Slashdot Mirror
ACLU Creates Map of US "Constitution-Free Zone"
trackpick points out a recent ACLU initiative to publicize a recent expansion of authority claimed by the Border Patrol to stop and search individuals up to 100 miles from any US border. They have created a map of what they call the US Constitution-Free Zone. "Using data provided by the US Census Bureau, the ACLU has determined that nearly 2/3 of the entire US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders. The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone. This is not just about the border: This 'Constitution-Free Zone' includes most of the nation's largest metropolitan areas.'"
I love how people tend to forget we're a nation born of revolt and war, tempered in the fires of combat, using pretty much PRIVATE WEAPONS against a MUCH LARGER ARMY.
I love how people tend to forget that the Colonial militias were getting their asses kicked by the redcoats until a bunch of Germans and -- yes -- Frenchmen came over and taught us how to fight as an actual army.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
DISCLAIMER: I am posting from Kandahar City, Afghanistan, where I am stationed for the next little while.
The example you cite - the American Revolution - hasn't been applicable to the real world since the last years of the American Civil War.
The time period from the early 1700s to the late 1800s was dominated by the smoothbore, muzzle-loading musket, and its big brother, the smoothbore, muzzle-loading, solid-shot cannon (of which there were few in the Colonies)
An American Rebel, armed with a flintlock Kentucky Rifle, carried a weapon that was the technological equal of his British Regular Army counterpart. In some ways (range and accuracy) it was superior; in others (rate of fire) inferior. Employed properly, entirely comparable.
The success of armies in this era was largely a function of discipline, leadership, and logistics. If you had a cause sufficient to unite men in common purpose, leaders with enough tactical acumen to employ them, and paid attention to the problems of supply, it was entirely possible to go head to head with a national, professional, regular army and win outright on the battlefield - especially if your "professional" opponent was lacking in one of these vital areas.
That is no longer the case. No militia is capable of withstanding the kind of destructive force a modern combat team (a company of mechanized infantry, a troop of tanks, and two artillery pieces) is capable of putting out.
The insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan die - in large numbers - any time they try to go toe-to-toe with modern combat forces. It's no contest; so hopelessly lopsided that it's almost pathetic.
The only weapon that is at all effective is the Improvised Explosive Device (basically a really big land mine) but the IED is not a decisive weapon; it is a harassment tactic, not a war-winner.
The insurgent plays off our unwillingness to inflict civillian casulties. If we take fire from a village, it is entirely within our combat power to stop the entire village flat (in seconds!) to get him. We choose not to for very good reasons.
But if a government WERE willing to inflict those kinds of casulties (and please note that I am NOT advocating such a course of action) any would-be rebels would find themselves in a world of hurt very quickly. The idea that a self-organized citizen militia could take on and defeat the US Army, Navy, and Air Force is simply laughable.
Yes, the North Vietnamese pulled it off, but that was because the will to do what was necessary to win wasn't there. Within the boundaries of the United States proper, however, it is safe to say that will exists, given that the army that has killed more Americans than all other armies in all other American wars *combined* is the US Army. Ask Lincoln and Grant if they had the will to do what was necessary to win. or better yet, ask Lee.
Your Second Amendment is nice in theory. In practice, it is a paper tiger.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book