[marktwain]

The MSM has done a great deal to smear the idea of militias.

[1010RD]

Statists hate people and the militia is the people.

[1010RD]

The only fault I find with the author is his now natural tendency to place government above the people. We clearly need a professional class to manage certain parts of our society to our benefit, but they're still just hired hands and not our superiors.

From our Declaration:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

Unalienable rights cannot ever, ever be removed, traded or sold. The purpose of American government is unique. We need never look to another man-made nation for its laws or examples. In America government exists only to secure and keep secure our unalienable rights.

[cripplecreek]

The MSM has done a great deal to smear the idea of militias.

That they have. Most members that I've met are good people with a thin scattering of scumbags that exist within any group. I live less than 1000 yards from one of the Hutaree members who was arrested a couple of years ago. I personally have no use for the guy but don't think he's a threat to anyone.

[hfr]

For a Victorian (English 1855) point of view read "Westward Ho" by Charles Kingsley. It is set in Elizabethan England at the time of the Spanish Armada.

In one chapter the local "militia" is raised. These are the everyday citizens, not a department of government. They are the able bodied men of the neighborhood, who were expected, in fact required, to be in possession of arms, and to be proficient with them.

In fact, Kingsley has a passage on the Englishman's right to keep and bear arms where he eloquently writes of how Queen Elizabeth loved and trusted rather than feared her subjects and relied upon them being armed for the defense of the realm. And how in fact she rested more easily knowing that her people were indeed armed and able to come to the defense of Queen and Country in short notice. And on the other hand Kingsley aptly tells how a government that doesn't love or trust the citizenry fears to have them armed.

I should did that passage out and post it sometime. It's worth the short read.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

[ansel12]

In the 1980s there were articles about militias serving in WWII.