Originally posted by laiguana
I had a question, is the minute men or that group that guards the border against illegals also considered a militia?

The answer is, "no." They are a public interest group, which is not the same thing as a political interest group in that they don't professionally lobby. They "do." They don't lobby.

As a multi-State organization, they are registered in Washington D.C. like any other political action group that takes money (contributions) to do what they publicly state. Each State maintains its own chapter, which is its own seperate legal entity.

You could say they have more in common with the NRA than they do with The Montana Militia. Even so, the fact remains that they are trying to act responsibly while they speak up competently for second amendment and border security issues. It's the kind of activism that we need more of.

When these guys make a mistake, it'll get splattered all over the news. It'll be used as a "reason" to shut them down. For as long as they can operate out in the open where they can be seen, they make for good examples. They inspire and make people want to join them. Just the kind of thing that your average conspirator on the go doesn't like to see.

I have seen footage of two HIGHLY different "minutemen project" organizations. It was on FSTV and called: Walk the Line. In short there are two kinds on the boarder: the ones running around with guns acting like an army who are nutjobs and morons, then the ones who go around and have the law follow them or call them in but are peaceful. Problem is, the media tries to make it look like the gun nut groups are the whole, and the peaceful ones are non-existant. At the same time there is independent ranchers, some sane, some INSANE on the boarder as well. One got busted for having 400lbs of MARAJUANA in his house! What was so suspiciouse about it was he lived on one of the drug runner roads and fought them time to time. Even had the sheriff come out once after a firefight and proved it to him. The guy was framed.

So in conclussion, I would like to see the nutjob groups that go around fully armed removed, they are causing chaos, however the other groups that are peaceful about this are fine to continue as far as I am concerned. The reasoning is I watched what happened with the gun nuts and it came down to a near blood bath between police and "ranch rescue" forces. When you have nuts like the "ranch rescue" running around someone is bound to get shot.

As for regular militias, I am sure there are plenty of nutters out there, but also the same amount of sane people. That is the world, divided up between nut jobs and sane people. Who gets the publishings though? The insane ones, just like Justin said. It is an age old system, publish the nutters to try and get people to fight not just the nutters but the sane ones as well. Two birds with one stone.

The mainstream media doesn’t try very hard to sort out the good from the bad. This is especially true when they want to tarnish a particular person, group. Or political cause. It doesn’t matter what country you live, in, some things about the reportage never change. It’s only natural for us to like the news groups that report things with our favored point of view in mind. As good citizens, we need to remember that and act accordingly.

All good conspirators know that the war of image is won and lost on the battlefields of popular opinion. The first rule of propaganda is that people believe what they are told. The second rule of propaganda is that the larger body of evidence wins. Lawyers and journalists know this, and so should you. You can and should make it work for you. Let me explain.

In this specific case, we’re talking about militias, and groups that act like them. The difference is quite important. It all comes down to legitimacy. Most of what you know about militias and similar groups is derived from what other people have said about them. A smaller amount of information can be accessed that is generated by the groups themselves. What they say about themselves doesn’t amount to much. Anyone new to the issue will be faced with an overwhelming body of evidence that suggests negative things about these groups. The may lock on to the stuff that says whatever they want to believe, but the fact remains that no matter what they think, the vast majority of available news, books, films, blogs and essays, does not favor militias.

So, whaddya do? Open your play books and refer to Justin’s third rule of propaganda. When there isn’t much favorable information to support your position, create it. Remember that knowledge is power. When you write, post, or publish “the truth” as you see it, you are in fact participating in that larger battle of image. If you and a lot of the people whom you trust do the same thing, you will eventually develop a larger body of evidence than your oppoient has at their disposal. That’s a long run goal that won’t be easy to reach.

As a dark master of American politics, let me give you just one example that might work for you in the future. If a lot of people had something to say about me, eventually there would be so many people talking about me that “something” would happen. If the majoritive opinion is good or favorable, I might be able rewarded as I achieve national notoriety. If…on the other hand…the majority does NOT think well of me…other things happen. I could be investigated. My books could go unpublished. People could stop returning my calls…All of that results from public opinion.

Everything that most Americans know about militias has been generated by people who don’t like them. If you want to change that opinion, you’d have to tip the balance of information in your favor. Bear in mind that you’ve got to make your case by presenting information that speaks for itself. You can’t brow beat your audience in to submission. If they are able to arrive at the same conclusion that you did…without your help…you win. To do this, militias will have to speak for themselves in a coherent and factual way. The people who support militias will have to do the same thing.

It’s worth noting as a simple fact of cold hard politics that the “nutters” can fight this battle, too. True genuine “real” conspiracy investigation means looking for what’s fact and what’s fake all at the same time.

[edit on 18-5-2007 by Justin Oldham]

Well I can tell you right here right now that I met the family of a guy and the guy himself who ran a militia unit back in Ohio. Total off the wall die-hard racist, the guy was a fruitcake. And he was the commander.
One of the pathetic facts of life Justin is that groups gain legitamacy even though they are the opposite of what they call themselves. This is a fact of life, and I gave one example of a militia, it was centered around racism. Are all militias like the one guy I described? No. Are all people who are political evil? No. Do people parade around saying they will be the saviours of the people when all they want to do is lynch everyone but a select few? YES! Being able to sort through the mess is important, no, CRITICAL! Without being able to sort, and just taking a name at face value is a quick way to get knocked off. That is what happens in politics all the time, dems and repubs, two sides of the same coin. They parade as different, so people vote in accordance to who they hate the most. In the very end, they all get lynched anyway, because it would never have mattered if they had voted for the other person anyway.
Everyone must get used to seeing people call themselves one thing when they are another. In the same step people must be able to sort things out on their own without doing face value tests.

Originally posted by Vekar
Everyone must get used to seeing people call themselves one thing when they are another. In the same step people must be able to sort things out on their own without doing face value tests.

That's why I'm here. At the risk of blowing my own horn [*honk*], you will notice that I am not like other conspiracy theorists. My purpose here is to show you how these things work, and how you can do your own homework to arrive at your own conclusions. If we are to be good citizens, this is how we've got to deal with skeptics. Afterall, the truth really does speak for itself [*honk-honk*].

Justin I already know, I have known for over 5 years now about the NWO. I have known about how these groups operate for more than that, so no point honking your horn at me.

I'm not sure how you got THAT from my post, but okay.

Not sure where I saw this but about a year ago some factories were considering putting tracking chips into larger guns like .50 cal. sniper rifles and the like for military use. Guess they decided to apply this to civilian use. Great eh? This was somewhere on ATS too under the WEAPONS forum...

In the future, I would imagine that all weapons really will be "smart." The electronic revolution will bring with it a whole host of new issues for gun control debater of all stripes. For it or against, it the second amendment will remain in contention for a long time.

All of this assumesthat we can continue to win the arguments and change the minds. Privacy, as we know it, is soon to be a thing of the past. With RFID chips in your underwear and in our appliances, it'll be a different world. It's not unreasonable to assume that gun owners would want some of that technology, but how far is too far?

In the future, America's militias will have to embrace a lot of the new-er technologies if they want to remain a credible deterent. Tools like night vision devices will be a must-have for the citizen soldier on the go. REbels, guerillas, and insurgents throughout history have preferred to fight at night, but it's now become an imperative in spite of the fact that today's U.S. Army fights better at night than they do in the daytime.

We should expect that future militia tech support will figure out how to disable some of the tracking devices and other future-tech impediments. Even so, we should expect that...if it becomes necessary...22nd century Americans will do what their ancestors did. They'll rely on that old rusty piece of iron that's been gathering dust in the corner since they were born.

Justin, any army with half a brain fights better at night. Why? Your not seen as easily!!! During the day ANYONE with eyesight can spot you with the proper gear pending on their vision problems. So logically it is safer to fight at night.

Now for the RFID, I doubt they will go to the extremes of putting it in underware, that is just too much of a hastle. Getting people to get shots under the guise of "immunity shots" is more practicle, and logical. As for guns, at least you can take the chip out no? That is a huge +10 for us, a giant -100 for them for those of us who know about it. Leave the chip in till the moment of truth so to speak, then take it out. However they might try and program certain object to NOT work without the chip, however that too can be solved just by changing the mechanisms, in short taking the LOCK off the gun if you take the chip out. For nightvision, track what the chip is hooked up too and burn it off so it will work again.

As others have said on here: Build a better mousetrap, someone builds a better mouse.

You might be on to something. I would hope that things won't cometo that. I've brought this matter to your attention so that we can all talk about for a good long time before it happens. The future of RFID technologies will be contraversial, to say the least.

The only thing controversial is who will control the RFID and for what PURPOSE! It is a matter of we do not want the elite to have this kind of power, because we know how they will use it.

That's why I brought this matter to your attention. I'm hoping that more people will talk about it. It's not enough for us to complain. We've got to gather our thoughts and present them to others in any form that will get our messages out. that's why I spend so much time urging you guys to write letters, essays, blogs, and all that stuff. I do it. If we don't ue our voice while we've still got it, there may come a day when we don't have the luxury of debate. We could have this stuff forced on us.

Just so you know Justin, you were NOT the one to bring this to my attention, Alex Jones beat you to it on the RFID and the gun part was by someone else here on ATS.

I don't claim to be the first one to 'discover' this issue. It's been around for a while now. I just wanted to point out that it was being talked about by other ATS members.

Originally posted by Rockpuck
Excellent post there Justin.

Here is my personal take on the future of militias..

I believe groups will begin forming and operating much like the IRA did, and may still do. (I might anger some Brits here)

The IRA is considered the most adapted and deadly terror/political militia in history.. Hezbollah, Al Quada, Hammas.. they have all said they style their attacks on the tactics used by the IRA. The tactic they wished to copy, and so far in my opinion failed at .. is the ability to act as a normal person, then when given the call, pick up arms, bombs, shoot do what ever your job is to do and then disappear into society once again.

This kind of pick up and go militia, working as a network instead of a formal militia will be very hard to track down (as the IRA was and is)... this can assure that trans - national militias formed by say Mexicans or something will have armed resistance from this pick up networks if they intrude on their "protected area". As far as the government goes, if they wish to crack down on militias like this surveillance laws will have to be passed that would rival the UK or even China.. causing imo a new rise in militias themselves.

If it got bad enough that a militia forms into a separatist movement, the government will be nearly helpless... no government in the world that suffers the cancer of a separatist movement can rid their problem... just look at Russia in the south, China in the west, Spain in the east, Turkey and the Kurds in the south western areas.. those areas of these countries are hard to patrol and keep a sphere of influence.. and these are once super power industrialized and up and coming industrialized nations. guerrilla (literally means small war) wars are hard to fight with a standard army. A pick up militia network would be hell for our government, allowing the forming and operation of standard militias in my opinion is safer for the government in the long run.

Something tells me there is a distinct possibility that we will indeed see things very similar to the IRA in America.

Will Amercians view this as terrorism? I think some will and others won't.
Eventually I think it could grow into a separatist movement. There is already more than enough "underground" backing that if something presented itself at the right time, or under the right circumstances, people could unify behind a cause. And we see it all over the world today like mentioned. I think it could be approached in other ways also.

In all honesty, I don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.
But truth be told, apathy is not going to make the American way of life any better based on the current trends.

I have been trying to encourage discussion regarding what Americans would do to counter the threat of tyranny, but so far I have been largely unsuccessful. This seems to be a very taboo subject, and people shy away from it. I would like to see some powerful thinkers get together and collectively work up a hypothetical solution to a real world type of scenario.
Lay the facts on the table and work them out one by one.

I think before we talk about the formation/decline, or evolution of militias, we must figure out what overall purpose these groups would serve as in what the goal would be and how we would get there and the structure. A plan!

Would it be to simply resist and hope it breaks the will of the perceived threat? Would it be in the form of outcompeting the perceived threat?
Or would there be chaos?

I think Americans need to know their options.
I think in any situation that would justify Militia in America a civilian-based support system of some kind would have to be implemented, and we're Americans which leaves us to do this thinking, right?

Good thread Justin.

Good post Rockpuck.