Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan
So another question... are their parties out there deliberately encouraging and supporting exaggerated fear of government? If so, is the second amendment lobby one of them?
Absolutely. This fits within my narrative of rural America and the metropolitan Other. The NRA's targeted audience isn't the young urban minority male. Here are a couple of quotes from Wayne LaPierre:

"Hurricanes. Tornadoes. Riots. Terrorists. Gangs. Lone criminals. These are perils we are sure to face—not just maybe. It’s not paranoia to buy a gun. It’s survival. It’s responsible behavior, and it’s time we encourage law-abiding Americans to do just that.”

“We, the American people, clearly see the daunting forces we will undoubtedly face: terrorists, crime, drug gangs, the possibility of Euro-style debt riots, civil unrest or natural disaster.”

“There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people."

“We [the NRA] are the largest civil rights organization in the world.”

It's interesting to talk about this today noting the recent knife rampage in an American high school that left many injuries but no deaths, in contrast to Sandy Hook. I watched a fairly decent and recent documentary on Netflix titled Patriocracy that investigated the polarization of American politics. Part of the problem according to the film, and with which I partially agree, is the news-tainment networks (Fox, MSNBC, etc) that purport to represent objective reporting but really offer only invective and partisan bias. Combined with the proliferation of similar websites and blogs, everyone can form their own bubble to reinforce their confirmation bias instead of becoming responsible participants in American democracy.

Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon
Why will Americans, who have more than most people in other countries can dream of having, want to attack their own government? What is it they feel they are being deprived of? How does that relate to insurrection and insurgency in general?
I think it goes back to the issues I mentioned in earlier posts: urbanization, desegregation, information saturation; and throw in a couple of emergencies like the 2008 recession and 9/11 for added flavor. Rural America is in moral crisis and has been in economic duress for some time, especially in the south. It's not a coincidence that partisanship intensified in 2009 as local economies collapsed, millions were thrown out of work, municipal and local governments were thrown into chaos, and the Democrats, with Obama at the helm, managed to win the Presidency over the southern coalition. Obama epitomizes the metropolitan Other - with his education, international travel, urban origin, and of course his mixed race background. Hence all the agitation about the birther movement, the almost fanatical opposition to his policies, denouncing him as a secret Muslim or socialist. All of this despite his policies more or less mirroring the Bush administration and pulling the Democratic Party to the center-right. The fear is that Obama - the Other - will come take away their "guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment" to which rural America so tightly clings.