A resort to the militia

I've long been a proponent of readopting Founding era philosophy. It's the only way to genuinely "save" the country. Anyone proposing any other way, or some new "party" to that end, is selling a fantasy. The United States government, and freedoms it recognized, were the product of an idiosyncratic ethos and set of circumstances. It can only be preserved, or restored, through the principles and values that produced it. As I've told people for years (which they always ignore), you must read the books those men read, adopt the values they held, and conduct yourself according to the (religious) principles that governed their comportment, etc. This is extremely unpopular among an almost completely debauched society however, that prefers vacuous and hyper-simplistic slogans (typically dispensed in meme form) to study, erudition, and probity. They want all the same freedoms the Founders had, with none of the obligatory beliefs, values, and requisite self-restraint upon personal conduct that produced and are requisite to sustain them. Which is philosophically tantamount to expecting a recipe for tacos to result in a chocolate cake. It should be an a priori maxim, to any thinking person, that you can't get the same thing (limited government) from completely different ingredients (beliefs, values, conduct, etc). But that kind of simple sense is something disturbingly absent in "modern" America.

One such ingredient for freedom that's conspicuously absent today is the militia, which in the Founding era was intended to be a check upon tyranny, particularly by means of military force. As seen in my contribution on the Second Amendment (henceforth 2-A):

"A well regulated Militia, composed of the gentlemen, freeholders, and other freeman, is the natural strength, and only safe and stable security of a free Government, and that such Militia will [...] render it unnecessary to keep any Standing Army (ever dangerous to liberty) in this Colony." - Extracts from the Proceedings of the Committee of Fairfax County (Virginia), on the 17th of January, 1775.

Indeed, when one reads the language of the 2-A, it's immediately apparent one is merely reading a blatant reiteration (almost verbatim) of the sentiments held by the Revolutionists of Fairfax County above in 1775.

"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."

It should be understood that the militia was not intended to be duplicative of the military. This is made unequivocally clear by Patrick Henry, when he expresses his ardent disapproval of the new Constitution, which at that time did not contain a bill of rights with explicit protection of the people's liberties. In particular he expounds at some length about how the militia will be rendered impotent, and incapable of resisting the federal government, through deliberate and systematic disarmament of the people by that same government.

"My great objection to this government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights , or of waging war against tyrants. [....] O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone. [...] Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all? [...] A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny; and how are you to punish them? [....] What resistance could be made? The attempt would be madness. [....] You cannot force them to receive their punishment: Of what service would militia be to you, when, most probably, you will not have a single musket in the state? For, as arms are to be provided by Congress, they may or may not furnish them. Will the oppressor let go the oppressed? Was there ever an instance? Can the annals of mankind exhibit one single example where rulers overcharged with power willingly let go the oppressed, though solicited and requested most earnestly? [...] Sometimes, the oppressed have got loose by one of those bloody struggles that desolate a country; but a willing relinquishment of power is one of those things which human nature never was, nor ever will be, capable of." - Remarks At The Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5th, 1788.

As plainly illustrated above, the purpose of including the 2-A in the Bill of Rights was not to protect game hunting, or even home defense, but to ensure the ability to "wage war" against a tyrannical government. (The first two, it should go without saying, are inherent concomitants of the third.) Henry literally refers to "the militia" as "our only defense" against a wayward congress, and "the means of resisting disciplined armies." Peaceful appeals, says Henry, are not and have never been sufficient to reform a tyrannical state. (An assertion being vindicated before our very eyes in China.) How does he know that? Because the Framers tried it.

"We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne!" - Speech to the Second Virginian Convention, March 23, 1775.

There is only one means by which tyrants might be reformed.

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." - Remarks At The Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5th, 1788.

Once a people allow their Constitution to be subverted, and their liberties usurped said Adams, they shall never regain their liberties under that government again.

"A constitution of government, once changed from freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. When the people once surrender [...] their right of defending the limitations upon Government, and of resisting every encroachment upon them, they can never regain it. - John Adams, to Abigail Adams, July 7th, 1775.

Hence why the people must take great care to prevent tyranny as opposed to waiting until it's established to resist. Once the people deviate too far from the proper balance (i.e., the separation of powers), Says Adams (Discourses on Davila), "the departure increases rapidly till the whole is lost."

A standing army should be ephemeral and only convoked ("raised") for specific causes. This is why the Constitution confers to congress (the people's representatives; not the executive) the power "to raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years." The militia by contrast was intended to be a perennial force. In a free society once a conflict is over the army "raised" should be disbanded and dispersed. It is the militia (and not the military) that was meant to be the standby force, and first "resort" in the event force of arms was needed to suppress insurrections, oppose domestic tyrannical machinations, repel foreign invasions, and to provide time (if necessary) for an army to be raised for any such purposes. The men of Fairfax held this position because they knew history, and the role that permanent standing armies had played in the subversion of liberty in Europe, and under governments long before. Permanent standing armies and nationalized constabularies are a conspicuous feature, and tool of oppression, in all modern tyrannical states as well. Everywhere you see a tyrannical government today, it is preserved by the military and/or police of that state, just as it was in Imperial Rome.

Furthermore, whereas officers in the United States military are chosen by said military, officers in the Revolutionary militias were chosen by the members of the militia, assuring their loyalty to their men and local interests.

"We the subscribers, inhabitants of Fairfax County, have freely and voluntarily agreed, and hereby do agree and solemnly promise, to enroll and embody ourselves into a Militia for this County, intended to consist of all the able-bodied freemen from eighteen to fifty years of age, under Officers of their own choice, [...] from among our friends and acquaintance, upon whose justice, humanity and bravery, we can rely." - Extracts from the Proceedings of the Committee of Fairfax County.

Hence why federalists like Hamilton, cognizant of this, dismissed fears of federal usurpation of the militias.

"There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia. [...] Where in the name of common-sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests?" - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #29.

To preserve this autonomy, though the United States Congress is by the Constitution empowered to organize, arm, and discipline militias to the extent they may be "employed in the service of the United States," the states retain the right of "appointment of the officers and the authority of training" those militias, as to not render them completely subservient to the federal government.

"What reasonable cause of apprehension can be inferred from a power in the Union to prescribe regulations for the militia, and to command its services when necessary, while the particular States are to have the sole and exclusive appointment of the officers? If it were possible seriously to indulge a jealousy of the militia upon any conceivable establishment under the federal government, the circumstance of the officers being in the appointment of the States ought at once to extinguish it. There can be no doubt that this circumstance will always secure to them a preponderating influence over the militia." - Ibidem.

Whereas the U.S. Military is for the purpose of settling disputes between nations, for example, and could be sent abroad to that end, the militia's agency was primarily domestic in nature and scope. The United States government might, in the event of a large scale invasion for example, assume command of the militias to coordinate their efforts with that of the U.S. Military. But the states choosing the officers therein, and conducting their training, ensures their loyalty to their state and local interests should the federal government seek to subsume them for tyrannical purposes.

Another key distinction is that the militia exists to safeguard the liberties of the people, even from their own government, whereas the military being a proxy of government may (and has numerous times throughout history) become the enemy of such. (It seems largely forgotten in America today that the Revolutionary War was in fact English citizens taking up arms to protect their rights from their own government.) The Committee of Fairfax above makes this explicitly clear in its subsequent declaration during the same proceedings.

"We will always hold ourselves in readiness, in case of necessity, hostile invasion, or real danger, to defend and preserve to the utmost of our power, our religion, the laws of our country, and the just rights and privileges of our fellow-subjects, our posterity, and ourselves." 
- Extracts from the Proceedings of the Committee of Fairfax County.

The use of arms to defend one's "religion" is a concept now anathema in modern America; revealing how the very beliefs that produced our country have become alien to its populace. After all, the American Revolution philosophically began in America's churches, and the first shots of the Revolutiony War killed 8 men on a church lawn. But I digress.

Simply put the military (standing army) is a government entity which, in a free society, exists for the collective defense of the common interests of the whole. By contrast the militia is a state or local entity the purpose of which is the defense of the constituent components, and in the event a national government turns tyrannical, from the whole. The federal government, being comprised by laws derived from the people's representatives, should be working in the people's interests also. But in the event it should deviate from that paradigm the militia and the use of arms was intended to be the recourse. 

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #28.

It's indisputably clear that one of the primary purposes of the militia, was to protect us from our own government and military, through the possession of and use (if necessary) of comparable weaponry. 

"If circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." - Federalist #29.

Thus the notion only the military should have 'military style' rifles is patently fallacious, as the militia was intended to not only be a direct rival to the military capable of overcoming it for the purposes of resisting tyranny, but was also at times expected to become an auxiliary military force. And again, in this capacity militia members would be using their personal firearms (see Uniform Militia Act of 1792), which were no different in substance than those utilized by standing armies of the day. This truth, and proof this notion was not the wayward disposition of one or a few counties during the Revolution, is provided in the very works arguing for the adoption of the U.S. Constitution; The Federalist Papers. The fact that the existence of the militia, and its role as a check upon the military is acknowledged by the proponents and authors of the Constitution and subsequently codified into that document, illustrates unequivocally that such is not at odds with that document or a federal government operating within its legitimate Constitutional trammels. Id est, the militia, its members bearing personal firearms, those firearms being of use in a military capacity, and the militia's function as a tyranny thwarting entity are 100% "Constitutional." Indeed, governmental aversion to the militia is a conspicuous indicator it's become tyrannical. As one of the purposes of the militia according to Hamilton was to "lessen the call for military establishments," i.e., to have less need of a military; i.e., to allow for a government of limited scope and power.

I think it really needs to be emphasized that contrary to leftist assertions, the purpose of the 2-A is not to arm militias, but rather to arm people so they can form them. Hence the Amendment's distinction between militias and people, explicitly conferring the right to the latter, and not the former. ("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.") A subtle but crucial nuance lost on far too many today.

Again, the Founders were well aware that permanent standing armies have traditionally been a threat to liberty, and a preferred tool of oppressive rulers/governments. As Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice appointed by James Madison, Founder of Harvard Law, and author of America's first treatise on the meaning of the Constitution (from whence more than one quotation in this contribution is derived) observes.

"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offence to keep arms, and by substituting a regular army in the stead of a resort to the militia. [...] The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to [...] trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpations and arbitrary power of rulers. - Joseph Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, Amendments to the Constitution, 1840.

Notice Story's sentiment regarding the role of the militia; "defense against sudden foreign invasion, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers." Notice his assertion the right of the citizens (not the soldiery) to keep and bear arms is correctly considered the "palladium" (protector) of the liberties of a republic. These are all duties and attributes that would be ascribed to a military establishment exclusively in the minds of the American people today. Yet the Constitution explicitly acknowledges the militia may be called upon by congress to "execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions."

Some (leftists) will naturally argue that "well regulated militia" is a reference to the military, or something comparable to such (e.g., constabularies), and that the 2-A is conferring to members of such organizations the right to bear arms exclusively. But again primary source material refutes this notion. According to Hamilton to maintain a well-regulated militia nationwide would be impractical, if not impossible, as sequestering the whole free male populace for the time requisite to induce such discipline would result in a staggering toll on economic productivity. To produce a well-regulated militia, he observes, "is a business that requires time and practice."

"The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious. [...] To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped. [...] The scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable." - Federalist #29.

Clearly the objective of the 2-A was not that only those in a well-regulated militia should be armed. Neither were militias intended to keep firearms out of the hands of civilians, as the militia in the case of the men of Fairfax County, was comprised of civilian volunteers. The Militia Act of 1792 made enrollment in the militia and procurement of a personally owned firearm to that end compulsory. Thus militias inherently sought and served to arm civilians (as opposed to disarming them), and to inculcate upon them "such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need," that in such an event said people would be "ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it." It's common to hear leftists today speciously argue that only those with "training" should have firearms, and to construe the militia as being comprised exclusively of such persons, in an effort to construe their agenda to systematically disarm the populace as rooted in American history and law. Training with a firearm was not a prerequisite for admission into the militia however, nor lack of such a disqualification, because one of the purposes of a militia was to provide said training.

Unfortunately, the student of history observes numerous and conspicuous precursors to tyranny on display in present day America. We see a growing aversion to the keeping and use of personal firearms, considered by our antecedents "the palladium of the liberties of a republic," among the general population. And the militia, deemed by our forefathers "the natural strength and only safe and stable security of a free Government," and "the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers," has become nigh non-existent. Instead they now look to the military establishment, and a permanent standing army they naively trust to assume all those responsibilities, instead. And what this has shown us, is that growing reliance upon a permanent military establishment for all these things, diminishes in proportion the scope of personal commitment to such for the average citizen. It whittles away at their sense of duty, and personal responsibility for ensuring their own safety and liberty, until having little or none left that authority is delegated away entirely to a standing army necessarily rendered permanent by their civic apathy. A most dangerous circumstance for freedom, and something predicted by Justice Story.

"Among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline. [...] There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our National Bill of Rights." - Story, A Familiar Exposition.

Yet another factor, in addition to civic apathy, contributes to this state of affairs. Proscribed by the Constitution from appointing the officers of or training the militia, unlike the standing army in which it may do both, the leaders of the military establishment may not pack the former with sycophants loyal to itself. Thus the latter (federal government) assiduously discourages, imprecates, and has even taken an overtly bellicose disposition toward the former (the militia), aggressively promoting enlistment in and support of the military establishment in its place. And so a sort of reciprocal subversion of liberty has ensued, in which the more apathetic the citizenry becomes the more it looks to the military establishment as its defender and protector, and the more the military establishment assumes the role of defender and protector the more (the penchant of government being always to increase and never to decrease) it reserves that role for itself exclusively. 

We're seeing in present day America a convergence of numerous tyranny inducing elements. One is the substitution of a regular army in the place of the militia which Story warns is the means by which "ambitious and unprincipled rulers trample upon the rights of the people." Another is a state of perpetual paranoia and warfare, which Hamilton warns engenders among the populace a disposition of idolization, and ultimately obsequiousness to those in the military establishment.

"Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. [...] The continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free. [....] The perpetual menacings of danger oblige the government to be always prepared to repel it; its armies must be numerous enough for instant defense. The continual necessity for their services enhances the importance of the soldier, and proportionably degrades the condition of the citizen. The military state becomes elevated above the civil. [...] And by degrees the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their protectors, but as their superiors. The transition from this disposition to that of considering them masters, is neither remote nor difficult." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #8.

Hitler used continual warfare to enthrall Germany in precisely the manner Hamilton describes above. (The war effort took precedence over all else and any dissent was vilified as unpatriotic; an unacceptable failure to support Germany's venerated servicemen.) It should likewise be a cause of concern that we are now a country that's been at war so long an entire generation has been born and reached voting age. We have an entire generation of Americans who've never known anything other than a country at war, many of which are therefore highly disinclined to question the validity of such, anymore than the average person today questions the validity of Social Security, the IRS, or any other number of illegitimate federal acts or bureaucracies. And this is by design and being perpetrated by both major parties. One perpetually pushes dependency upon the government, and the other perpetually elevates (if not beatifies) its proxies (which it assiduously construes as protectors) in the eyes of the populace.

As I have long said, the real threat to American liberty comes not from the Democrats "or" the Republicans, but from the Democrats and the Republicans obliviously working in conjunction with one another despite ostensibly working against each other; i.e., the cumulative result of their polices combined. From each comes often disparate contributions, the danger of which when viewed independently is often not readily apparent, but which ultimately accrete to form a far more comprehensive tyranny. From the Democrats you get the tyranny of government controlled medicine, for example, while the Republicans demand abridgment of liberty for the sake of security; e.g., your government spying on you for your own safety. And it's common for each to adopt the other's position when in power, and to promote an abridgment today that yesterday they vociferously rebuked (because their rivals proposed it). Viewed separately, their agendas will often seem disparate, and even deceptively benign. But they both by increments contribute to tyranny in their own way, as the Democrats (Socialists) and Republicans (Nationalists), ever more groom the average citizen into a combination of both (Nationalism and Socialism), which would not so successfully be achieved independently of one another. Vindicating the sagacity of John Adams's admonition.

"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution." - John Adams, October 2, 1780.

Though one party opposes the measures of the other, they are always amenable to the measures of their own party, each incrementally advancing tyranny to varying extents. None of their partisan shills, blinded by partisan hatred, sees the loss of liberty that occurs under their own party. They only see that which occurs under their rivals. And so they take turns cumulatively advancing different aspects of tyranny, that ultimately come together to produce a general tyranny blame for which each attributes to the other in perpetuity, and which neither scales back to any meaningful degree when in power.

People today incessantly whine that government keeps getting bigger and more oppressive, but always fail to acknowledge the integral role they play, and manner in which they facilitate that circumstance. Bigger and more oppressive government in a democratic or representative society, is a direct product of a pervading public acceptance or want for bigger and more oppressive government, which is itself a product of a pervading moral collapse. "Vice destroys freedom" exhorts Gouverneur Morris, who witnessed firsthand the perturbatious travesty of the French Revolution, and "arbitrary power (and misconduct in those who rule a republic) is founded on public immorality." And what is the power of the executive to selectively ban firearm components, without legislative authority and despite the U.S. Constitution's explicit forbiddence of such regulation, if not "arbitrary?" Anyone who argues otherwise is simply estranged to reason.

So, in closing, what should one glean from all this? Some key points to consider.

• The militia is a protector of liberty according to those who birthed our nation, the "only safe and stable security of a free Government," yet the militia is virtually non-existent in modern America.

• Large standing armies, and constant warfare are a threat to liberty, and facilitate tyranny by gradually inducing subservience and/or serfdom in the populace. Yet we have a large standing army in the United States prosecuting perpetual warfare, support for which is maintained by convincing society we are in a "state of continual danger," and the continuance of which is established upon the pretext it provides "safety from external danger." (Duties originally consigned to the militia.) Any opposition to this paradigm inversion is stifled, through vilifying cynicism or criticism as unpatriotic, seditious, treasonous, etc., by those who elevate (if not revere) and view as "protectors" members of the military, and increasingly militarized para-military organizations (e.g., the police), above civilians. In reality most if not all of the alleged threats to our own soil from "terrorism," could be neutralized by coherent and austere immigration laws and enforcement, as opposed to wildly expensive interminable foreign warfare and nation building boondoggles.

We've been at war for 18 years without respite, and remain deluged by our national government (under both parties) with an endless procession of ostensible threats to our national security, safety, and existence. One party tells us that peoples and nations who've never actually attacked us, and probably never would (e.g., North Korea), are an imminent threat for which we need a massive military establishment and permanent standing army for protection. The other tells us that imaginary climatic crises, that are either complete fabrications or beyond our control to any meaningful extent, will at any moment wipe out human civilization unless we allow them to regulate virtually everything.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

The remedy is obvious. It's provided by the very men that devised our Constitution. If you really want to "save" America from federal tyranny, read the literature of our Founding, buy a gun, and join or form a militia. Or... just keep tightening the noose around your own neck that is your continued support for political duopoly in America. The choice is yours.