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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: CHANGE IN THE NICK OF TIME-- PART 1 of 3 A militarized police state is coming to this country--into your own neighborhood, and with you and your family as its targets--unless you start, right now, to enforce the Constitution, as is your right and your duty. In addition to their long-standing strategy of “federalizing” and para-militarizing State and Local police departments under the General Government’s Department of Homeland Security, the big brains in the Disgrace of Columbia have two additional schemes openly in the works: (i) the overtly military, which depends upon the deployment of the Armed Forces as domestic police; and (ii) the covertly military, which depends upon the creation of SOME new, ostensibly civilian, “national-security force.” The question is, “What should patriotic Americans do about this situation?” [A] The government of the United States is a type of political machinery. When in doubt about how to use any piece of machinery safely and effectively, the prudent operator should first consult the manufacturer’s set of instructions in this case, the Constitution. The Constitution explicitly provides for four, and only four, “homeland-security” establishments: (i) “the Militia of the several States” [Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16; Article II, Section 2, Clause 1; and the Second Amendment]; (ii) “Armies” [Article I, Section 8, Clause 12]; (iii) “a Navy” [Article I, Section 8, Clause 13]; and (iv) “Troops” and “Ships of War” that the States may “keep * * * in time of Peace”, but only “with[ ] the Consent of Congress” [Article I, Section 10, Clause 3]. Of these, only the Militia are described as “necessary” for “security”: “[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” [Amendment II]. And not just for “security” in some general sense, but specifically for “the security of a free State.” The Second Amendment, through the Militia, guarantees an actual “State,” with independence and sovereignty not just some impotent subdivision of a regional or global supra-national conglomeration in which each constituent nation has lost its original unique identity and authority for self-governance. And the Second Amendment, through the Militia, guarantees “a free State”a State in which the people actually (not merely theoretically) govern themselves, because that is the only form of political organization entitled to the adjective “free.” Thus, the Second Amendment, through the Militia, preserves America’s entire political system, including the Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution of the United States and the constitutions of all the States. Besides being uniquely “necessary,” the Militia are also the only permanent “homeland-security” establishments the Constitution mandates. Congress is not required “[t]o raise and support Armies” or “[t]o provide and maintain a Navy,” or to allow the States to “keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace,” if any or all of those forces are not deemed “necessary and proper” under the circumstances [see Article I, Section 8, Clause 18]. But neither Congress nor the States may dispense with “the Militia of the several States,” which the Constitution recognizes as preëxisting its own ratification and presumes will continue in existence indefinitely. The Militia are permanent because they are composed of We the People themselves. Constitutions and governments may come and go; but the People remain. Thus, the Militia are the only constitutional “homeland-security” establishments with any claim to the title “democratic” (in the good sense of that adjective). The People govern themselves if they, and they alone, exercise supreme political power. In the final analysis, opined Mao Tse-tung rightly, “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” The Militia are composed of We the People in their entirety armed, organized, disciplined, and trained to wield the Power of the Sword. Therefore, the Militia constitute the ultimate embodiment of popular self-government. Indeed, popular self-government is impossible without the Militia. Not surprisingly then, the Constitution expressly delegates to the Militia the authority and responsibility “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions” [Article I, Section 8, Clause 15]. As self-governors, We the People must exercise the ultimate power to execute the laws, because directly or indirectly they make all the laws. From the point of view of human sovereignty, We the People are the laws ubject only to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” The President, too, has the constitutional responsibility to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” [Article II, Section 3]. And to enable him to perform this duty, the Constitution appoints him as “Commander in Chief * * * of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States” [Article II, Section 2, Clause 1]. Revealingly, though, the Militia’s subordination to the President can occur only “when [they are] called into the actual Service of the United States.” Otherwise, the Militia are subject to the command of only their own officers because the Constitution “reserv[es] to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers” [Article I, Section 8, Clause 16]. The limiting adjective “actual” appeared in only one other place in the original Constitution: namely, the “actual Enumeration” on the basis of which “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States”(Article I, Section 2, Clause 3). But its use was not continued when that provision was reformed by Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment. So the now unique presence of that adjective as a condition to the President’s rightful exercise of his authority as “Commander in Chief * * * of the Militia” must have no little significance. In that context, “actual” means “existing in fact,” “current,”“not spurious,” “real,” “genuine.” Thus, the requirement that the Militia come under the President’s command solely in “the actual Service of the United States” provides a safeguard against any rogue President’s usurpation and tyranny. The requirement of “actual Service” authorizes the Militia, on explicit constitutional grounds, to ascertain for themselves whether any purported commands from such a President relate, at that time and in fact, to genuine, as opposed to spurious or pretended, “Service” in the real national interest that is, the national interest as We the People understand it. That is eminently sensible. For who else is qualified to make that ultimate determination? If a rogue President and his partisans amongst equally rogue Members of Congress were entitled to say, without fear of legally effective contradiction from the individuals called upon to perform the “Service”, that the “Service” were indeed “actual”, no need would exist for the word “actual” to appear at all. But, “‘[i]n expounding the Constitution * * *, every word must have its due force, and appropriate meaning; for it is evident from the whole instrument, that no word was unnecessarily used, or needlessly added.’” Williams v. United States, 289 U.S. 553, 572-573 (1933). Therefore, the requirement of “actual Service” reflects and reinforces the Second Amendment’s definition of the Militia’s purpose: “the security of a free State,” a “State” in which the People really and genuinely govern themselves, particularly with respect to the critical decision to employ their own martial force in the “Service” of “the common defence.” In addition, because the Militia, in and through the performance of their rightful functions, are “necessary to the security of a free State,” they have an absolute constitutional duty, as well as a constitutional right, to refuse to accede to commands from a rogue President that are unrelated to, let alone contradictory of, “the actual Service of the United States.” More than that, if the Militia are “called into the [purported, but false] Service of the United States,” they become the subjects of an unconstitutional act committed in their very presences, because that false “call[ ]” attempts to involve them directly and instrumentally in an illegal enterprise. In those circumstances, they plainly have the authority and the responsibility sine die et per esse “to execute the Laws of the Union” then and there both in their own self-defense and in the names of their States and of the United States against the perpetrators of that improper “call[ ]” along with all the latters’ co-conspirators and accomplices, whoever they may be. All this, of course, is not a matter solely of constitutional theory. The Constitution incorporates the Militia into its federal system because the Founding Fathers were familiar with the Militia’s practical indispensability in many “homeland-security” capacities. Today, the Militia have the opportunity to demonstrate their usefulness in more areas than ever before. For example Fully revitalized Militia will provide literally millions of individuals to patrol streets, malls, public places and buildings, and sensitive private businesses thus maximizing deterrence against both terrorists and common criminals. Because the Militia are composed of every adult in the community, their revitalization will result in ferreting out every illegal alien who makes his presence known to anyone in any community. The Militia will stress Local preparedness, independence, and self-reliance in every form, from providing an inventory of the work necessary to repair and upgrade crumbling infrastructure; to securing supplies of food, fuel, medicines, and other critical materials adequate for any emergency; to developing systems of production, distribution, and consumption that the people themselves control, secure from manipulations by outside speculators; to putting into use an alternative constitutional and economically sound monetary system that will protect common Americans from the inevitable and unavoidable collapse of the Federal Reserve System. With the Militia monitoring polling places and verifying and counting paper ballots, the present-day scourge of voting fraud will end. Because all elected public officials, police, and bureaucrats will be members of the Militia (albeit exempted from performing most normal Militia duties while serving in those positions), and therefore will be subject to investigation by the Militia for whatever infractions of the law may be credibly alleged against them, political corruption, police brutality, and “the insolence of office” so widespread, entrenched, and uncontrollable today will receive swift, sure, and severe exposure and punishment. And, When young adults, through Militia discipline and training, recognize that they are being prepared to direct their country’s future under their own authority and in their own interest when they understand the personal as well as the public purpose and benefit of and from patriotism then the level of aimlessness, dissipation, drug use, and gang violence so prevalent among today’s youth will shrink into insignificance. Regrettably, this picture of real social progress and “change we can believe in” because common Americans would themselves cause it to happen is at present no more than visionary. Although the Constitution requires that all able-bodied adult Americans (not subject to exclusion for some constitutionally acceptable reason) be organized in some manner in “the Militia of the several States,” Congress and the States’ legislatures have consigned the vast majority of Americans to the oxymoronic “unorganized militia.” Although the Constitution requires that all members of the Militia (other than conscientious objectors) possess firearms equivalent in firepower to those carried by at least light-infantry units in the Armed Forces, Congress has enacted statutes (in which the States acquiesce) that make it very difficult if not impossible for average Americans to acquire such firearms and the Supreme Court in the recent Heller case has endorsed this situation (albeit only in dicta), even while pretending to uphold “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.” Although the Constitution requires training the Militia in order to prepare common Americans to deal according to the principles of self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and particularly self-governance with “homeland-security” problems in their States and Localities, no such programs are in general operation, preparation, planning, conception, or even contemplation. And although the Constitution recognizes no professional “police forces” whatsoever whether attached to the General Government, the States, or Localities the States treat their “police forces” as independent of and even superior to their (largely nonexistent) Militia, when constitutionally if “police forces” may exist at all they must be specialized units within, and ultimately subject to control by, the Militia. This situation flies in the face of Congress’s and in default of Congress’s action, the States’ absolute duties to organize, arm, discipline, and train the Militia. In particular, the Constitution delegates to Congress, in the interest of promoting national uniformity, the powers “[t]o provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia” [Article I, Section 8, Clause 16]. Inasmuch as the Second Amendment declares that “[a] well regulated Militia” is “necessary to the security of a free State,” and inasmuch as “well regulated Militia” are those organized according to the statutory pattern common in the Colonies and independent States prior to ratification of the Constitution, Congress must exercise its power by enacting such appropriate legislation. Or if Congress neglects, fails, or refuses to do so, the States themselves must enact their own statutes the Militia being, after all, “the Militia of the several States.” Although this is clear enough from the simple juxtaposition of Article I and the Second Amendment, further proof is available. The preamble to the Bill of Rights explained its purpose as follows: THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution * * * . RESOLUTION OF THE FIRST CONGRESS SUBMITTING TWELVE AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION (1789), in Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union of the American States, House Document No. 398, 69th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1927), at 1063. So, because the declaration in the Second Amendment operates “to prevent misconstruction or abuse of [Congress’s] powers”that is, to limit or remove entirely Congress’s aberrant discretion in the premises those powers relating to the Militia must be so exercised as to achieve the Amendment’s goal with respect to the Militia, and in no other manner. That goal requires the Militia to be sufficiently “well regulated” that they be capable of actually providing for “the security of a free State.” Part of that “regulat[ion]” involves reliance on “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.” So, arming the people with firearms suitable for Militia service is Americans’ absolute right and Congress’s absolute duty. Organizing the people in suitable Militia units throughout the country is Americans’ absolute right and Congress’s absolute duty. And so on, through all the elements of “[a] well regulated Militia.” So, too, with the States. Insofar as Congress’s duties with respect to the Militia are absolute, it cannot possibly set up some other force to take the place of, absorb, or control the Militia. Moreover, that other force could not possibly be the Armed Forces in any event, because the Militia are intended to be a counterweight to the Armed Forces. See Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown, and Company, Fifth Edition, 1891), Volume 2, § 1897, at 646. And that other force could not possibly be some heretofore unheard-of “civilian national security force”, if only because all of the potential recruits for that force should already be members of the Militia! A fortiori, if Congress which exercises “[a]ll legislative Powers * * * granted” in the Constitution [Article I, Section 1]cannot displace the Militia with some other force, the President who enjoys no legislative power whatsoever cannot do so either. Indeed, the President could not do it, and should not want Congress to attempt to do it, because displacing the Militia with (say) some new “civilian national security force” would strip him of part of his status as Commander in Chief by depriving him of some of the forces the Constitution declares he is to command, while adding nothing to that status, because the Constitution makes no provision for substituting new forces in lieu of those (unconstitutionally) displaced. Indeed, by specifying that the President is “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States,” the Constitution explicitly denies him the status of “Commander in Chief” of any other force. Expressio unius exclusio alterius. Having thus reviewed the right answer, analysis of the wrong ones is now appropriate. [B]The overtly military scheme should be investigated first, because at least the Constitution does provide for Armed Forces. According to an article in The Washington Post of 1 December 2008 by Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson, entitled “Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security,” the basic plan is to deploy some 20,000 troops “trained to help state and local officials to respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe.” The dangerously open-ended term here, of course, is “other domestic catastrophe.” The most likely indeed, now almost certain“other domestic catastrophe” will be an explosion of the Federal Reserve System in hyperinflation, accompanied or followed by a depression, with concomitant economic chaos, social upheaval, and political unrest permeated with mass violence. In any event, it is obvious that whoever in the final analysis commands the troops will determine when a “domestic catastrophe” sufficiently grave to rationalize their deployment has occurred, and then will tell “state and local officials” what to do. Even The Washington Post reports critics’ complaints that this is “‘a creeping militarization’ of homeland security.” “Creeping militarization,” however, is hardly descriptive of this situation. “Leaping” is more accurate. The Post quotes an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Security as admitting that before 9/11 “dedicating 20,000 troops to domestic response * * * ‘would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable’ * * * . But the realization that civilian authorities may be overwhelmed in a catastrophe prompted ‘a fundamental change in military culture.’” The question, though, is why would “civilian authorities * * * be overwhelmed in a catastrophe”? The answer is that they are not prepared to deal with “catastrophes”neither the affected States and Localities themselves, nor those States and Localities in coöperation with others. And why not? Not because they lack the money, the manpower, and the other necessary resources but because no State or Locality has a proper constitutional Militia in place, or in the process of revitalization. Inasmuch as “[a] well regulated Militia” is “necessary to the security of a free State,” and inasmuch as no such Militia exists within any of the fifty States, of course “civilian authorities [will] be overwhelmed in a catastrophe.” The Constitution itself presciently warns that no other outcome is possible. The Post’s story further reports that “[l]ast month, * * * authorities agreed to begin a $1.8 million pilot project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency through which civilian authorities in five states could tap military planners to develop disaster response plans.” Yet, if these States can concert their efforts in such a “pilot project,” why could not other States, or all of the States for that matter, design, test, and put into practice a wide variety of appropriately individualized programs, even without infusions of money from FEMA (and the strings of control stretching back to Washington, D.C., that are invariably attached to such subsidies)? This kind of experimentation is precisely what I propose should be done by private citizens in order to establish “homeland security” on constitutional principles State by State across this country. [The book is entitled Constitutional “Homeland Security,” and is available for $19.95 postpaid ($20.95 for purchasers within Virginia), check or money order payable to “Edwin Vieira, Jr.,” at 52 Stonegate Court, Front Royal, Virginia 22630.] If I could figure this out without any help from FEMA, “military planners” or others in Washington any competent State legislator can figure it out just as well, especially now that I have supplied him with the answer. Provided that his constituents organize themselves to give him a politically forceful nudge in the right direction. Typically, though, the scheme emanating from Washington (and apparently being accepted without question in some States) relies, not on We the People who organize themselves and take personal control of “homeland security” “from the bottom up,” but on aloof and elitist “civilian authorities” who “tap military planners to develop disaster response plans” “from the top down.” The obvious nd ominous anomaly in this situation is that We the People not only are the subjects of “homeland security,” whose defense and welfare are its objects, but also are the most important, constitutionally speaking, of all “civilian authorities”. So any plan that invests “civilian authorities” and “military planners” instead of We the People with ultimate control that emphasizes bureaucracy rather than democracy, and “federalization” rather than federalism is unlikely to provide “homeland security” in its only constitutionally acceptable form: “the security of a free State.” Moreover, as a practical matter, “top down” organization from Washington must prove inadequate, if not doomed to failure. If recent History is any guide, the “top down” approach invariably delivers too little real assistance to States and Localities, too late, and at too great a cost; and what it does provide is too often ham-handed, counterproductive, or even futile. And apparently nothing will change as a result of this latest scheme to “tap military planners to develop disaster relief plans.” For The Post itself reports that “a congressionally chartered commission * * * concluded in January [of 2008] that the [National] Guard and reserve forces are not ready and that they lack equipment and training” to “respond adequately to domestic disasters”. So, once again, the big brains in the District of Confusion are caught advocating that the blind and the lame lead everyone else! Worse yet, as The Post reports, “critics * * * express concern that the new homeland security emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military’s role in domestic law enforcement.” A critical concern, this: For, although the Posse Comitatus Act is only a statute, it nonetheless reflects the Constitution’s express mandate that “the Militia of the several States”not any part of the Armed Forces be “call[ed] forth * * * to execute the Laws of the Union” in domestic disasters (or at any other time, for that matter). So one must ask why no one in public office, in either the General Government or the States, proposes that the Militia be revitalized so that they can be “call[ed] forth” for their constitutionally appointed service before anyone advocates “tap[ping] military planners to develop disaster response plans,” let alone deploying troops to carry out those plans. This constitutional objection to which no adequate response is possible should be paramount in the minds, not only of civilians, but also of every member of the Armed Forces. They all should ask themselves precisely what is the constitutional basis of this plan or of any other plan to deploy thousands of troops “trained to help state and local officials to respond to a * * * domestic catastrophe.” Such a scheme might be constitutionally plausible if the Militia, although fully organized, armed, disciplined, and trained, had proven unable to perform their three constitutional functions“execut[ing] the Laws of the Union, suppress[ing] Insurrections and repel[ling] Invasions” [Article I, Section 8, Clause 15]in the face of one “domestic catastrophe” after another. Self-evidently, though, that condition precedent has not yet occurred simply because, being thoroughly “unorganized” through the fault of Congress and the States’ legislators, “the Militia of the several States” have not been and cannot be put to the test in any State. In advance of such a test to which the Militia actually prove unequal, the Armed Forces should have no place in a general plan to “help state and local officials to respond to * * * domestic catastrophe[s]”. The Constitution describes the Militia not the Armed Forces as being “necessary to the security of a free State” because: First and foremost, the Armed Forces are not composed of every able-bodied American from sixteen to sixty, and thus the very embodiment of We the Peoplethe Militia are. The possibility that “martial law” might be declared as the result of some “domestic catastrophe” does not to any degree detract from these observations. One may well doubt that “martial law” has any place whatsoever in America’s constitutional system. For, as Sir William Blackstone told the Founding Fathers and continues to tell us, “martial law, which is built upon no settled principles, but is entirely arbitrary in it’s decisions, is * * * in truth and reality no law, but something indulged, rather than allowed as law * * * ; and therefore it ought not to be permitted in time of peace, when the * * * courts are open for all persons to receive justice according to the laws of the land.” Commentaries on the Laws of England (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Robert Bell, American Edition, 1771), Volume I, at 412. Moreover, the Constitution provides in no express manner for any declaration of “martial law” by anyone, for any reason. But if any form of “martial law” is somehow constitutionally permissible, such “martial law” must be among “the Laws of the Union”there being no other body of laws, except “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” to which Americans are subject. The Constitution, however, explicitly delegates the authority and responsibility “to execute the Laws of the Union” to the Militia, and to the Militia only. At base, the Militia are “martial” establishments. Therefore, in the first (and probably every) instance, “martial law” within the United States, if it can be executed at all, must be executed by the Militia, not the Armed Forces. Throughout history, “martial law” has all too often proven to be an engine of oppression easily directed by usurpers and tyrants at common citizens. But if We the People themselves, through “the Militia of the several States,” execute “martial law,” they certainly will not be usurpers; and they surely will not tyrannize themselves. Standing armies, however, are quite another matter. Again and again, “martial law” has whetted the appetites of professional soldiers for permanent political power. Not only in ancient Rome have the Legions of the Republic devolved into the Praetorians of the Empire. America’s Armed Forces as vitally important as they are for their proper purposes should be, should always want to be, and surely understand today that they are the very last source from which this country ought to draw its political leadership. They know that their charge is to defend America from her enemies not to suppress and oppress We the People in aid of usurpers or tyrants, and thereby to become the People’s foremost domestic enemies! But knowledge alone is not always enough. So the Armed Forces should never be exposed or allow themselves to be exposed, let alone seek to expose themselves to any temptation to overstep their true constitutional boundaries. For these reasons, the Armed Forces all the members of which have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution should desire, perhaps more than any other group, the restoration of the Militia to their rightful constitutional place, prominence, and legal prerogatives. The plan to deploy some 20,000 troops “trained to help state and local officials to respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe” is deficient for reasons of impracticality as well as illegality. According to The Washington Post, the proponents of this plan claim to be “‘preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents.’” But 20,000or even 200,000troops will not suffice, should major “domestic catastrophe[s]” occur simultaneously in enough widely scattered places throughout the country. Besides being inadequate in mere numbers, the troops and their heavy equipment will not already be on the ground where they are needed a decisive oversight in the plan, if as the result of the “catastrophe” transportation has been slowed or even shut down. In addition, when they finally arrive the troops will almost surely find themselves inadequately trained for all contingencies, because they will not be aware of peculiar local conditions, resources, and needs. They will not know how to coöperate with local residents to everyone’s advantage. Therefore, they will not be trusted by the people they are supposed to help particularly if they attempt to impose “top down” control in the typical ham-handed manner of military bureaucracy, with uninformed but nonetheless imperious decisions filtering down tardily from the distant headquarters of various “Colonel Blimps.” Even if the recondite, but real, purpose of this plan is to prepare mobile “strike forces” to cow common Americans into submission to usurpation, tyranny, and other forms of oppression directed at them from the Disgrace of Columbia, the scheme cannot succeed. Opposed to the 20,000 troops will be an estimated 80,000,000 households in possession of one or more firearms, and a total of some 260,000,000 firearms in private hands that is, a nationwide disparity of some 4,000 to 1 in personnel (which is a minimal estimate, because many households will have more than one individual capable of using a firearm) and some 13,000 to 1 in firearms (surely also a minimal estimate). Unless the 20,000 troops should prove to be greater warriors than Leonidas and his 400 Spartans at Thermopylae, these odds are rather daunting in favor of We the People. Here, one should also recall the (perhaps apocryphal) account of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s visit to Switzerland just before World War I. Boasting of his army’s invincibility, Wilhelm pointed out to a Swiss militiaman that the German Army had twice the manpower of the Swiss. “If so,” replied the militiaman, “we Swiss shall each shoot twice and then go home.” In the face of all this, what should the officer corps in the Armed Forces be saying? That this plan is within neither the Armed Forces’ constitutional authority, nor their institutional competence. That it is politically counterproductive if not overtly dangerous. That in the “worst-case scenarios” which supposedly provide its justification, it cannot work. That, instead of adopting this plan, “the Militia of the several States” should be revitalized immediately, if not sooner. And that the Armed Forces should coöperate closely with the Militia to provide the most comprehensive system of “homeland security” compatible with “a free State.” [C] The scheme to create some new, ostensibly civilian, “national-security force” is even more problematical than the plan to deploy troops around the country. Although the details remain vague, the “big picture” is stark enough: In The Chicago Tribune of 26 July 2008, John McCormick reports Barack Obama as saying: “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” And in a 2006 interview with Ben Smith of the New York Daily News, Obama’s soon-to-be-inside-the-White-House controller, Rahm Emanuel, disclosed that: “We’re going to have universal civil defense training, somewhere between the ages of 18 to 25 you will do three months training * * * which will give people a sense of what it means to be an American.” Americans would be terminally deficient in patriotism if they needed the likes of Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, or anyone else at the apex of Washington’s political pyramid to devise a “universal” compulsory program to “give [them] a sense of what it means to be an American”. Even more deficient, though, are Obama and Emanuel with respect to their familiarity with elementary constitutional principles. Once again, for those who need to be “give[n] * * * a sense of what it means to be an American” by reviewing the actual text of “the supreme Law of the Land,” the only place the only place in which the Constitution mentions “security” is in the Second Amendment: “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.” And this is, as well, the only place the only place in which the Constitution declares that any specific thing is “necessary” for any purpose. As previously noted, the Constitution also refers to “Armies,” “a Navy,” and “Troops, or Ships of War” that the States may “keep.” But nowhere in the Constitution exists any explicit power or permission or even suggestion for any Branch of the General Government to create some “civilian national security force” at all, let alone one “that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the Armed Forces. No such power or permission being delegated, no such power or permission exists. Surely it cannot possibly be an “implied” authority, in the face of the four-fold delegation of express powers for other “security” forces. Expressio unius exclusio alterius. Certainly some new “civilian national security force” cannot be created and deployed before revitalization of the very establishments the Constitution declares to be “necessary.” And if it cannot precede the Militia, it cannot supersede them, either. Certainly, too, some new “civilian national security force” cannot be an organization based on universal compulsion (that is, a “draft”). The only constitutional establishments that undoubtedly may require compulsory service are “the Militia of the several States”, which at every stage in their history required all able-bodied free men to serve in some capacity (unless exempted on some very narrow ground of public necessity). Constitutionally, any draft from the general population for the Armed Forces is highly questionable. For just as can the power to tax, the power to draft can be “the power to destroy.” If one man may be drafted from the Militia, any number may be, possibly depleting the Militia to nonexistence or at least impotence. Then how could the Militia serve as “checks and balances”as the Constitution requiresagainst a standing army bent on promoting the ambitions of usurpers and tyrants? See Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown, and Company, Fifth Edition, 1891), Volume 2, § 1897, at 646. Can the Constitution possibly countenance the absurd result that the very “checks and balances” against the standing army may be emasculated by the simple expedient of absorbing them into the standing army? And if a draft that undermines the Militia is impermissible for the Armed Forces which at least the Constitution explicitly mention show could “universal compulsory service” in some new “civilian national security force”of which the Constitution says nothing at al lbe conceivable? Obviously. such a draft could effectively destroy the Militia by: first, conscripting Americans from the age of 18 to 25, the prime years for the most effective Militia training; second, subjecting individuals who should be serving in the Militia to control by officers of the General Government in addition to the President, which the Constitution does not allow [see Article I, Section 8, Clause 16]; third, compelling common Americans to “be employed in the Service of the United States” for more than the three constitutionally permissible purposes [see Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16]; and fourth, imposing a “top down” system upon “homeland security,” rather than employing the “bottom up” structure required by the Second and Tenth Amendments and all the principles of federalism that conduce to “a free State.” Those naturally suspicious of politicians may rightly speculate as to what dark purposes Obama and his cohorts may possibly entertain in calling for this new “civilian national security force”that it would function as a species of Komsomol to indoctrinate young Americans in the Party line, teaching them how to be the contemporary incarnation of good “Soviet persons”that it would radicalize this country’s youth as neo-Maoist Red Guards, then turn them loose to terrorize patriotic Americans into acquiescing in totalitarianism even that it would devolve into an a latter-day Hitler Youth, militarizing and fanaticizing young Americans to become cannon fodder in foreign wars intended to advance the imperialistic designs of global fascism. Such suspicions, however, are not necessary for anyone to know that the proposed “civilian national security force” is, to say the very least, undesirable. For, unless that force solely and faithfully serves constitutional purposes, it will serve non-American, un-American, and even anti-American special interests. And unless it takes the constitutionally prescribed form that is, as revitalized “Militia of the several States”it will not, it can not, serve constitutional purposes. So, now what? What must America’s patriots demand of Obama if he persists in calling for such a force? Nothing less than that he support revitalization of “the Militia of the several States” by the States. Simply put, enforce the Constitution. That would be “change we can believe in.” And in the nick of time, too.
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#1. To: DeaconBenjamin (#0)
if only....
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