O: don’t make me challenge you to a duel.
[quote]theBeth wrote:
O: don’t make me challenge you to a duel.[/quote]
If I am the challenged, 6 o clock it is, guns.
I will send you my seconds.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]theBeth wrote:
O: don’t make me challenge you to a duel.[/quote]
If I am the challenged, 6 o clock it is, guns.
I will send you my seconds.
[/quote]
Just be sure they are well-groomed and hygienic. Beth does not approve of sloppy seconds.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]theBeth wrote:
O: don’t make me challenge you to a duel.[/quote]
If I am the challenged, 6 o clock it is, guns.
I will send you my seconds.
[/quote]
Just be sure they are well-groomed and hygienic. Beth does not approve of sloppy seconds. [/quote]
I have quick fingers. There won’t be seconds.
An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject
I have always like that one.
I’ve always liked this version, from the Colonel:
“Pick up a rifle–a really good rifle–and if you know how to use it well, you change instantly from a mouse to a man, from a peon to a caballero, and–most significantly–from a subject to a citizen.”
Jeff Cooper
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Those who hammer their guns into plowshares will plow for those who do not.
[/quote]
The meek will inherit the earth. The bold will inherit the stars.
Sooo, before the advent of rifles…there were no real men out there?
Rifles essentially made societies manlier?
I would’ve sworn it was the other way around!
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
Sooo, before the advent of rifles…there were no real men out there?
Rifles essentially made societies manlier?
I would’ve sworn it was the other way around!
[/quote]
The rifle is the technological inheritor of the bow and arrow, which is the technological inheritor of the spear. The spear allowed man to rule the earth as the apex predator of his ecosystem. So yes, before the spear/bow/rifle, man was not the master of his domain, but subject to the power of his enemies.
Hah!
I disagree!
The power of enemies shifts along with ecological cirsumstance.
My foes may not be feline with large canines anymore, they are human.
And the most dangerous ones being humans with spear/bow/rifles.
I would argue that S/B/R changed society’s concept of freedom only a little bit, but moreso by inserting new layers of complexity.
As a historical example, let’s consider the mass-levee sheep armies -essentially the most unfree of men- that the age of rifles created.
Before rifles, men were more free.
So let me go even one step further and declare that every weapon you described made us a little less free.
Spears for maximum freedom!
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
Hah!
I disagree!
The power of enemies shifts along with ecological cirsumstance.
My foes may not be feline with large canines anymore, they are human.
And the most dangerous ones being humans with spear/bow/rifles.
I would argue that S/B/R changed society’s concept of freedom only a little bit, but moreso by inserting new layers of complexity.
As a historical example, let’s consider the mass-levee sheep armies -essentially the most unfree of men- that the age of rifles created.
Before rifles, men were more free.
So let me go even one step further and declare that every weapon you described made us a little less free.
Spears for maximum freedom! [/quote]
Before rifles, men had muskets. Should I say, government agents called musketeers had muskets. Ordinary citizens had bows, spears, and firearms which were a good deal cruder than those owned by the soldiery.
The rifle, for the first time in history, gave civilians a more effective personal weapon than that in use by government agents. The rifle was as decisive a tool in fighting tyranny in the 18th century in the forests of North America against the British as it was in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries in Afghanistan against the British, Soviets and Americans, as the bow and arrow was for Arminius in the 1st century in Teutoburg against the Romans.
Weapons make men free. A free man may go unarmed if he chooses, but a slave or a subject has no choice.
As an aside, Schwarz, it’s interesting to note that the first rifle was developed in Switzerland, which seems to have some strong opinions about the notion of whether rifles in the hands of the citizenry contributes positively to their collective freedom.
Not sure if this has been posted yet, but one of my favorites:
“The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.”
-Aristotle
[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:
Not sure if this has been posted yet, but one of my favorites:
“The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.”
-Aristotle[/quote]
One of my favorites! And I didn’t even know who said it till now haha.