I know how ignorant I am, that’s why I ask a lot of questions.

If what I say is true, and it is, the world will smash your face in the ground as many times as is needed to ensure you are convinced that the threats are real. I don’t need to convince nor coerce you to do anything. So believe as you wish, that I am the ignorant one and you, the lesser educated and young tree in this forest, is wiser than me. But often times, belief is not enough to save you.

See, this is the point. When I said you had no idea what you were talking about, it wasn’t about the world at large or politics or the Left. It was about me. You were making claims to know me, and that is ridiculous. You don’t. You absolutely are the ignorant one when it comes to knowing me. You couldn’t even find the right stadium for that race, much less compete.

I’ll listen to you when you talk about the world. I know you’re intelligent and you’ve read quite a bit. But when you talk about me and what I know or believe or who I am, that’s laughable.

Coming from a youngling that thinks jokes are effective on the internet and that if I don’t respond correctly, that demonstrates you’re knowledgeable and I’m ignorant. Now that’s a good joke.

You have no idea what you’re talking about.

I’ll take that as another joke then. It is funnier than the other one.

That was a joke. It was clearly marked as such with a 😉 Addressing it seriously is yet another indication you don’t understand what’s happening here.

You’ll figure out just how ignorant you are, regardless of whether your jokes work online or not, soon enough. As I told Grim before, I didn’t need to lift a finger to convince him or demonstrate the power of the Left nor its evil. If what I say is true, and it is, the world will smash your face in the ground as many times as is needed to ensure you are convinced that the threats are real. I don’t need to convince nor coerce you to do anything. So believe as you wish, that I am the ignorant one and you, the lesser educated and young tree in this forest, is wiser than me. But often times, belief is not enough to save you.

Yeah, I can see that. I’m jumping in without knowing all of the context here. But it was just an honest question.

On liberty — far too many stop at “is a right”.

Yep. Far too many don’t even really understand the concept of liberty, I think.

Ymar: That’s fighting the old war and thinking Saddam’s forces are all we need to defeat and we’ll be done.

No it’s not. You really don’t seem to understand what I was doing.

I remind you that these “questions” are from you and others here.

Right, so again you’re addressing phantoms. If you want to communicate with me, communicate with me. Don’t fly off on random tangents with little relevance to the conversation going on here.

Me: You, sir, are hardly in a position to accuse me of needless complication.

Ymar: I am in the exactly right position to do so.

That was a joke. It was clearly marked as such with a 😉 Addressing it seriously is yet another indication you don’t understand what’s happening here.

You don’t have an idea of what’s possible because you are still figuring things out …

You have no idea what you’re talking about.

That’s fighting the old war and thinking Saddam’s forces are all we need to defeat and we’ll be done. That didn’t turn out to be the case, because anyone or everyone will join their forces in, once a war starts. You can’t control for the things you don’t know that you don’t know. Which is why I said it is pointless. Preparing for the worst, hoping for the best, is the standard guide. But none of that includes setting up straw regiments to beat before the war happens, nor does it mean hoping for peace and preparing for peace, not war.

When the question is how such a conflict would develop, then discussing revolution vs. civil war vs. insurgency, etc., is relevant.

I remind you that these “questions” are from you and others here. They are not from me, because I don’t need those questions to get the answers. I already had them since I had several years over the rest of you, to work on them through the more than half a decade I had extra on you and others here.

You, sir, are hardly in a position to accuse me of needless complication.

I am in the exactly right position to do so. For the same or similar reasons as you would give for the other argument.

I was a year ago; I thought we’d end up with a good Republican nominee who could give us some breathing space. Now, I just have no idea what’s even possible. I don’t know exactly what to hope for that’s realistic.

And a year ago, at Grim’s Blog, I told a Tom something G, that he was underestimating the Leftist alliance, due to his optimism. You don’t have an idea of what’s possible because you are still figuring things out and needlessly complicating them as a result. It’s only after years of polish that subjects of complexity can be reduced to simple foundations, in a human communication context. You do not have those years.

Individual freedom does not need the apparatus of society or the US laws created by humans. Individual freedom only needs divine laws, to function, similar to natural laws. When humans laws violate divine laws and seek to control human free will, those human laws must be destroyed if people desire freedom.

On the question of “guaranteed path” – may have jumped the gun a bit as “what’s your plan?” or similar has been asked on these and other blogs regarding alternative to a binary choice, and it was addressed to Bill and I (and presumably others who are not voting trump nor clinton).

On liberty – far too many stop at “is a right”. We do believe in natural rights. But that is not enough to make it exist for us. As we are finding out it is much easier to lose rights than to keep them.

However, I’m going to pick a couple of nits. (Because that’s my raison d’etre, in case you haven’t already guessed.)

First, liberty is both a right and a responsibility.

Second, I have no idea what I’ve written that makes you think this:

TD, you and others seem to want a sure, guaranteed path.

Maybe others have asked you for that, but that’s certainly not true for me.

That said, I agree with most of the rest.

I’m still very interested in what people think the way forward is, but I want to reply to a few things now.

OM: Convention of States, Article V and a long (decades) political fight is a plan, giving up and hoping things will be better after “we win the Civil War II” is not a plan.

I completely agree with pursuing the Convention of States, and that we are no matter what going to be involved for decades. I am increasingly pessimistic about our odds, but I am also far from giving up.

And as I mentioned above, a year ago I was quite optimistic. I didn’t expect any of the candidates to save us (we aren’t electing messiahs), but several of them would have made solid improvements. The odds seemed to be solidly in our favor.

Big Maq: Well, TD, you are blending two ideas. You may be explaining how “other” people are seeing large-scale violence as possible today, but that doesn’t mean that it is probable, nor desirable / optimal to respond as if it were likely.

Something I tried to convey was that I didn’t know how probable it was, and I don’t think many people do. I know I’m hearing more agitation and grumbling that we ought to have a new revolution, and at first I wrote it off as hyperbolic, but I have been assured several times that some folks mean it.

I certainly didn’t say it was desirable. Quite the opposite.

Second, the circumstances were well different at those times versus now. Doesn’t say we won’t ever get there, but we have multiple avenues to explore before we need to settle on war or insurgency or some other violent means to take corrective action.

Well, yes and no. I do think we are just as oppressed as the colonists were in the years leading up to the Revolution. Maybe more so. I just don’t think a revolution would help anything today, and would rather be quite destructive.

Arguing from history is always arguing from analogy, and that is never perfect. Circumstances today are always different than they were yesterday.

That said, we do have multiple peaceful avenues to explore, and I’m glad you’ve talked about that.