[MaggieL]

Originally posted by jaguar
Christ I type out one post in a hurry and I get the spelling Gestapo on my back. meh, that’s the last time I try and reply in a free period.

You took delight in nitpicking my posts for occasional dropped vowels when they were still quite legible; with multiple transposition errors per sentence and completely indecipherable words you're just gonna hear about it when your own legibility suffers. Too late for whining about Gestapo now, after playing that game yourself you've lost your innocence.

As for armies not turning on their own, look at Tiananmen Square.

I was speaking specifcally about the US. I don't pretend to understand the national psyche of the Chinese in depth at this point. Still, it does seem that most Chinese are content to struggle along under their current govenment; Tienanmen Square was pretty much Kent State writ large; a student demonstration, not a popular movement by any stretch. If the students in the square had been armed with something more than rocks and bottles, things would have been different. Probably not "better", but certainly different. But that's a counterfactual; the authoritarian regime in China knows better than to allow its people arms. So your example has nothing to do with an armed citizenry.

I could be flamebaity and say you already have a despotic regime but I’m not in the mood.

So you thought you'd say it anyway. Our "regime" still looks pretty good from here, and the result of the next presidential election here is pretty much still up in the air; hardly "despotic", even if <b>you</b> don't like their policies.

All things considered I'm glad Bush rather than Gore was in charge when 9/11 hit the fan. How much longer we're going to let him drive I don't know; we have some domestic issues that need attention.