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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat<br><br><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>>…Do you really think the Australian Federal Police would not have pursued the journalists if they feared they had guns? Do you think that the US Government might have not have pursued Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning if they had guns?<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal>-- <o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>Stathis Papaioannou<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Stathis, these questions go off in the wrong direction. The kinds of scenarios where the militia comes into play is if the regular army is not here for us. They are professionals: if they are not paid, they don’t come. The militia is made of citizens, not paid. It is easy enough to imagine ways in which the government cannot pay its military.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>An example of the kind of scenarios I am thinking of is when Germany instituted slavery and rounded up millions of its own people, unarmed, unable to defend. That whole episode would have played much differently if the Nazis had known a bullet could come from any direction at any time. Had the German people been individually armed, the horrifying experience of the concentration camps would never have happened. Never forget those lessons of history.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I can easily envision a change coming to this exotic hybrid of communism and capitalism in China today. They want the material wealth that capitalism brings, while keeping the iron fist grip on power that governments enjoy holding. But what if the people of the People’s Republic decide they want freedom of speech and the right to bear arms? We could see a second Great Leap, but it really would be forward this time.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></body></html>