An armed and fighting anti-slaver, gave his life for the cause.
Modern liberals: “Give up your guns!”
No. Hard no.
Here it come, bring it:
“LOL, you’ll die fighting you pathetic loser!”
Yeah. Might work out that way. Probably will if they come for me, much prefer dying with my boots on thank you very much. But I’m not laying down a coward, begging the cops to spare my life.
Uh, I mean, John Brown wasn’t exactly fighting his war with legal guns, so the modern context of liberals being in favor of gun control isn’t all that applicable. “Beecher’s Bibles” were illegally shipped into Bleeding Kansas, John Brown butchered a few slavers with a broadsword (very metal), and his most prominent action involved raiding a government armory in order to get guns.
Excellent point! But no, in the fight against fascism, I don’t particularly care where one gets their guns. As to legality, the bad guys are doing it, why not all of us?
As to legality, the bad guys are doing it, why not all of us?
I would only find that argument compelling in the context of advocating for the complete overthrow of the current government. Otherwise it just sounds an awful lot like LARPing of the same sort that… well, militia movement types who glorify Ruby Ridge engage in.
The alternative is simply trusting the state will wield their violent powers fair and justly.
There are numerous steps one can take to provide oversight to the actions of a state that do not include a literal arms race between the civilian population and the state. I would go so far as to say that civilian firearm ownership is near-negligible in terms of threats that a state actor can face, and that glorification of civilian firearm ownership as a means of ‘preventing tyranny’ is exactly the kind of atomized and easily-struck-down approach to dissent that right-wing governments encourage.
Put it this way - if things get bad enough that you’re planning a shootout with state forces, the point where individual acquisition of an AR-15 would make the difference has long passed.
And how are those numerous steps enforced?
If you’re asking how oversight is enforced, then I freely invite you to examine the past century of behavior in democratic polities which involves varying levels of participation and opposition to the state in utilizing methods most effective at the given time to maximize the impact of participation by the general population and the generation of continued enthusiasm from said population. Violence is often involved - the idea of making the state ‘scared’ to ‘come to [an individual’s] door’ by civilian firearm ownership a la GOP-style no step on snek dick-waving rarely is.
If you want me to outline the totality of escalation from civic participation to civic disobedience to direct action, I’m gonna have to decline.
A general strike would be one example.
It’s hard to have an army without an economy, and it’s hard to effectively enslave a nation by forcing them to work at gunpoint.
Looking like Abe Lincoln without the beard.
Damn he only lived 1 year. Must have had super Jack disease.
He stood there frozen for a few minutes, that’s how long the exposure time was before they discovered/invented materials that are more sensitive to light… and then of course, found ways to mass-produce them. Maybe he stood there five minutes?
Gotta wonder how his day was going before tidying up and being asked to stand there like a statue while staring straight at the box in front of him, and how it went after that. In that environment so familiar yet still utterly alien to our eyes. What did he have for dinner that evening. How were the restaurants and bars of the era?
It was a world of steam power but that predated electricity, except maybe for the telegraph, transmitting its’ mysteriously instantaneous messages in Morse code wherever the country-spanning wires were laid out, and no further. A world where horses were as abundant as cars are today. A world whose nighttime was lit by candlelight and oil-lamp.
Yes and he chose a particularly challenging pose to hold for a Daguerreotype! Many subjects back then preferred to sit in a very relaxed pose and they even used a small stand to hold the subject’s head still!
I love daguerrotypes, they’re such a vivid look into the past. Exposures outdoors in bright sunlight only took a few seconds, but as this one appears to be taken indoors he would have indeed needed to stand there for quite a while. That’s probably why his left hand is blurry (he’s holding the flag in his right hand - daguerrotypes were laterally mirrored).
Also, see the faint parallel lines all over the picture? Those are faint marks made by the photographer as he was polishing the plate just prior to sensitizing it and loading it into the camera.
He does not look like he fucks around.
Based on what I’ve heard about the guy, he does not.
