Would you vote to ratify the 2nd Amendment?

[Beet]

"Arms" is clearly too vague.

Clearly in the 1780s, a "well regulated militia" in the form of a large number of armed colonials bearing rifles was able to pose a significant threat to any government. The same does not hold true today. The Branch Dividians certainly could not call upon their small arms to save them. There would be nothing to stop it today if the Armed Forces decided to suspend the constitution and grant themselves police power. What we need today to protect ourselves from our won government, including the governments of other countries, clearly includes nuclear weapons.

[Beet]

"Arms" is clearly too vague.

Clearly in the 1780s, a "well regulated militia" in the form of a large number of armed colonials bearing rifles was able to pose a significant threat to any government. The same does not hold true today. The Branch Dividians certainly could not call upon their small arms to save them. There would be nothing to stop it today if the Armed Forces decided to suspend the constitution and grant themselves police power. What we need today to protect ourselves from our won government, including the governments of other countries, clearly includes nuclear weapons.

What are those people in Iraq doing?

Precisely the point! In order to stand up to even Iraq's dilapidated, demoralized little army required a vast system of command, control, communications centers, aircraft carrier battlegroups, laser-guided missiles, intelligence operations, and loads of tank battalions and mechanized infantry heavily trained, utilizing essentially blitzkreig tactics.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

It is significant that the founders inserted their reasoning explicitly into the text of the amendment. They did not have to do that.

To stand up to our own government today, to protect "a free State", would require nuclear weapons.

[Beet]

To stand up to our own government today, to protect "a free State", would require nuclear weapons.

Um, no.  What Bono was demonstrating (I think) was that even a people with inferior weaponry to our own could stand up to the world's only superpower, and eventually force them to withdraw, as they had in Vietnam, and what they threaten to make us do in Iraq.  And as far as I know, they have no nuclear weapons.

Therefore, it follows that nuclear weapons are not required to stand up to our own government -though they can help in such an extreme circumstance. 

That's exactly what I meant. Thanks for saving me the trouble to explain.

The problem with that reasoning is that, in Iraq, the entire problem is that the soldiers must differentiate between innocent civilians and violent insurgents, who blend together exceedingly well.  On the other hand, if the American military decided that it would enslave the masses, every citizen would be a legitimate target, eradicating this issue.

As, becuase there would be no loyalists. Besides, I doubt exterminating everyone in the country would be a realistic objective, even for a dictatorship, and would be quite counterproductive.

I'm not talking about extermination, but simply that they wouldn't need to worry if they accidentally shot an innocent person who they thought posed a threat to them.  If they did worry about such a thing, it's highly unlikely that they would have taken over in the first place, rendering this whole discussion moot.

The problem with this whole discussing is that Iraq is not a "free state" except insofar as the American government is willing for it to be. Frodo has completely misconstrued the purpose away from creating anarchy (which the insurgents are doing) and safeguarding a free state. The insurgents are in no way capable of establishing any sort of order. Furthermore, as is obvious in Iraq, Americas primary difficulty lies in establishing a self-sustaining democratic state that can survive free of American influence and being self-coherent. If the matter was simply putting down the insurgents, a Saddam-Hussein style (or Waco-style, or Pine Ridge Reservation) repression would do very well. But to truly win one's way over a modern government, requires nuclear weapons, rather than any sort of small arms.