Watching what is happening, in Iran...

[virginia mountainman]

Seeing that mass of people, screaming for Change, under that oppressive regime, Drives home, just what the founders had in mind when the wrote the 2nd Amendment..

We must redouble our efforts, to defend all of our rights, guaranteed by the US Constitution.

[depakid]

1. That sounds more like the Mullahs than the protesters

and, in any even there are plenty of small arms (and fanatics) in Iran.

[TheWraith]

3. Oh really? Explain please. nt

[depakid]

7. Go back 30 years

and listen to the rhetoric ever since.

Reminds me nothing so much as fanatics in America.

[virginia mountainman]

10. Someone is displaying a lack of knowledge about History.

The tree of Liberty needs to be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Thomas Jefferson

They where fanatical...Whern't they??

What would YOU, have done, had BushCo, decided because of the "war on Terra" he needed to stay in power for several more years? Their is a precedent for that, during WWII Roosevelt was president for three terms...

And no matter the outcome of the election, he refused to step down? and started passing even MORE laws, that built on the Patriot act?? Than he started locking up voices of decent? Like Al Gore, and had Obama, thrown in prison???

What would YOU have done?? When THOSANDS of your countrymen and women, went to protest, and they where being shot, and attacked by the police?? Would you not arm yourself too???

[iverglas]

22. I know what I'd have done

Demanded my money back.

Sounds like a really crappy movie.

[TheWraith]

12. Religious extremism versus people rebelling against tyranny...

It's sad you think so little of the ideas this country was founded on. The American Revolution and the 1979 Iranian Revolution couldn't be any farther apart: ours was about liberalism, theirs was about conservatism.

[depakid]

14. It's all the crazy talk that I and many others have a problem with

That and the fact that the revisionist history about the American revolution and wrapping paranoid notions about guns & bad guys (be whoever the may) in the flag gets old. And quite frankly, it's dysfunctional.

[iverglas]

15. education vs ignorance

If you knew the first thing about the 1979 revolution, you'd be worth reading.

[AtheistCrusader]

19. !

Welcome back

[Euromutt]

20. The Iranian revolution was a rebellion against tyranny as well

The Shah had a pretty lousy human rights record; look up SAVAK some time. Problem with the Iranian revolution, like quite a few others, was that what came afterwards wasn't much better than what had gone before. Indeed, the people on the government payroll most likely to keep their jobs were members of the aforementioned SAVAK. Hey, good torturers are a rare commodity, y'know?

[iverglas]

21. the 1979 Iranian revolution was a rebellion

against U.S. imperialism. Who does anyone imagine was bankrolling Reza Pahlavi and his SAVAK?

Yes, the champions of freeeeeeeedumb once again spread oppression 'round the world. I guess that's what those old dead white guys were recommending.

Yeesh.

The progressive forces in Iran realized that the time was not ripe for what was really needed, and made a deal with the devil that they have regretted in spades ever since. Sometimes, you don't get what you want.

[Euromutt]

23. The country with the second largest oil reserves needs bankrolling?

Color me surprised. You'll be telling me the U.S. government financially supports the House of Saud next.

No, U.S. "imperialism," as you call it, was incidental to the Islamic revolution. The revolution was about getting rid of the Shah. The US took flak because it had supported the Shah; the Shah was not overthrown because he was being supported by the U.S.

However, the fact is that the Islamic revolution counts for less every year. Because of Khomeini's exhortations to reproduce to make up the numbers of "martyrs" lost fighting Iraq, over half the population is under 30, they barely remember Khomeini, they don't remember the Shah, the Revolution means nothing to them. It certainly doesn't provide a justification to them why the clerics get the best houses, why the economy's in the crapper, and why a bunch of gray-bearded old fogies are running the show.

My parents spent a year living in Tehran in six, seven years ago. My mother's opinion was that as long as people had something left to lose, there'd be no revolution; but if they lost that, there would be trouble. Well, this might be it; if a majority of the Iranian people feel that this election was rigged (and there does appear to have been a fair amount of vote-rigging going on; I mean, Ahmadinejad declaring victory less than two hours after the rolls close in a country where votes have to be counted by hand?), thereby depriving them of the last bit of say they had in the running of the country, it could be the last straw. At the very least, it's the last straw but one, and it'll only take one more major setback for Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and the Council of Guardians to end up dangling from a crane.

[iverglas]

24. jeesuz fooking christ

Does your school system not teach you google?


No, U.S. "imperialism," as you call it, was incidental to the Islamic revolution. The revolution was about getting rid of the Shah. The US took flak because it had supported the Shah; the Shah was not overthrown because he was being supported by the U.S.


I mean, even wiki can help you here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état

"The prime minister and his nationalist supporters in parliament roused Britain's ire when they nationalised the oil industry in 1951, which had previously been exclusively controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Mossadegh argued that Iran should begin profiting from its vast oil reserves," Dan De Luce wrote in The Guardian.

"Britain accused (Mosaddeq) of violating the company's legal rights and orchestrated a worldwide boycott of Iran's oil that plunged the country into financial crisis. The British government tried to enlist the Americans in planning a coup, an idea originally rebuffed by President Truman. But when Dwight Eisenhower took over the White House, cold war ideologues - determined to prevent the possibility of a Soviet takeover - ordered the CIA to embark on its first covert operation against a foreign government."

The coup was organized by the United States' CIA and the United Kingdom's MI6, two spy agencies that aided royalists and mutinous Iranian army officers.

CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. carried out the operation planned by CIA agent Donald Wilber. One version of the CIA history, written by Wilber, referred to the operation as TPAJAX.

I doubt that Iranians are as ignorant of their history as you and others here plainly are.

[Euromutt]

25. No, for two reasons

First, I graduated secondary school in 1990.
Second, I'm a naturalized immigrant; I didn't go through the American educational system, I went through the Dutch.

Yeah, why am I not surprised you had to drag Mossadegh into this? I got a newflash for ya. Remember when I said Iranians under 30, who currently form a sizable majority in Iran, barely remember Khomeini (if at all), and certainly don't remember the Shah? They really don't care about Mossadegh. It's over fifty years ago, everyone involved is now dead, and in the interim, they've had cause to form a grudge against Saddam Hussein and his regime that eclipses whatever grudge they may had against the Eisenhower administration. The only people still whinging about Mossadegh are the disciples of Chomsky and the like, for whom nothing bad happens in the world unless it's the Americans' doing (which requires an implicit belief that history can only occur when the Americans are actors in it, which is remarkably patronizing--arguably even racist--towards everybody who isn't American).

Admittedly, that doesn't reflect on the causes of the Islamic revolution, but let me put it this way: am I supposed to believe that that particular grievance--the overthrow of Mossadegh--festered for twenty-five years before finally erupting into revolution? Am I supposed to believe that nothing the Shah actually did in the intervening twenty-five years had anything to do with why the Islamic revolution took place when it did? Spare me.

[LAGC]

26. Imperialist apologist.

As soon as you started bashing Chomsky, you revealed your true colors...

[slackmaster]

28. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

Pass the bong.

[Euromutt]

32. By "imperialist apologist," you mean Chomsky, right?

After all, he spent an inordinate amount of time making out that Slobodan Milosevic didn't do anything wrong, he was just misunderstood, and slandered by those nasty, nasty Americans. Seeing as how I spent four years working for the ICTY (and that was long before I ever considered moving to the US, let alone naturalizing) dealing with the results of Slobo's crap, I didn't have a whole lot of time for that garbage.

"True colors"... What the hell is that supposed to mean? You have to think the sun shines out of Chomsky's asshole or you have to hand in your Party card? Who appointed you junior politruk?

[iverglas]

29. what a lot of silly questions

and ever so cute twisting and distorting. History can't occur when the US isn't involved? Hmm. I don't think I said or implied that, or said anything from which it could be inferred that I thought that. Or various other things you insinuate I said/think.

Funny, though, how many vicious dictatorships around the world really would not have started or continued if the US hadn't been involved.

Seriously. Are you seriously saying that the 1953 coup was an indigenous effort? Yeesh.

I'd been practising law for over a decade when you finished high school, and a whole lot of my practice focused on Iran. Hell, I have the signed letter of thanks from Massoud Rajavi to show for it.

If you seriously don't think that the whole US Embassy occupation thing was just the tiniest bit connected to the US installing and propping up Pahlavi for all those years ... I know, it was just some kinda spontaneous US-hatred welling up in the breasts of all those fanatical Muslims ...


It really isn't just little old me.

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iran/savak/index.html

Formed under the guidance of United States and Israeli intelligence officers in 1957, SAVAK developed into an effective secret agency. ...

SAVAK increasingly to symbolized the Shah's rule from 1963-79, a period of corruption in the royal family, one-party rule, the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners, suppression of dissent, and alienation of the religious masses. The United States reinforced its position as the Shah's protector and supporter, sowing the seeds of the anti-Americanism that later manifested itself in the revolution against the monarchy.

... At the peak its influence under the Shah SAVAK had at least 13 full-time case officers running a network of informers and infiltration covering 30,000 Iranian students on United States college campuses. The head of the SAVAK agents in the United States operated under the cover of an attache at the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, with the FBI, CIA, and State Department fully aware of these activities.

... In 1978 the deepening opposition to the Shah errupted in widespread demonstrations and rioting. SAVAK and the military responded with widespread repression that killed thousands of people. Recognizing that even this level of violence had failed to crush the rebellion, the Shah abdicated the Peacock Throne and departed Iran on 16 January 1979. Despite decades of pervasive surveillance by SAVAK, working closely with CIA, the extent of public opposition to the Shah, and his sudden departure, came as a considerable suprise to the US intelligence community and national leadership. As late as September 28, 1978 the US Defense Intelligence Agency reported that the shah "is expected to remain actively in power over the next ten years."

More recent views of Iranian democrats regarding US attempts to spread its "freedom":

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HD06Ak02.html

http://www.indypressny.org/nycma/voices/360/editorials/editorials_1/

[Euromutt]

33. You must be the local straw man specialist

Because whatever it is you're trying to refute isn't actually what I said.

Are you seriously saying that the 1953 coup was an indigenous effort? Yeesh.

I didn't say that, except maybe in your imagination. I said that the overthrow of Mossadegh was not the proximate cause of the Islamic revolution.

I also didn't say there wasn't anti-American sentiment involved, nor that there wasn't some justification for that animosity. Obviously there had to be resentment of the U.S. after having propped up the Shah for a couple of decades. But that doesn't mean the revolution was "a rebellion against U.S. imperialism," as you claimed. If Pahlavi hadn't been an autocratic dictator who brutally suppressed dissent, the fact that Americans put him in the saddle would not, in and of itself, have been sufficient reason for the revolution to occur. And if he'd been an autocratic dictator etc. who didn't have American backing, he'd still have been overthrown.

[walkaway]

2. So you believe your gun rights" are about engaging in a bloody civil war?

Why am I not surprised? Next time a gun lover starts telling me it's all about hunting and collecting I'll send him your post.

[virginia mountainman]

4. The 2nd Amendment is clearly NOT about hunting or collecting...

Our founders, where radical, revolutionaries themselves..

Collecting arms, and hunting, are secondary, to the intent of the Amendment..

[Statistical]

6. The 2nd never was & never will be about "hunting & collecting". n/t

[Euromutt]

34. Given the option between civil war and submitting to tyranny...

...I'll take the civil war.

Let's not fool ourselves: it's increasingly obvious that the Iranian presidential election was rigged. Opposition candidates "lose" in their home provinces in similar numbers as elsewhere. Ahmadinejad declares victory within two hours of the polls closing in a country of 66 million where the votes are hand-counted. Khamenei endorses the result immediately afterward, when legally he's supposed to wait three days for the electoral commission to report to him, so that any complaints can be identified and resolved.

And it's not as if the theocratic component of the government doesn't have enough power to subvert the democratic process as it is; the judiciary routinely disqualifies parliamentary candidates who are "ideologically unsound" and the Council of Guardians disqualified almost every challenger in the presidential election on those grounds. So as a regular voter in Iran, you're presented with something closely approaching Morton's Fork to begin with, and when your choice between even those limited options is underhandedly denied, what do you have except tyranny under a rapidly peeling veneer of democracy?

Antonio Cassese, the first president of the UN ICTY, once made the memorable observation that "It is universally acknowledged that peace without justice is no peace at all." And he's right. Sure, it's not "universally acknowledged" by the outside negotiators who don't have to submit to the conditions they're expecting one of the parties to accept, but it affects you personally, when you have the choice between fighting or submitting--surrendering--to an uncertain future in which any freedom may be stripped from you without notice, then why should you accept an unjust "peace" for its own sake? Why is that virtuous?

Let's not pretend that there was plenty of concern one, two years ago that Bush might "suspend" the 2008 presidential election to retain power. Suppose he had; should we have submitted instead of resisting the usurpation by any and all means available? Should "peace" have trumped resisting tyranny? And if not, wouldn't it be helpful if we had access to firearms?

Sure, rebellions have been mounted successfully with, at first, weapons stolen from the oppressing party, later augmented with supplies from outside. The Irish War of Independence of 1919-1921 comes to mind. But wouldn't it have sped things along if the (original) IRA had had access to a large supply of privately owned firearms from the start?

[robinlynne]

5. oh my god, that's what it makes you think of? how sad. What about therest of what the founders said?

[virginia mountainman]

8. Yes...

I see, a people, DESPERATE, to toss of the yolk of an hyper repressive goverment..

And being almost completely powerless to do so..

The Ballot box, FAILED these poor people, it is time for them to reach for the "Bullet Box" But they do not have that ability...I bet most of that crowd wishes for that means...

[Billy Burnett]

9. And when the pile of bodies is high enough, a win can be claimed. n/t

[virginia mountainman]

11. It wont be pretty, that is for certain..

But at least, we have the ability to stack up their bodies as well.

It will be one of the darkest days of our history..

We will either prevail, or die...as a nation...

History teaches us, that this day is coming, it does, to ALL societies. I pray, that I don't see it in my lifetime

We saw, the government, under BushCo, use Torture, and Gitmo to great effect, once that "behavior" is ok, for the enemy, soon it can be used on US. Another 8 years or so, under Bush, who know what would have been done to us.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

13. I find your use of commas interesting, to say the least.

I'm not trying to be a dick or anything but I'm not sure alot of those commas are needed. I'm not an english major but I can't figure out whether your going for the "dramatic Shattner/Kirk" dialog, you're being facetious or you're comma key has a short.

FWIW, I agree with your views on the subject matter :)

[iverglas]

17. I think the excess commas

may come from reading that Second Amendment too many times (to the exclusion of much else maybe). ;)

[iverglas]

18. uh

But at least, we have the ability to stack up their bodies as well.
It will be one of the darkest days of our history..

Who "we", white man?

I thought this thread was about Iran and Iranians. Well, okay, I jest.

Didn't you down there just have an election? Whose bodies are these needing stacking, now?

[Tejas]

30. "Who "we", white man?" - nunya, not invading Canada (yet)

:rofl:

[iverglas]

16. yeah, Iranians really give a crap about what your old dead white guys said

about anything.

You and your fellow travellers obviously give exactly as much of a crap about Iran and Iranians and what Iranians think.

They do, you know. Think. The Iranian population is actually very highly educated -- in particular Iranian women.

And what they think is that they are not remotely interested in your funny USAmerican ways, although they'll welcome your friendship.

[Tejas]

31. what the heck are you talking about?

The OP is not very lengthy, and I'm having a very hard time relating your gooberisms to anything in it.


Crack?





Anyway, thank you for letting us know that you, as a Canadian, speak for all of Iran.

[proteus_lives]

27. There are many reasons why the 2nd is important.

This kind of scenario is one of them.