We are Facing Standing Armies
This post follows: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2018/03/select-militia-national-guard-and.html
More about what Standing Armies
A Standing army:
“....unlike a reserve army, is a permanent, often professional, army. It is composed of full-time soldiers (who may be either career soldiers or conscripts) and is not disbanded during times of peace. It differs from army reserves, who are enrolled for the long term, but activated only during wars or natural disasters, and temporary armies, which are raised from the civilian population only during a war or threat of war and disbanded once the war or threat is over. The term dates from approximately 1600, although the phenomenon it describes is much older.” [quote from Wikipedia but also in my other sources]
But here is the thing, standing armies used to also serve as police, "peace keepers", enforcers, and often lived off the land as land pirates when governments were tyrannical or occupying hostile territory.
.... which means that modern armed forces; police, security guards (private armies), and similar; also are standing armies, because they are permanent, professional and sometimes they act like occupying forces when they operate in (or as if in) occupied territory.
The Threat of Standing Armies
The American Resistance website quotes James Madison:
“Quote from Madison: "The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people." ” [Madison]
James Madison helped write the constitution, but he then pivoted and supported some of the anti-federalists in adding a "Bill of Rights" to moderate the constitution and get it passed. The article I'm quoting from claims that:
“Americans [today] think of the military in glowing terms (rightly associating terms like “sacrifice,” “honor,” “valor,” and “bravery” with military service), Americans of the 18th century took a much dimmer view of the institution of a professional army. ”
He's half right. Many of the gentry around the country were scared to death of a standing Army, but there were some, like George Washington, who knew the country needed a professional army to defend the country. Those wanting a professional army could sometimes get a professional temporary army. But as soon as the conflict was over it's numbers would be reduced substantially, because of these legitimate concerns.
Time has shown that even our vaunted All Volunteer Army has sometimes displayed the negative attributes Samuel Adams refers to:
“armies were held to be “nurseries of vice,” “dangerous,” and “the grand engine of despotism.”
There have been scandals in Okinawa and Germany with our troops stationed there. These are risks of any place, or organization, where lots of young men congregate. The early founders saw Militia as a method to mitigate these risks.
Attributes of Tyranny
Indeed Samuel Adams wrote in 1776, such a professional army was,
“always dangerous to the Liberties of the People.”
The key thing is standing armies tend to become mercenary, and to evince attributes that enable tyranny:
- Soldiers were likely to consider themselves separate from the populace,
- to become more attached to their officers than their government,
- and to be conditioned to obey commands unthinkingly.
These are also attributes of occupation. Features that develop when young men are cut off, or distant from the people they are guarding, protecting, serving, or policing. Whether one is talking about colonizing powers, slave patrols, or the forces that dictators employ. Standing armies may behave with “sacrifice,” “honor,” “valor,” and “bravery” in the eyes of the dictator, colonizing power, slave owners or colonial power, but from the point of view of the people they are sent to police, guard, suppress or rule over; they are agencies of tyranny.
“The power of a standing army,” [Samuel] Adams counseled, “should be watched with a jealous Eye.”
Occupation Policing Versus Community Policing
The police of almost any large centralized governing body, unless they are close to the people, of the people and of the people; are occupying armies. Community policing is artificial and in danger of becoming tyranical unless the police are:
- part - not separate of the populace.
- More Attached to their oath of office and constitution than their officers.
- Conditioned to respect human rights and the population they are policing.
What We Need
We really need to employ select militia and militia of the whole principles to improve our system. Unless neighborhood police, who live in their neighborhoods, do the order keeping, peace keeping and vigilance, police tend to act like occupying Armies. We need police as reserve forces, who can be called in when needed locally but who otherwise patrol highways, investigate crimes and respond to emergencies.
What we don't need
We don't need local police acting like standing armies, armed for SWAT assaults or lying about their actions. Those are reserve capabilities that can be performed by centralized forces when needed.*
Note
* by "local" I mean neighborhood, village, small town. Any organization where people can't know everybody living there is centralized. This line of thought also implies we need more local democracy and "democratic subsidiarity" (delegation or assumption of power as local as possible).
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