Scalia is a piece of crap.

[Kuciwalker]

Mauritania.

[Berzerker]

Kontiki

Sorry, I'm not dwelling in an imaginary world.

Remove all the private firearms but keep the military and who would invade? In fact, remove all the private firearms, all the nukes and cut the military down to 1/3 of what it is now and who is going to invade?

Yer asking hypotheticals that dwell in an imaginary world

I assumed your point was that in the real world, your armed populace is what's deterring invasion.

In the real world we have a massive military so its impossible to tell what deters whom. I said if all we had was 300 million people, guns and nukes, that would deter invasion.

Granted part of this is fantasy land, but if you didn't have privately armed citizens, nukes or 2/3 of your current military (which by my reckoning still leaves a few aircraft carriers, dozens of other warships, a couple thousand aircraft including hundreds of front line fighters and hundreds of thousands of troops), which country specifically is going to attempt to invade? China? France? Iran?

So yer back into hypotheticals? My head hurts now. I'd say it would be a coalition or alliance of countries, but I didn't say they would invade. I said they are deterred from invading by a heavily armed populace backed by nukes.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Berzerker

Lets say our gov't went whacko and the military followed orders and we were at war with our gov't and military. Who would win? The people would win...if they have guns. Its just a matter of attrition and time... There is a reason why tyrants always try to disarm the peasants, aint always possible, but dictators dont like armed populations. If Hitler was faced with two options - invade a neighbor without guns and a neighbor with guns, guess who gets invaded?

I don't think that is true. You could offer the case of Iraq, but it is rather different, since the US has been exercising considerable restraint in Iraq. Guns were a great equalizer centuries ago (and that's one reason the Tokugawa Shogunate banned them), but they are no longer. No-one had cluster bombs, attack helicopters, tanks or satellite surveillance or anything comparable 200 years ago.

The Wermacht is an instructive example. I doubt Hitler would have cared which country he invaded, since the Nazis were well known for showing no restraint. The US has done some bad things in Iraq, but there haven't been wholesale executions of suspected partisans in order to instill terror in the populace. The US could roll over the Mehdi Army right now, if it wanted to, but the price would be massive civilian casualties and the destruction of large urban areas. It doesn't matter whether or not they have guns, because amateur soldiers with rifles are nothing compared to a well equipped modern military force. If a modern military force is determined to suppress a revolt at any cost to civilians, it will.

[Kontiki]

Berz:

This whole discussion started around Spiffor's point that the Second Amendment is rather anachronistic. Then you and Ben declared that keeping an armed populace prevents an armed incurrsion, as if the conventional capabilities of the US military weren't more than enough to do this by themselves. The hypothetical removal of personal firearms, nukes and 2/3 of the US military was to show that even under that scenario, it's still nearly impossible to imagine any existing country (or coalition) that would try to invade. If that's the case, then having rampant ownership of personal firearms isn't doing anything to deter an invasion - hence why your original point was so absurd.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Evolution didn't create life

You do realize a lot of scientists disagree with this?

You have a moral claim to exist, murdering you violates this moral claim. Why do you have this moral claim? Because existence, however it arrived, has made you an independent actor on this stage.

Within a society of actors. At the very least, you have your mom and dad (and good thing because you'd die without their nurture), so you are really never alone unless later on you decide to go on some isolated island... then you can create rules for that society of one if you choose.

The Wermacht is an instructive example. I doubt Hitler would have cared which country he invaded, since the Nazis were well known for showing no restraint.

This be true. I believe the French country folk were no less armed than the US today, but the Nazis were not in the mood to win "hearts and minds", so they ran roughshod over them.

[Spiffor]

The argument that an armed populace can deter invasion in this day and age is frankly hilarious.

Look at sountries like Afghanistan and Somalia. Personal weapons are everywhere. And not hunting rifles or little handgun toys, but kalashnikovs and LAWs. Yet, I seem to recall fairly recent invasions there

Now, an occupation is a different thing. Unlike an invasion force, an occupation force is generally less willing to use whatever force necessary to destroy its targets. Then it becomes the right moment for guerilla tactics.

However, a stock of weapons at the beginning of the war is secondary for the success of a guerilla (foreign powers can provide the weapons, as does the black market) - the most important thing to have is organization.

[Kuciwalker]

(foreign powers can provide the weapons, as does the black market)

Even easier, the defeated army.

[snoopy369]

In a totally irrelevant point Evolution did not create life.

First: Evolution is a passive process and does not create anything.

Second: Evolution is the process by which life changes from one form to another in order to increase survivability. It is not the process by which life was formed. That was either a random chemical reaction during a period of intense heat, or catalyzed by some sort of high-energy catalyst such as lightning, deep sea volcano, etc. None of those are 'evolution' in any meaning of the word.

[Dinner]

When I took evolutionary biology the professor was very careful to point out that evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life (it doesn't attempt to tackle that issue) and instead explains, once life exists, how speciation occurs via adaptation and natural selection.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

I'm saying something quite more radical then that. I am saying that individual natural rights are as much a part of you as the hair on your head or the bones in your body.

Ben, I'm curious as to what you mean by this. It is clear what you mean by "part" when you suggest that my bones are a part of me, because the notion of physical parts is uncontroversial (unless you are an Eleatic). But natural rights can't be a part in the same way, because you can cut a bone in half, but you can't cut a natural right in half.

Natural rights, if they exist, seem to be metaphysically queer entities (gay mafia shut up - this is a different use of the term). There are of course other candidates for metaphysically queer entities, such as thoughts or numbers (if you are a platonist with a small "p"). But even then, natural rights don't seem to be as clear as those. Both thoughts and numbers, if they are beings are things. Thoughts may well be states rather than substances, and numbers quantities rather than substances. But you said that rights are like substances. Even if they aren't, they don't seem to be qualities, quantities, relations or entities from any other recognizable table of categories.

That's why philosophers tend to treat rights claims as statements which we have reasons to endorse. For example, Kant argues that murder can't be justified because it contains a contradiction. That doesn't mean that our right to life is a thing, but merely that "murder is right" is a proposition that violates norms of rationality. The rightness and wrongness of actions are determined by reason, not by magical entities. The contractarians follow the same line of reasoning in that their justification of what is right or wrong depends on an idealized notion of consent, rather than metaphysically real entities or properties.

[Berzerker]

Aggie

You could offer the case of Iraq, but it is rather different, since the US has been exercising considerable restraint in Iraq.

How's the invasion goin? Iraq was run by a dictator and much of the population was happy to see him go. That aint comparable to a USA invaded by an enemy or enemies. In my hypothetical virtually all Americans resist the invasion because instead of liberating us from a dictator, the invaders will become our dictators.

Kontiki

This whole discussion started around Spiffor's point that the Second Amendment is rather anachronistic. Then you and Ben declared that keeping an armed populace prevents an armed incurrsion, as if the conventional capabilities of the US military weren't more than enough to do this by themselves. The hypothetical removal of personal firearms, nukes and 2/3 of the US military was to show that even under that scenario, it's still nearly impossible to imagine any existing country (or coalition) that would try to invade. If that's the case, then having rampant ownership of personal firearms isn't doing anything to deter an invasion - hence why your original point was so absurd.

Maybe you have no imagination. If I was running China's invasion, I'd nuke the US navy and air bases so they can't bother my invasion force. After that the US military would bleed into the general population to organize the resistance and await the actual invasion. Anyway, I believe what I said was that our nation, armed with personal weapons and nukes deter invasions with or without the bulk of the military.

Imran

You do realize a lot of scientists disagree with this?

Would those be the same scientists who keep trying to create life but cant do it?

Within a society of actors. At the very least, you have your mom and dad (and good thing because you'd die without their nurture), so you are really never alone unless later on you decide to go on some isolated island... then you can create rules for that society of one if you choose.

Whats yer point? That you aren't an independent actor? Otherwise that aint a rebuttal...

This be true. I believe the French country folk were no less armed than the US today

You gotta be kidding. What'd they have? Some WWI rifles?

Spiffor

The argument that an armed populace can deter invasion in this day and age is frankly hilarious.

Backed by nukes... Read the thread.

Look at sountries like Afghanistan and Somalia. Personal weapons are everywhere. And not hunting rifles or little handgun toys, but kalashnikovs and LAWs. Yet, I seem to recall fairly recent invasions there

They dont have our geography. This was already pointed out, read the thread. And they dont have the population base. But look at what they did to the Russians once other people started sending them better weapons.

[Berzerker]

Aggie

Ben, I'm curious as to what you mean by this. It is clear what you mean by "part" when you suggest that my bones are a part of me, because the notion of physical parts is uncontroversial (unless you are an Eleatic). But natural rights can't be a part in the same way, because you can cut a bone in half, but you can't cut a natural right in half.

If a physical part is uncontroversial, why is the right - the moral authority - to keep that part controversial even if a group of people walk up and want it.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Aggie

How's the invasion goin? Iraq was run by a dictator and much of the population was happy to see him go. That aint comparable to a USA invaded by an enemy or enemies. In my hypothetical virtually all Americans resist the invasion because instead of liberating us from a dictator, the invaders will become our dictators.

If a foreign military were to occupy the US, it would not be Red Dawn. They would do to you what the Nazis did to the French, guns or no guns.

The US isn't doing that in Iraq, because they plan to leave.

[Berzerker]

If a foreign military were to occupy the US, it would not be Red Dawn. They would do to you what the Nazis did to the French, guns or no guns.

They'd never make it across the border, we'd be nuking their forces.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Originally posted by Berzerker
They'd never make it across the border, we'd be nuking their forces.

Raiding the Icebox

An excellent Washington Post article from late 2005 about declassified documents, wherein the U.S. in the early 20th Century had an emergency plan outlining a possible invasion of Canada.

...

Even more importantly, the war plan outlined contingencies for America, in case of invasion by Canada.

Raiding the Icebox
Behind Its Warm Front, the United States Made Cold Calculations to Subdue Canada

By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 30, 2005; C01

Invading Canada won't be like invading Iraq: When we invade Canada, nobody will be able to grumble that we didn't have a plan.

The United States government does have a plan to invade Canada. It's a 94-page document called "Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan -- Red," with the word SECRET stamped on the cover. It's a bold plan, a bodacious plan, a step-by-step plan to invade, seize and annex our neighbor to the north. It goes like this:

First, we send a joint Army-Navy overseas force to capture the port city of Halifax, cutting the Canadians off from their British allies.

Then we seize Canadian power plants near Niagara Falls, so they freeze in the dark.

Then the U.S. Army invades on three fronts -- marching from Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec, charging out of North Dakota to grab the railroad center at Winnipeg, and storming out of the Midwest to capture the strategic nickel mines of Ontario.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy seizes the Great Lakes and blockades Canada's Atlantic and Pacific ports.

At that point, it's only a matter of time before we bring these Molson-swigging, maple-mongering Zamboni drivers to their knees! Or, as the official planners wrote, stating their objective in bold capital letters: "ULTIMATELY TO GAIN COMPLETE CONTROL."

* * *

It sounds like a joke but it's not. War Plan Red is real. It was drawn up and approved by the War Department in 1930, then updated in 1934 and 1935. It was declassified in 1974 and the word "SECRET" crossed out with a heavy pencil. Now it sits in a little gray box in the National Archives in College Park, available to anybody, even Canadian spies. They can photocopy it for 15 cents a page.

War Plan Red was actually designed for a war with England. In the late 1920s, American military strategists developed plans for a war with Japan (code name Orange), Germany (Black), Mexico (Green) and England (Red). The Americans imagined a conflict between the United States (Blue) and England over international trade: "The war aim of RED in a war with BLUE is conceived to be the definite elimination of BLUE as an important economic and commercial rival."

In the event of war, the American planners figured that England would use Canada (Crimson) -- then a quasi-pseudo-semi-independent British dominion -- as a launching pad for "a direct invasion of BLUE territory." That invasion might come overland, with British and Canadian troops attacking Buffalo, Detroit and Albany. Or it might come by sea, with amphibious landings on various American beaches -- including Rehoboth and Ocean City, both of which were identified by the planners as "excellent" sites for a Brit beachhead.

The planners anticipated a war "of long duration" because "the RED race" is "more or less phlegmatic" but "noted for its ability to fight to a finish." Also, the Brits could be reinforced by "colored" troops from their colonies: "Some of the colored races however come of good fighting stock, and, under white leadership, can be made into very efficient troops."

The stakes were high: If the British and Canadians won the war, the planners predicted, "CRIMSON will demand that Alaska be awarded to her."

Imagine that! Canada demanding a huge chunk of U.S. territory! Them's fightin' words! And so the American strategists planned to fight England by seizing Canada. (Also Jamaica, Barbados and Bermuda.) And they didn't plan to give them back.

"Blue intentions are to hold in perpetuity all CRIMSON and RED territory gained," Army planners wrote in an appendix to the war plan. "The policy will be to prepare the provinces and territories of CRIMSON and RED to become states and territories of the BLUE union upon the declaration of peace."
The Sudbury Offensive

None of this information is new. After the plan was declassified in 1974, several historians and journalists wrote about War Plan Red. But still it remains virtually unknown on both sides of the world's largest undefended border.

"I've never heard of it," said David Biette, director of the Canada Institute in Washington, which thinks about Canada.

"I remember sort of hearing about this," said Bernard Etzinger, spokesman for the Canadian Embassy in Washington.

"It's the first I've heard of it," said David Courtemanche, mayor of Sudbury, Ontario, whose nickel mines were targeted in the war plan.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he'd never heard of the plan. He also said he wouldn't admit to knowing about such a plan if he did.

"We don't talk about any of our contingency plans," he said.

Has the Pentagon updated War Plan Red since the '30s?

"The Defense Department never talks about its contingency plans for any countries," Whitman said. "We don't acknowledge which countries we have contingency plans for."

Out in Winnipeg -- the Manitoba capital, whose rail yards were slated to be seized in the plan -- Brad Salyn, the city's director of communications, said he didn't think Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz knew anything about War Plan Red: "You know he would have no clue about what you're talking about, eh?"

"I'm sure Winnipeggers will stand up tall in defense of our country," Mayor Katz said later. "We have many, many weapons."

What kind of weapons?

"We have peashooters, slingshots and snowballs," he said, laughing.

But the Canadians' best weapon, Katz added, is their weather. "It gets to about minus-50 Celsius with a wind chill," he said. "It will be like Napoleon's invasion of Russia. I'm quite convinced that you'll meet your Waterloo on the banks of the Assiniboine River."
Gas Station Strategy

As it turns out, Katz isn't the first Canadian to speculate on how to fight the U.S.A. In fact, Canadian military strategists developed a plan to invade the United States in 1921 -- nine years before their American counterparts created War Plan Red.

The Canadian plan was developed by the country's director of military operations and intelligence, a World War I hero named James Sutherland "Buster" Brown. Apparently Buster believed that the best defense was a good offense: His "Defence Scheme No. 1" called for Canadian soldiers to invade the United States, charging toward Albany, Minneapolis, Seattle and Great Falls, Mont., at the first signs of a possible U.S. invasion.

"His plan was to start sending people south quickly because surprise would be more important than preparation," said Floyd Rudmin, a Canadian psychology professor and author of "Bordering on Aggression: Evidence of U.S. Military Preparations Against Canada," a 1993 book about both nations' war plans. "At a certain point, he figured they'd be stopped and then retreat, blowing up bridges and tearing up railroad tracks to slow the Americans down."

Brown's idea was to buy time for the British to come to Canada's rescue. Buster even entered the United States in civilian clothing to do some reconnaissance.

"He had a total annual budget of $1,200," said Rudmin, "so he himself would drive to the areas where they were going to invade and take pictures and pick up free maps at gas stations."

Rudmin got interested in these war plans in the 1980s when he was living in Kingston, Ontario, just across the St. Lawrence River from Fort Drum, the huge Army base in Upstate New York. Why would the Americans put an Army base in such a wretched, frigid wilderness? he wondered. Could it be there to . . . fight Canada?

He did some digging. He found "War Plan Red" and "Defence Scheme No. 1." At the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., he found a 1935 update of War Plan Red, which specified which roads to use in the invasion ("The best practicable route to Vancouver is via Route 99").

Rudmin also learned about an American plan from 1935 to build three military airfields near the Canadian border and disguise them as civilian airports. The secret scheme was revealed after the testimony of two generals in a closed-door session of the House Military Affairs Committee was published by mistake. When the Canadian government protested the plan, President Franklin Roosevelt reassured it that he wasn't contemplating war. The whole brouhaha made the front page of the New York Times on May 1, 1935.

That summer, however, the Army held what were the biggest war games in American history on the site of what is now Fort Drum, Rudmin said.

Is he worried that the Yanks will invade his country from Fort Drum?

"Not now ," he said. "Now the U.S. is kind of busy in Iraq. But I wouldn't put it past them."

He's not paranoid, he hastened to add, and he doesn't think the States will simply invade Canada the way Hitler invaded Russia.

But if some kind of crisis -- perhaps something involving the perennially grumpy French Canadians -- destabilized Canada, then . . . well, Fort Drum is just across the river.

"We most certainly are not preparing to invade Canada," said Ben Abel, the official spokesman for Fort Drum.

The fort, he added, is home to the legendary 10th Mountain Division, which is training for its third deployment in Afghanistan. There are also 1,200 Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

"I find it very hard to believe that we'd be planning to invade Canada," Abel said. "We have a lot of Canadian soldiers training here. I bumped into a Canadian officer in the bathroom the other day."
Going North, Heading South

Invading Canada is an old American tradition. Invading Canada successfully is not.

During the American Revolution, Benedict Arnold -- then in his pre-traitor days -- led an invasion of Canada from Maine. It failed.

During the War of 1812, American troops invaded Canada several times. They were driven back.

In 1839, Americans from Maine confronted Canadians in a border dispute known as the Aroostook War.

"There were never any shots fired," said Etzinger, the Canadian Embassy spokesman, "but I think an American cow was injured -- and a Canadian pig."

In 1866, about 800 Irish Americans in the Fenian Brotherhood decided to strike a blow for Irish independence by invading Canada. They crossed the Niagara River into Ontario, where they defeated a Canadian militia. But when British troops approached, the Fenians fled back to the United States, where many were arrested.

After that, Americans stopped invading Canada and took up other hobbies, such as invading Mexico, Haiti, Nicaragua, Grenada and, of course, Iraq.

But the dream of invading Canada lives on in the American psyche, occasionally manifesting itself in bizarre ways. Movies, for instance.

In the 1995 movie "Canadian Bacon," the U.S. president, played by Alan Alda, decides to jump-start the economy by picking a fight with Canada. His battle cry: "Surrender pronto or we'll level Toronto."

In the 1999 movie "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut," Americans, angered that their kids have been corrupted by a pair of foulmouthed, flatulent Canadian comedians, go to war. Canada responds by sending its air force to bomb the Hollywood home of the Baldwin brothers -- a far more popular defensive strategy than anything Buster Brown devised. Moviegoers left theaters humming the film's theme:

Blame Canada! Blame Canada!

With all their hockey hullabaloo

And that ***** Anne Murray too!

Blame Canada! Shame on Canada!

But it's not just movies. The urge to invade Canada comes in myriad forms.

In 2002, the conservative magazine National Review published an essay called "Bomb Canada: The Case for War." The author, Jonah Goldberg, suggested that the United States "launch a quick raid into Canada" and blow something up -- "perhaps an empty hockey stadium." That would cause Canada to stop wasting its money on universal health insurance and instead fund a military worthy of the name, so that "Canada's neurotic anti-Americanism would be transformed into manly resolve."

And let's not forget the Web site http://invadecanada.us/ , which lists many compelling reasons for doing do: "let's make Alaska actually connected to the U.S. again!" and "they're just a little too proud" and "the surrender will come quickly, they're French after all."

The site also sells T-shirts, buttons, teddy bears and thong underwear, all of them decorated with the classic picture of Uncle Sam atop the slogan "I WANT YOU to Invade Canada."

What's going on here? Why do Americans love to joke about invading Canada?

Because Americans see Canadians as goody-goodies, said Biette, the Canada Institute director. Canadians didn't rebel against the British, remaining loyal colonial subjects. They didn't have a Wild West, settling their land without the kind of theatrical gunfights that make for good movies. And they like to hector us about our misbehavior.

"We're 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' and they're 'peace, order and good government,' " Biette said. "So if you're a wild American, you look at them and say, 'They're just a bunch of Boy Scouts.' "
The C-Bomb

Canadians are well aware of our invasion talk. Not surprisingly, they take it a bit more seriously than we do.

When "The West Wing" had a subplot last winter about a U.S.-Canada border incident, Canadian newspapers took note.

When Jon Stewart joked about invading Canada on "The Daily Show" last March, Canadian newspapers covered the story.

When the Toronto Star interviewed comedian Jimmy Kimmel last year, the reporter asked him: "Is it only a matter of time before America invades Canada?"

"I'm not sure," Kimmel replied.

In 2003, the Canadian army set up an Internet chat room where soldiers and civilians could discuss defense issues. "One of the hottest topics on the site discusses whether the U.S. will invade Canada to seize its natural resources," the Ottawa Citizen reported. "If the attack did come, Canada could rely on a scorched-earth policy similar to what Russia did when invaded by Nazi Germany, one participant recommends. 'With such emmense [sic] land, and with our cold climates, we may be able to hold them off, even though we have the much weaker military,' the individual concludes."

Etzinger, the Canadian Embassy spokesman, isn't worried about an American invasion because Canada has a secret weapon -- actually thousands of secret weapons.

"We've got thousands of Canadians in the U.S. right now, in place secretly," he said. "They could be on your street. We've sent people like Celine Dion and Mike Myers to secretly infiltrate American society."

Pretty funny, Mr. Etzinger. But the strategists who wrote War Plan Red were prepared for that problem. They noted that "it would be necessary to deal internally" with the "large number" of Brits and Canadians living in the United States -- and also with "a small number of professional pacifists and communists."

The planners did not specify exactly what would be done with those undesirables. But it would be kinda fun to see Celine Dion and Mike Myers wearing orange jumpsuits down in Guantanamo.

Eh?
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