pistol and later the light machine gun and finally the automatic assault rifle put a portion of that firepower into the hands of everyone that can hold a weapon. And Kalshnikov made it so you dont even have to know how to clean the thing.
This has fundamentally changed the world- for proof simply look over the history of insurgencies and de-colonialization over the last hundred or so years. 500 years ago a civilian militia stood almost no chance against any trained force. 200 years ago an army of civilians armed with muskets (or rifles) could take on a professional army and go toe to toe. 50 years ago Colonial powers had to stretch their resources to their limits to fight a relatively small insurgent force without the benefit of tanks, planes, or ships. Since then modern foreign armies have been consistantly chased out of backwood swamp after backwood swamp and bloodied so badly they sometimes never recover. Its no coincidence, and its not the deer rifle that has done it. Nor I think is the courage or cunning of the foe materially changed- the Apache were as brave as the come. If the Apache had AK-47s we would be letting them worry about controlling _their_ Mexican border.
The point is this particular peice of technology has changed the world- and i think its important to take that into account when we are discussing where to draw a line in the Right to Bear Arms. We wouldnt draw it at slings and arrows, and i think there may be a strong argument that outlawing automatic assault rifles has essentially done just that. BUT im not sure im ok with automatic rifles being available to the general public either. Hence my dilemna.
Sort of like the argument that the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment protects federalism (some of the States which ratified it had State-supported churches) rather than the enumeration of an individual right.
Thorley,
The 1st A says “Congress shall make no law,” so it makes more sense to read it as a federalism-based restriction than any of the other Amendments.
Mark,
I’m not sure I really know enought to disagree with you, but my point remains that there are big considerations outside of tactics, which I think swamp tactics in the hypothetical American Revolution 2.0.
Anyway, forward with the uninformed disagreement:
You don’t see many insurgents armed with deer rifles.
That’s probably because they couldn’t hit s*** with them anyway. A volley of deer rifle fire could set a train loaded with diesel on fire from half a mile away, but that lacks the virgin-producing power of the spray-and-pray approach popular over there.
I’m not sure I agree entirely that the key is automatic weapons. It’s not easy to use an AK (or any automatic) really effectively; it certainly doesn’t put the power of a belt-fed machine gun in a single soldier’s hands. With a 30 round magazine you have only a few seconds of spray fire (assuming you can control it, and if you can’t, you’re putting bullets 10 feet apart a little ways downrange), it’s fairly low power/short range, and it’s anti-personnel only. Unless you’re well-trained or very close to your target, full auto is almost certainly less effective than semi-auto.
I wonder if the key to your purported transformation is less automatic weapons than cheap weapons. The AK is that, no question.
Thats a good point Rob, although the advent of really effective popular resistance took place so linearly with the AK its hard to overlook. The repeating rifle was around since the mid-1800s and yet (although it certainly had an effect) it didnt seem to create the huge reversal of fortune we have seen in the last 50 or so years.
Perhaps it is advent of _reliable_ cheap weapons capable of a certain level of sustained firepower that has tipped the dynamic. Its hard to say, but just a gut instinct but even the psychological effect of burst gunfire I think may have a non-negligible impact on insurgent fighters. Besidest that, spray and pray may not have much of a physical impact on a battle, but it certainly forces people to keep their heads down.
it didnt seem to create the huge reversal of fortune we have seen in the last 50 or so years.
I wouldn’t want to underplay the cultural side; the loss of civilizational confidence, the rise of weak-kneed multi-culti pop Marxism, etc. Can you see Tony Blair going to war for the right of his country to sell addictive narcotics to foreigners? Not so much, ya know? The fact that Executive Outcomes managed to dispatch large numbers of those AK-toting rebel types (admittedly using automatic weapons themselves) suggests that it’s possible. (And the UN interference in their success suggests that the “world community” won’t tolerate it).
You’re right about the psychological effect of burst firing; I have been told, though I have not confirmed it, that the comfort soldiers found in full-auto was part of what drove the replacement of the M1 Garand. Now that was a real rifleman’s weapon.
Yeh, but culture doesnt explain the Russian and Chinese defeats in places like Afghanistan and Vietnam. Or the Vietnamese getting the turnabout stick in Cambodia. And a lot of other viscious little fights around the world (lots of places in South and Central America come to mind, Sri Lanka, Timor) between nasty people. I think maybe you’ve got the cause and effect reversed- Western nations are so taciturn _because_ of the drubbings we’ve received. If we could go to war to keep brown people narc’d up without much consequence, perhaps we still would 😉
All,
This thread has made a serious detour from AL’s intent, so I promise to keep this short.
Mark,
The old cliche “there are no deadly weapons, only deadly people” holds true in this case. I am willing to bet that myself and a few like-minded individuals, armed with bolt-action rifles equipped with decent optics could play hell with 10x our number armed with AK-47s, especially in an urban area. In Iraq, precision fire has assumed a decent percentage of insurgent attacks.
The invention of cheap, simple automatic weapons like the AK followed shortly after the shattering of the colonial powers hold on their colonies during WW2. In my humble opinion, the connection between the AK and modern insurgency is pretty thin. I believe the Viet Minh defeated the French with a combination of old Japanese and American arms, as one example.
AL,
I agree, the beauty of our Constitution/Bill of Rights is its simplicity. I challenge the long-winded, double talking blowhards that pass for the majority of statesmen today to produce anything as brief, yet comprehensive as Jefferson, et al. did 220 years ago.
_”I am willing to bet that myself and a few like-minded individuals, armed with bolt-action rifles equipped with decent optics could play hell with 10x our number armed with AK-47s, especially in an urban area”_
If a 10:1 kill ratio could get the job done, all of this would be moot. Iraq would be as docile as a kitten by now, and forget about Vietnam.
Mark,
10:1 is considered a minimum for a motivated insurgency. Over here we have a variety of difficulties that enable the insurgency to achieve a higher ratio. Porous borders, outside assistance, and the huge cultural difference all contribute to the ratio. Militarily all three are hard problems, but the cultural difference is the biggest. Fortunately the Iraqis seem to be increasingly willing to fight on our side. Overall, the small arms fire by the enemy is usually ineffective. The single shot, precision fire causes far more casualties.
You will remember that the VC were mostly destroyed as a fighting force after Tet, 1968. Guerrilla fighters that attempt to make the jump to conventional force frequently get slapped down. They misjudged their timing on converting to stage 3 of a clasical maoist insurgency. whoops…
Anyway, rack time.
Thanks Snowflake, I don’t think we are really disagreeing and i certainly bow to your expertise. You are absolutely right about all the circumstances involved.
My only point is that over the course of history, the number of trained soldiers/force multipliers required to overcome insurgents has risen dramatically.
Cortez conquered a mighty empire of millions with 100 men. The British routinely put down insurgencies with fractions of the force opposed to them. Now we have 150,000 Allied troops in Iraq trying to quell an insurrection that certainly cant exceed 500,000 combatants of all stripes, and its requiring all of our troops considerable skills and courage, many thousands of locals, and the tacit acceptance of a large chunk of the population to do it. That in itself is pretty remarkable turn of events. A century ago, 50,000 troops might have been expected (and succeed) in quelling an entire nation like Iraq, even with every hand turned against them.
Now obviously if you have your druthers you’d take a trained, disciplined marksman with a deer rifle over a shmuck with an AK-47 any day of the week. But thats not really the question- its about how much worse off the shmuck would be if _he_ had the deer rifle.
Numbers have always been the insurgents friend- but now its combined with high rates of fire which is the only way an untrained rabble can produce enough firepower to bleed a trained force consistantly. It doesnt guarantee them anything but it makes them a genuine threat instead the nuissance they’ve historically been.
To try to connect this back to the original hijacking (sorry AL!)- depriving citizens of that kind of firepower in the face of modern combat is about as bad as depriving Colonials of muskets and letting them rely on bows and swords. That might be going to far, but i think the data holds up historically.
You will respect the Aw Thor I Tay of Jacob Broom, et al.
So Armed Liberal, are you telling us that if you were writing the Second Amendment you’d leave it just as is? Really? That is as clear as you could get?
#31 Mark,
That’s a good analysis, and a good point about how easy access to cheap kill technology ( a function of global capitalism and technological progress) has fundamentally altered the cost quotient for “insurgents”, and made violent, opposing groups, much more deadly.
That’s a vector documented consistently over at “Gloval Guerillas”:http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/
Retief, of course I’d write a better Second Amendment – I’m a better writer than, say, Keith Laumer – but the problem is that it’d be an idealistic, authoritarian document rather than one that went through the messy process of compromise and politics that is what makes systems like ours work. “High-concept” politics is dangerous and bad. Messy, somewhat muddled politics is good.
And yes, sure I’d like to think I could hang with the Founders and participate meaningfully. But that’s kind of a presumptuous position to take, and worse, it erodes the shared myths that are required to keep a polity tied together. If each of us feel that we’re above the foundational myths of our society – well why shouldn’t we do what we feel like? What legitimacy does the polity have? And why should we prefer to have our country die for us?
A.L.
hypo –
Yeah, everyone should be reading that site (even if Robb is foolishly arrogant and self-promoting, he’s useful and interesting).
A.L.
While it’s true that the greater destructiveness that technological advances have brought to weaponry is a huge force multiplier for insurgents, it has been an even greater force multiplier for organized and well trained militaries. I submit that the biggest change has been the self imposed restraint of modern militaries. Without this restraint, Iraq could be peaceful next week.
Obviously, if you were going to start over from scratch nobody would write it that way.
Instead it would like like the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. That is, it would be a prolix fiasco.
Now obviously if you have your druthers you’d take a trained, disciplined marksman with a deer rifle over a shmuck with an AK-47 any day of the week.
That’s not a terrible description of the hypothetical American rebel. The average deer hunter isn’t a Marine sniper, but he does have experience holding steady and pulling the trigger on a living thing.
#36 from lurker: “While it’s true that the greater destructiveness that technological advances have brought to weaponry is a huge force multiplier for insurgents, it has been an even greater force multiplier for organized and well trained militaries. I submit that the biggest change has been the self imposed restraint of modern militaries.”
I think this is true, though the demographic and social decay of the advanced powers has played a great role – in the Soviet Union’s failure in Afghanistan, the emerging failure of the Soviet system as a whole, rather than restraint, played the main part.
In itself, the rise of crew-served industrial weapons and vehicles favors armies with industrial support, and modern medicine and communications and computer technology consolidate that edge rather than undermining it.
The pistol you may buy to defend your home is not a war winner against the army.
However, with the army and police forces exhibiting a restraint that abandons those who unwisely trust in society to live up to a tacit bargain of protection for loyalty, that pistol may mean winning the war on your block, where the stakes may be, for example, your right to continue to live in your home and agitate against drug dealers.
Mark # 13:
I just don’t think that matters. The point of any insurgency is to hold out until they can obtain allies and lines of supply for the more effective weapons and resources necessary to prevail, but even that misses the point. I think the Founders were less concerned about preserving the possibility of an insurgency against a tyrannical state than the were with preserving the skills and mindset necessary to field an effective volunteer fighting force. From their writings, especially those of Jefferson, that appears to have been their main concern.
And they were right. That’s where men like Alvin York came from…, to identify but one outstanding example of an enormous population.
“even if Robb is foolishly arrogant and self-promoting, he’s useful and interesting”,
Er…
Looked in the mirror, there, recently?
🙂
Mark Buehner — I would disagree that cheap availability of arms has fundamentally changed the balance of power. The great killer on the battlefield has always been artillery and that hasn’t changed. If anything the disparity (think Gulf War 1’s “Highway of Death”) has titled the balance towards the nation state even higher. All those Saddam led Guardsman had plenty of AKs. Didn’t do them a damn bit of good. Plenty of AKs available in Tibet or Western China. Don’t see anything brewing there either.
It’s political will and tolerance for ugly and frankly revolting/disgusting measures that most people will recoil from in any semi-consensual government as info filters out from the battlefield. But there it is. IMHO the other explanation is sheer competence vs. incompetence. Russia’s defeat in Afghanistan was due to the narcoleptic incompetence of the late Soviet Regime. China’s military was barely (if that) Post-Mao incompetent up against the Vietnamese post-battling America.
Note Putin has essentially won in Chechnya. Ethiopa swept the ICU out of Somalia with US help. If the formula of kill 40% of the military age men and they stop fighting still holds true, advantage to advanced military systems.
That being said, I don’t see either the Constitution or the framework (universal individual rights) being replicated or even lasting much longer. The “collective rights” orientation and moral relativism, multiculturalism, etc. of the Left stands in opposition to the universalist and individualistic orientation. Can anyone imagine Civil Rights asking for equal treatment under the law rather than group rights demands?
Yglesias disdain for the founders is IMHO part and parcel of the collectivism of the Left. Individual rights? What’s that?
Very revealing.
To re-address a couple of posts regarding the idea that modern Western sensibilities being the difference and not technology (individual firepower), I again point you to the cases of tyranical forces like the Soviets, Chi-coms, and various other thugocracies being equally badly pounded by insurgent movements in places like Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Central America.
Or even our experience in Vietnam. Was the problem really that we kept the gloves on against the VC? Im not talking about _modern_ anti-insurgent philosophy that calls for cutting off outside aid, hearts and minds etc… beacuse again 100 years ago _you didnt have to kill 1 million natives to conquer a nation._ And worse, we killed perhaps that many Vietnamese, and failed anyway. Something fundamentally changed by the era of Vietnam. I dont think it was human nature. Would killing another million Vietnamese have done the trick? Perhaps, in whatever pyrric type victory you could call that- but again the point is colonial powers never had to approach such levels of destruction historically.
Mark B-
That’s a very serious point (the Sov’s killed a lot of people in Afghanistan and it didn’t help them much).
A.L.
Mark,
Improving weapons technology directly leads to more deaths, for both sides of any conflict. There must be something else besides the limits of technology that is holding organized militaries back. What could that be?
IMHO, the past examples mentioned are not directly applicable because, those where very hierarchical societies. Once the leadership was co-opted, everyone else fell in line, thus no continuing conflict. This seems to say more about the various social structures involved and less about the technological level of the weapons employed.
Muslim societies, have been similarly governed in the past by bringing the Muslim clergy under state control, killing the ones that wouldn’t conform. The Ottoman’s where masters of this. Western ideas of separation of church and state seem to preclude this solution… for now.
It’s entirely foreseeable, that should democratization fail in Iraq, that a nominally Muslim government will be installed that will ruthlessly keep order and kill terrorists. The Baathists: Part Deaux? Again, the key is ruthlessness, not weapons technology.
However, as the power to destroy can be possessed by ever smaller groups, at some point the Rubicon will be crossed and disintegrative forces will grow larger than the various integrative forces and many societies could fly apart.
Considering this as Americans, being members of this completely unnatural union of a nation, perhaps we should spend more time with ties that bind us and less on our divisions. And this, I think, circles us back to what A.L. is talking about.
Queue Cerebrim?
Mark B.,
“beacuse again 100 years ago you didnt have to kill 1 million natives to conquer a nation. And worse, we killed perhaps that many Vietnamese, and failed anyway. Something fundamentally changed by the era of Vietnam. I dont think it was human nature.”
I don’t think it was human nature that changed–and I certainly agree with your well-made argument that technology has had an enormous impact in insurgents favor–however, I think you are leaving out an equally important factor that helps to explain the difficulties Russia, China, USA, etc. have had in supressing insurgencies over the last 50 years: the expectations & possibilities of the people supporting insurgencies.
The British in India, for instance governed a large group of people who didn’t really have any expectation of political liberty. For most Indians, the British were simply replacements of one master for another, in this instance, of the Moguls. Their daily life was unchanged and there was no expectation that resistance would gain them anything. It wasn’t worth it. Therfore, the British didn’t have to expend a lot of force to maintain order.
Nowadays, however, there is a world-wide expectation of political liberty and/or self-determination. It is seen as a realistic possibility and potential alternative to outside domination. Resistance then becomes a value worth taking casualties for. There is a potential outcome that is deemed both possible and worthwhile. This view was absent in many cases in the past centuries. Where it was present, I think you’ll find more successful insurgencies, liberation movements, etc.
The ratio that needs to be looked at is # of kills/value of success + # of kills/possibility of success. Your technology assessment only addresses the 2nd.
bq. This has fundamentally changed the world- for proof simply look over the history of insurgencies and de-colonialization over the last hundred or so years. 500 years ago a civilian militia stood almost no chance against any trained force. 200 years ago an army of civilians armed with muskets (or rifles) could take on a professional army and go toe to toe. 50 years ago Colonial powers had to stretch their resources to their limits to fight a relatively small insurgent force without the benefit of tanks, planes, or ships. Since then modern foreign armies have been consistantly chased out of backwood swamp after backwood swamp and bloodied so badly they sometimes never recover. Its no coincidence, and its not the deer rifle that has done it. Nor I think is the courage or cunning of the foe materially changed- the Apache were as brave as the come. If the Apache had AK-47s we would be letting them worry about controlling their Mexican border.
I think you’re starting from a false premise. I can think of PLENTY of self-determination movements that have failed in recent history. UNITA in Angola; Biafra; the Hmong don’t try to revolt in Vietnam… Heck, look at Vietnam, it was the NVA that conquered the south, and not the Viet Cong. There are separatist movements in Xinjiang, and I’m sure Tibet would like to be independent, but I feel fairly safe in saying neither of those are going to happen.
There have been guerillas fighting the government in Burma/Myanmar, but they’ve been mostly wiped out.
FINALLY… the Taliban, who were basically Pakistani proxies, were able to conquer Afghanistan fairly thoroughly right up until the Sept. 11 attacks.
A couple other thoughts: the AK-47, especially manufacturing runs with the tolerances screwed up so that it’ll always fire, at the expense of accuracy, seems to be the weapons of choice for a lot of movements because a) the SU and friends were giving away a whole lot of them, and b) these groups WANT a weapon that’s more useful for spraying-and-praying against a crowd of pilgrim civilians in Karbala than it is for dealing with squads of enemy soldiers. Their “grand strategy” is to kill civilians until we get tired of fighting them. And the only thing dumber than that strategy is that we’re going to go along with it.
Oh, a couple more thoughts:
* A great many of the successful soviet-supported insurrection movements failed to result in any sort of society with freedom or self-determination.
* I’ve seen news items in the past to the effect that the Tamil Tigers have heavy artillery pieces. Does anyone know where they got them?
So, AL, the founding fathers are beyond criticism because doing so is arrogant? I don’t think Yglesias is arguing that Madison, Jefferson, et. al weren’t particularly intelligent. His point is that the Constitution was written to reflect the reality in the 13 original states circa 1787 and may not be perfectly suitable to the reality of 50 states in 2007.
You make it seem like Yglesias is advocating scrapping the whole thing and re-writing it with a group of twentysomething Ivy League grad journalists.
Where abolitionists arrogant to challenge the Constitution’s protection of chattel slavery?
The fact you still consider yourself a “liberal” is utterly laughable. Reverence in the sanctity of the constitution is a purely conservative position.
Reverence in the sanctity of the constitution is a purely conservative position.
Indeed. Proper liberals replace it with reverence in the sanctity of Roe v. Wade.
Mark,
I apologize for taking so long to respond. I agree, technology certainly does level the playing field. A third world society that couldn’t produce a decent AK can surely make use of them. But I believe that the principle issue which contributes to the sheer durability of a modern insurgency is moral, not physical or technological. Something clicked after the world wars, not sure what though. Maybe the third world realized that there was no reason they couldn’t take on the white man. Maybe the white man realized he couldn’t deal with the natives as he did before the world wars. Probably something of both. Something to think about.
Regards.
Yglesias makes an important point that no commenter has addressed: if we accept the individualistic interpretation of the 2nd Amendment – and I think we should – then how can the government constitutionally prevent citizens from possessing any weapons. Why can the government regulate personal possession of nukes or, more realistically, RPGs. Surely the person wishing to possess an RPG can make the case that his stockpile is necessary to preserve the liberties of the people against a dictatorship. And what about laws against felons possessing guns? If “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” what gives the government the right to prevent convicted felons (out of jail) from possessing weapons? The 2nd Amendment specifies “people” and convicted felons are certainly people. Is there literally no control of deadly weaponry available to the government given the individualist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment?
_Reverence in the sanctity of the constitution is a purely conservative position._
Says Ann Coulter . . .
I am not a conservative and I have utmost reverence for the Constitution. This document has guided this nation to the status of world power with few significant amendments. It is flexible enough so long as people keep in mind that it was intended to be flexible.
Hi, Folks, this isn’t meant to be a 2nd Amendment thread (I’ll open one soon, I promise). My point is simply that the Founders built a complicated but effective government and they are due our respect for it. And that casual “oh, I’d do it differently” from casual students reflects more on the student than on the Founders.
The 2nd Amendment specifies “people” and convicted felons are certainly people.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. We put felons in prison (and some of them in the chair), which would seem a rather more substantial violation of their rights. So long as they get some kind of “due process” before we take their guns, no problem.
And we punish people for exercising their freedom of speech to disclose classified material, or incite violence, etc. etc. The government doesn’t buy “pot is a sacrement,” either, so there goes your freedom of religion, I guess.
The line drawing problem is not necessarily trivial, but it isn’t really all that hard, either. Certainly it isn’t so hard that we should just throw up our hands and say there is no right at all.
“His point is that the Constitution was written to reflect the reality in the 13 original states circa 1787 and may not be perfectly suitable to the reality of 50 states in 2007.”
Interesting point. I might also add that the right to bear arms was not extended to the slaves that all white land-owning Americans owned in those days.
I might also add that the reality of 1787 is different from the reality of 2007 in another way – that being that for many reasons, some of them religious, the citizens of 1787 America had a great more self-restraint on average than the citizens of 2007 America.
As far as I know, 1787 America didn’t have a large subset of its citizens, mostly concentrated in cities, who had no notion of morals or self-restraint whatever.
Of course, 1787 America also had a death penalty – one not delayed by endless appeals. So the irresponsible use of weapons was likely to have unpleasant consequences.
I’m sure this is not original – but, in the spirit of the 2nd Amendment, perhaps the right to bear arms ought to be conditional on enrollment in a citizen militia such as the National Guard? This seems to work for Switzerland – in fact, the bearing of arms there is required.
Fletcher you just made a great argument for abolishing the entire bill of rights whole cloth. Hey, the internet didnt exist back then- it couldnt even have been predicted. And since the pen is mightier than the sword it seems entirely logical that the 1st amendment needs some serious reinterpretation.
Snark aside- what you are saying is totally reasonable. So fix it at the ballot box and not the court room.
I don’t understand how in the Age of Google anyone could say
That sounded fishy to me. Three minutes with Google, and we find
OK, that’s not totally dispositive, since I also found that crime in colonial New York was concentrated in New York City, but I’d say it suggests that the “As far as I know” in the original quote is just a cover for argument from ignorance.
Dare I suggest that this sloppiness arises from the fact that unlike the modern crime-ridden ghetto the colonial criminals were largely white?
Well, I’ve opened a can of worms!
Mark: I can’t fix this at the ballot box – for the very simple reason that I’m not an American subject, but a British one. Yes, I did say subject – deliberately. And we don’t have a written constitution to amend.
Andrew: I think that you are accusing me of being racist. Well, if the cap fits wear it – but I think that you might do well to look at relative crime rates in inner-city blacks versus others. In fact, though I haven’t checked, Hispanics are probably just as bad if not worse. Particularly in Miami. And I’m fed up to the back teeth with the endless “society’s to blame” excuses for gang culture.
Gang culture is spreading to Britain, too – but here it’s mostly knives, not guns, as yet. Which has the useful side effect that if someone is fighting a turf war, then innocent bystanders are less likely to get caught in the crossfire. Personally, I’m not particularly concerned if gangsters kill each other. Maybe you are.
However, this is yet another aspect of American culture (I suspect that gangsta rap might have an influence here) that we neither need not want but are getting anyway.
One problem that America doesn’t have much of yet is Islamic fundamentalism, and the associated assault and rape cases. Give it time.
In one particular way, if you can call it racist (maybe not because it’s religious), then I am. The West neither needs, or the majority of its citizens wants, either Islam or its followers.
Andrew:
I should have added that in the time mentioned, America was still a frontier in many places. Frontiers are always lawless. However, Washington DC is hardly a frontier. Different times, different reasons.