Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by youhavetoforgiveme on January 15, 2012 at 12:06am

There is an older concept here that, ironically, only three percent of the American Colonists actually fired a shot against the British. Many if not most of the other 97% were either (socially) neutralized or were in favor of the revolution enough that although they didn't actually participate, they didn't help the King's forces either.

That said, for every "freedom fighter" there are not one or two, but more liketenpeople that perform critical roles in supporting each "shooter". Safe houses to hide the shooters after the firefight and gunsmiths to repair their muskets were needed, obviously. It's more than that though. They needed seamstresses to mend their clothes to keep them warm during the bitter New England winters. Messengers were needed to communicate in a society were even a "FedEx" message would take days if not weeks to arrive. Carpenters were needed to build the "secret compartments" to hide the muskets that the fighters used from the illegal search and seizures of the British troops. Farmers were needed to grow the food to feed them when they weren't actually fighting. "One if by land, two if by sea." may have been created as someone's passing thought, but the saying didn't pass out the candles and lamps and then light the right number of them at the appointed hour....

None of these "nine" other people every fired a shot and some if not most of them ever even held a firearm in their lives. For each of those nine, there were another nine that probably did absolutely nothing to assist the revolution-- except not be a "snitch" for the King's forces.

Moving forward, this is not necessarily about an internal revolt against the/our Federal Government. Equally likely, this is about an external invasion force, such as China or other countries trying to collect on our bad debt. Although we (The People) didn't create that debt, they will be MORE than happy to enslave us as a nation to extract that obligation from us even though we The People never directly profited from it.

Ideally, I would "give body parts" to have a guest speaker that actually hasdone it. Someone who has actually ran a successful resistance movement. Such a person would have invaluable information on the "brass tacks" of the logistics necessary to be successful. For example (I think I read this somewhere or something) but safe houses would have innocuous items at the front door-- such as a football AND a soccer ball-- to be the signal that the building was a "safe" house where freedom fighters could knock on the door "day or night" and receive food and shelter when needed. To all appearances, the door and the building would appear normal.

Originally when I wrote "Minute Men", I was intending it to be just that. I intended to have a discussion to figure out a away to re-create the men who would-- at a moment's notice-- jump on their horse if they had one and "come running" for when the British showed up. This discussion is starting to seem more than that...a way to find the men AND hammer out the logistics of supporting them in their efforts in maintaining our liberty...... Commentary is appreciated and encouraged. If anything my fear is that someone is going to say: "Dude, we need to break this down into more than one discussion."

Permalink Reply by Cryptocurrency on January 15, 2012 at 6:56am

Minute Men = highly mobile and rapidly deployed force

Permalink Reply by Vincent L. Guarisco on January 26, 2012 at 2:22am

Forming local militia is the optimal prime, but individual fighters are true assets to the cause as well. Either way, if the shit does hit the fan, recruitment has to be done completely off the grid and all weapons should be well hid. Infiltration and detection is the real enemy here. Many neighbors are not trustworthy and most will snitch, so I hope extreme caution is used if anybody should choose to go this route.

In Iraq, the news pundits calls Iraqi citizens who resist... "insurgents." If and when Americans decide to fight here at home, we (the freedom fighters) will be called insurgents too. Gee, I guess we do have something in common?