On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 20:50:21 -0400, "Robert Green"
wrote:
"Oren" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 06:28:13 -0700 (PDT), harry
wrote:
Your government will shoot you down in the streets like dogs.
If they start in Texas, there will not be much left for the rest of
the country to fight.
Now stop that. You'll have Texans believing in their own mythology. (-:
Texas helped the South *lose* the Civil War the last time all this
secessionist BS came to a head over 100 years ago. When it comes to
historical data, Texas hasn't performed as well as "Don't Mess" advertising
would have us believe. Even the centerpiece of the "don't mess" mythology,
the Alamo, enshrines total defeat at the hands of a vastly superior military
force. So maybe the saying should be "Don't mess with us Texans or we'll
show you and commit mass suicide!" Seems to be the solution chosen by both
Col. Bowie and David Koresh. Maybe they should change the saying to "Don't
Masada with Texas."
So if the claim is really that you shouldn't mess with Texas because Texans
would commit mass suicide to make a point, I would agree. But winning a
battle out of sheer pluck against all odds? Not so much.
Yes, it might be harder to pacify Texas than other states, but there will be
plenty of Federal forces left to deal with any remaining rebels once Texas
is dealt with. All these ammo buys by the Feds are a guarantee that *they*
won't run short of ammo needed to pacify Texas while also guaranteeing that
civilians won't be able to stockpile massive amounts of ammo. At least ammo
that's not Korean or Boer War surplus (hyperbole alert!) oozing goo.
As for the dream of modern, heavily armed Texans repelling the Feds with
ease, I am sure David Koresh is all smiles, sitting in kiddie-killer hell,
recalling how things ended for his Texas v. Fed "test case." As a grease
spot.
Neo-secessionists seem to confuse the idiotic kid glove "fight a war but
don't muss any hair" rules we've labored under in AfRaq and elsewhere with
what would happen if there was real open rebellion on US soil. If taking
the Koresh compound was simply a military and not political matter, the
"Branch" would have been pruned in one day, maybe even in under an hour.
Based on the recent killings of apparently well-armed prosecutors in
Kaufman, TX. I'd say that "don't mess with Texas" myth is eroding daily.
The most recently murdered DA had guns, had forewarning and was in his
home/castle when he died. Somehow, his guns didn't protect him very well.
Although it's only speculation, a good CCTV & alarm system with a safe room
might have done better.
As for "brother won't ever kill brother" - another popular meme of
neo-secessionists - see "US Civil War" (and in fact most any civil war) to
realize that brothers, cousins, uncles, etc. have been killing kin in wars
since the dawn of time and will likely forever do so. Remember Guardsmen
gunning down students at Kent State?
Brothers are likely killing brothers as I type this in Syria, Africa, etc.
and ironically right now on TV as I type this sentence a Syrian rebel is
saying "they were like brothers to us BEFORE the revolution."
The Feds can draw "security personnel" from 49 other states and private,
foreign contractors, and many (most?) of them would be happy to shoot a
traitorous Texan or two or twenty if so ordered. A couple of sheriffs and
PFC's around the US dumb enough to say (on camera!) they won't enforce laws
they don't like does not constitute a real protection for the
neo-secessionists and their friends.
I'll admit it could be entertaining to listen to some of the Texan gun
enthusiasts walk through *precisely* how they expect this devastating armed
resistance to the Feds and their military grade hardware is going to work
out in detail. My guess is that they'll probably be unable to do that
because they'll be so busy falling all over themselves hurling epithets and
insults in an effort to cloud the real issues. They resort to that
name-calling tactic precisely because they *know* that their proposed
solutions don't hold up under even reasonable scrutiny.
To me, civilians arming in the hopes of resisting Federal forces is as
badly thought out as arming teachers nationwide to try to prevent the
extremely isolated incidents like Newtown. It demonstrates no one making
those proposals has really thought hard about how they might actually play
out in the real world. I suspect proponents like the NRA really don't
*want* to perform that analysis because it's so unlikely to support their
claims. The money would be much better spent elsewhere to improve school
security.
In the end, we'll likely find that Texans who thought they were armed well
enough to stand off the US military and Federal LE will be converted to
dark, greasy spots on the floor in short order.
Why? The military has standoff weapons and drones. They can kill you from
six miles away without any risk to their own soldiers. They have
irresistible microwave crowd control devices that can neutralize a battalion
of civilian attackers with the flip of a switch. They have weapons with
incredibly high rates of fire, a fairly endless supply of ammo with more and
faster guns on the way:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Storm
The Feds have night vision and thermal gear that can see shooters hiding
behind walls in their houses, barns, cars or duckblinds and new guns that
can shoot timed explosive projectiles around corners.
Despite the obviously overwhelming superiority of military firepower
neo-secessionists think they can face such a force with their Bushmaster
.223's and prevail. At best they'll be a minor nuisance until the Feds lose
patience. Then they will become sooty little grease spots, killed by a
soldier without even a rifle - just a headset and a video screen who was
never within the range of his target's puny civilian "assault" rifles when
he killed them from a drone.
You have written another novel, Robert.
If you read the Letter from William Barret Travis at the Alamo you
might see the attitude of Americans of the time. It was not about
winning or losing.
Here it the Travis Letter:
http://travisletter.com/the-letter.html
Ever hear of Wounded Knee, when Feds were killed and held at bay for
months? ( I fed meals to Leonard Peltier at Marion)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Incident
If you think the government wants to take on The People, go ahead...