Yeah it was, sunshine. Your initial post to me was nothing but an insult. It made no argument at all.
Now then, little troll: why don’t you find some bridge to bother. We adults here are trying to have a conversation. Dismissed.
I don’t know, which is why I asked. Do you think they would be more successfull at killing people? Who cares? Who needs a military when we have nuclear weapons. A military seems like a complete waste if a country has nuclear weapons.
I don’t support murder, but, dang it, if you’re going to do it, do it right.
@ Jacob Bloom
I got one for you.
If the U.S. is supposed to go to war against really bad guys, than shouldn’t they have gone to war against Stalin? I mean, he was way worse than Hitler.
And when they went to war against Saddam in the Gulf War, shouldn’t they have taken out Pol Pot instead of supply him with weapons? He was far worse than Saddam. (And if Saddam was such an evil guy, why did the U.S. supply the guy with weapons?)
Double standard?
Knight_of_BAAWA:
Your initial post to me was nothing but an insult.
The only thing that was remotely personal in that comment was my suggestion that you hadn’t thought your position through. If you are so thin skinned that you want to take that as some kind of personal affront that is your problem. As for your claim that my post contributed nothing but an insult, well you obviously don’t understand how message boards work. You see, when you claim things of other posters’ statements we can simply go back and read what has been written. I said, and I quote: “You should ponder what you are actually saying. In this case, where the quality of the armed forces is entirely qualified by ‘might’, ‘might’ manifestly is what determines ‘right’. What other way do you determine the effectiveness of an armed force than attempting to analyse its ‘might’?” Clearly that isn’t an insult.
Knight_of_BAAWA:
It made no argument at all.
You know you can spot an argument, because an argument inherently must contain two specific elements; premise(s) and conclusion.
So lets re-read my post: “In this case, where the quality of the armed forces is entirely qualified by ‘might’ [premise], ‘might’ manifestly is what determines ‘right’ [conclusion]. What other way do you determine the effectiveness of an armed force than attempting to analyze its ‘might’?”
If you need any help spotting arguments in the future, you know you only have to ask.
Knight_of_BAAWA:
We adults here are trying to have a conversation.
On the contrary, you have been attempting to avoid the discussion by constructing rather flimsy and transparent red herrings. But I’m ready to respond to your arguments when you feel ready to come up with some.
Dismissed
This is something of an old theory; but I confess that I agree with you to an extent. But I don’t think that a nuclear weapons entirely remove the need for a military. Firstly nuclear weapons must be both housed and maintained. Secondly, they necessarily are launched from installations, submarines, in the case of ‘Little Boy’ dropped from a B29 bomber, etc, etc. So if you take the Trident route you need to have naval bases, submarines and crews.
So you still need some form of military.
They are also rather useless against an invading force.
Don’t think so. In fact, that’s one of the few instances where a nuke can be used without any collateral damage. One could nuke an armada, tank column, or inbound aircraft. It’s relatively cheap compared to fielding an opposing force.
Assuming that another power is actually willing to risk actively invading a nuclear power akin to the US. But I agree that becomes an issue as soon as you start to consider other forms of warfare namely the hit and run tactics popular among various insurgents today.
True, but it would be a pretty small military.
Also, as long as the people are allowed to legally own weapons, I doubt another nation would be very interested in invading.
Which is one of the reasons why the people should be allowed to own weapons.
Regardless, if a nation was invaded that had nuclear weapons and no real standing army, it would be assumed they would bomb the invading country, including innocent civilians. In other words, if the U.S. decided to invade a “nuclear nation”, I would leave the U.S. rather than wait to see if I would get nuked.
A point I also made.
Which is what I said.
I hate to be the one to bring us all back to reality, but the very fact that you are capable of discussing this topic is a measure of the fact that at no time in all history has a war resulted in ‘total’ destruction.
I suggest you buy a dictionary.
No.
It was the implication of your post.
I think it a fair generalisation to state that trained armies typically defeat untrained civillians.
Of course it’s an assumption on what you mean by “trained” and “untrained”. Of course during the years of the French and Indian War and the American Revolution the colonists were looked down upon by the supposedly highly trained British. The British would call them uncivilized, undisciplined, farmers with pitch-forks, cowards that hid behind trees (and the special forces are rooted in these tactics picked up from the Amerindians by Rogers Rangers) primitive, and more savage than anything. Even those uniformed and trained under George Washington.
Everything else being equal, sure. But right now the US (not the largest military, but the best by force standards) has far less than 1 million people in it. If they were to invade, say, switzerland (where automatic weapons are issued to the males until age 30 and they get minimal militia training), they would have quite a time on their hands. In addition, a free society would have no real military targets to overtake. There are no military bases or capitals to take, no opposing forces they can wipe out in order to force a surrender.
“You cannot invade the mainland United States.
There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.”
- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
(Japanese Navy)
Notice he wasn’t referring to the military. While this sentiment is no longer true in regards to the US, it would be in an anarchist society.
I would disagree. When was the last time a populace that is allowed to legally own weapons was invaded?
I meant an in-progress invasion. You can’t nuke the force invading new York City, for example, without also nuking New York City.
Which is why one would detonate the bomb on the populace of the invading country. So yes, still very useful.
I would go the other way - it’s a fair generalization to say that trained armies typically get their asses handed to them by untrained civilians when the trained armies are invading said civilians’ homeland. This has changed dramatically over the last few decades, though, as trained armies have been able to deploy and resupply much more rapidly than throughout the rest of history.
Still useless to repell the actual invasion.