• Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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    22 hours ago

    Washington was talking about the militias that were present in the early parts of the war that were under trained and undisciplined. The red coats took them easily and they fled often so the continental congress started the continental army lead by Washington, which was a trained and disciplined army in the style of European standing armies, which was able to take on and even defeat the British occasionally.

    After the war the ruling elite still had this idealized vision of citizen militias protecting the liberty of white man and saw it as a less tyrannical, and cheaper model then the European professional standing army and made the second amendment to encourage it. Washington was saying that that system failed and will never work and that we should have a trained army ready to take on European powers if they come back.

    Now we have the worst of both worlds, a massive army that gobbles up tax dollars and a bunch of untrained citizens with guns who barely understand what a militia is much less can protect the liberty of the nation.

    • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      21 hours ago

      Yeah, pretty much what I was getting at. We live in a country where everybody believes themselves to be the hero in their own Rambo style action movie.

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        “Just another American who saw too many movies as a child? Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he’s John Wayne? Rambo? Marshal Dillon?”

        Edit: I can’t be the only person who’s seen Die Hard.