Question about 2A
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And what good is a keyboard against an armed-to-the-teeth malicious government?
The only reason information is any threat whatsoever is because it has the potential to change the minds of those who already have arms. Once you give up your arms, you're dead. Period.
Let me see if I understand your point. Are you saying that the reason our current struggle is information-based is because the presence of firearms in the hands of citizens deters governments from going kinetic? Personally, I think it’s because propaganda is more effective at producing compliant serfs than threats of violence.
The threats of violence are the most effective. “Let us remove your earnings or armed government goons will point guns at you, shackle you, throw you in a cage, and give you a ‘criminal’ record” is definitely the main motivation for people becoming serfs.
The propaganda plays an important role in giving some of the serfs an opportunity to rationalize their serfdom as if it was their own idea: “I want to pay my ‘fair share’ of the ‘social contract’” and other brow-beaten excuses.
I don’t think guns have been used to fight taxes since the Whiskey Rebellion. If paying taxes is your definition of servitude, I won’t disagree with you, but that means Americans have been serfs since 1794.
To your main point, though — your argument seems to be that “government’s implied threat of violence is effective on citizens, therefore citizen’s implied threat of violence is effective on government.” Do I have that right?
I’ve mentioned before how the Whiskey tax and the suppression of its protesters were almost immediate examples of the failure of the Constitution to protect people from aristocratic taxation. The whiskey tax was repealed, so we can’t claim that it has had an enduring influence on people’s freedom. The legacy of that era is the demonstration of how the government can impose unfair taxation, such as the income tax legislation of 1913.
Your second paragraph isn’t really my main point, but I wouldn’t disagree with it. It’s a primitive world out there, and the threat of violence looms behind many interactions. The second amendment’s term “militia” refers to citizen force rather than government force, and “well regulated” means well provisioned with violent weapons.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
In other words, a citizenry that can threaten violence is necessary for freedom.