Texas would become its own country again,building walls on the north and south, as would probably be many other states.

When most say impossible what they are really voicing is hope coupled with normalcy bias.

It hasn't happened yet.
It hasn't happened here.
It hasn't happened recently.
It hasn't happened under these exact, specific circumstances.

quote:

Originally posted by airsoft guy:
Exactly, they gotta build the gulags first.

If you read Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago and other books on the apparatus of Soviet State Security, you'll find the first few tens of thousands of prisoners built the Gulags. It is partly why their death rate was so incredibly high (>75%). These poor sods were largely city dwellers dumped in the trackless space of Siberia or Kazakhstan with a few tools and left to figure it out, often in the depths of winter.

Alexander Dolgun noted in his book, An American in the Gulag about his experience in the post-WWII camp system that the use of prisoners to build or improve camps brought a death sentence from the prisoner's security committee.

As for Fenris' question, I'll never make it to such a camp. I'll either go down fighting or die quickly from the harsh conditions during interrogation and transportation.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
...the use of prisoners to build or improve camps brought a death sentence from the prisoner's security committee.

I don't understand what you are saying.

I'm moving to Texas.

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
...the use of prisoners to build or improve camps brought a death sentence from the prisoner's security committee.

I don't understand what you are saying.

The prisoners had their own security committee. Any prisoner who violated the prisoner's unwritten code (their version of The Waiver) was killed.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
The prisoners had their own security committee. Any prisoner who violated the prisoner's unwritten code (their version of The Waiver) was killed.

Thanks. Now I understand.

Not so much. I'm looking at what it would functionally take to get from here to there. In a country of 330 million people, the federal government doesn't have the manpower to do it in the face of of organized resistance, not just from individuals and organized civilian militias, but from the state and local governments also. Not to mention, large chunks of the military and federal law enforcement would likely rebel also.

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
When most say impossible what they are really voicing is hope coupled with normalcy bias.

It hasn't happened yet.
It hasn't happened here.
It hasn't happened recently.
It hasn't happened under these exact, specific circumstances.

These thing start small and build on the fear they create. The Gestapo and SS were a tiny fraction of Germany's population.

Q> How do you eat an elephant?
A> One bite at a time.

But seriously, the OP meant half in jest. And half not.

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
So if the Stalinist Bernie wins, who will he send to the Gulags first?

The quick answer is the Republicans. But perhaps that is too quick an answer. Bernie has been repeatedly betrayed by the Democrats. Perhaps they will be the first to count trees.

It couldn't happen to a nicer group of people.

This is just not going to happen. I will be shocked if Sanders is the candidate. I would be much more concerned about Bloomberg being the candidate. Things are lining up for him, and he will spend literally billions to win.

A) Look at history. (And I’m so not starting the civil war thing, but it is a useful precedent.)

The vast majority of officers resigned, rather than obey Lincoln’s order - but enough did to maintain a functional military - and there would be enough officers in ours who would stay, out of a conflicted sense of duty/genuine socialist impulse.

B) Use of foreign conscripts/the draft - might be very hard to draft the current local population, but foreign conscripts would be easy to source - almost impossible to train, but suppressing a rebellion is about total warfare and slaughter.

C) Data mined ID, and slowly boiling the frog. It’s not “go into wealthy/conservative rural towns in UT, ID, and TX and say “your guns or your lives”. Very unlikely they would be that stupid.

They’ve been enslaving the population for 70 years, with minimal resistance. If we were really going to fight for our freedom, being slaves for half our lives to the crony class, and then having half of what we made stolen from our children upon our death, would have already done so.

If you want to stop this, get serious about arguing for all types of freedom, especially economic freedom, get made about every wasted tax dollar, and learn how to make coherent and relevant arguments against governmental waste and inefficiency- and know that NEITHER party has ANY interest in addressing graft, and waste.

Anything else, and we’re still on the plantation.

And, most likely, it would be Catholics/Orthodox/the handful of hold-out Protestant denominations that wouldn’t go along with abortion/gay marriage/etc, that will go to the gulags first.

The “lives not worth living” will be taken care of at the abortion clinic/under governmental standards to minimize “waste” of healthcare dollars - with some loophole so that the cronies will be able to keep their children.

quote:

B) Use of foreign conscripts/the draft - might be very hard to draft the current local population, but foreign conscripts would be easy to source - almost impossible to train, but suppressing a rebellion is about total warfare and slaughter.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by airsoft guy:

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
Don't be ridiculous.

Exactly, they gotta build the gulags first.

Can't they just reuse all those FEMA concentration camps that Obama was reportedly building?

Or they could repurpose those shuttered lead smelters.

Last sentence is not funny. I am positive that you did not mean it in a bad way.

We will never have Gulags in this country. We have too many guns

But I would worry about institutional power that creeps up gradually, invading our privacy. Big Tech is mining our data, and this will be used against us in the future, I feel. You should be much more concerned about Big Tech, than Bernie F'ing Sanders. F that guy. Be worried about Facebook.

The future will be controlled by those that control the data. All data can be manipulated.

quote:

Originally posted by mrmn50:
Last sentence is not funny. I am positive that you did not mean it in a bad way.

I don't know what kind of sinister hidden meanings you've managed to come up, but I was merely likening this to the various hysterical proclamations about the Dem's supposed nefarious secret plans that made the rounds the last time the Democrats held power, about conservative being rounded up into FEMA camps, shutting down lead smelters to choke off the ammo supply, etc.

quote:

I will be shocked if Sanders is the candidate

I am confident he will not be, and I think he knows it.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:

quote:

I will be shocked if Sanders is the candidate

I am confident he will not be, and I think he knows it.

Agreed. So what is the agenda? That is the issue. That is OUR agenda. I suggest deleting Facebook, for starters. Be concerned about Bloomberg spending hundreds of millions to influence the election. That is the reality. We are not even at first base yet.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
And, most likely, it would be Catholics/Orthodox/the handful of hold-out Protestant denominations that wouldn’t go along with abortion/gay marriage/etc, that will go to the gulags first.

The “lives not worth living” will be taken care of at the abortion clinic/under governmental standards to minimize “waste” of healthcare dollars - with some loophole so that the cronies will be able to keep their children.

I don't think that 22% of the population of U.S. will be going to a Gulag.
Catholics make up the single largest religious group in the United States, with 22 percent of U.S. residents identifying as Catholic and nearly half of Americans saying they have at least some connection to Catholicism, according to new research.Sep 21, 2015
https://www.livescience.com/52...rican-catholics.html

Best would be to have a very limited government, so that handing its reins to a crackpot would be giving them a very minor weapon. Sadly, we don't have a very limited government.

We do have checks and balances that work and are designed to balance one powerful part of the government against the others, but when you get down to it, if an executive branch really didn't give a shit, got a mandate for an 'emergency' and then laughed at court orders blocking things as Unconstitutional because they weren't thinking of holding future elections, who/what exactly could stop them if push came to shove?

They'd just need something like a Dutch Communist to burn some legislative building or other, and capitalize on the emotional reaction, and then Bob's their uncle.

TL : DR - It is well to realize that governmental power is immense, and subject to abuse/misuse.