Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Praxis: 4GW post from 2005. It may surprise you.

Don't know how I missed this years ago, but check it out.
So what should this new 4GW armed service be? The answer of our working group at the symposium was, "a militia."
The militia was the basis of America’s defense through most of our history as a republic. More, there are two contemporary models. One is volunteer fire departments, which small town and rural America depend on and which almost always perform well. The other is community policing, where cops walk the same beat in the same neighborhood for a long time, long enough to understand the neighborhood and prevent crimes instead of just responding to them. Neither volunteer fire departments nor community police serve as control mechanisms for the federal government. They respond to their local communities, not to Washington.
The new militia’s most important function would be neighborhood watch. The only way to prevent 4GW attacks is to find out about them before they happen, and that means the militia, like community police, must know what is happening in their neighborhoods. But again, we don’t want to feed Big Brother. Almost all of what the militia knows should remain on the local level.
How can we make this happen? Our working group decided the militia should normally report to the county sheriff, a local, elected official who has a lot of independence. Sheriffs’ powers, defined over centuries in common law, allow them to tell the feds to stick it. Nor are they under the thumb of local or state politicians. If they violate citizens’ rights, they can be unelected real fast. The militia, we also decided, would not have powers of arrest unless deputized. A separation of powers between the militia and law enforcement would also help maintain citizens’ rights.
Another danger we wanted to avoid was allowing the First Generation culture of order, still characteristic of America’s Second Generation armed forces, to carry over to the new service. Like Third Generation militaries, the militia must be outward focused, prize initiative over obedience and depend on self-discipline, not imposed discipline. We therefore determined that there should be very little in the way of formal ranks or commands and no saluting, drill, uniforms (at least none required) etc. The largest unit would be the company, with an elected captain. The captain’s duties would be mostly administrative, and sub-units could elect adjutants to handle their paperwork if they wanted to. The militiamen would be free to choose leaders on a task basis, picking whoever they thought was best qualified depending on what they had to do. Yes, this means trusting ordinary citizens to show some common sense. Republics do that; if they can’t or won’t, they are no longer republics.

5 comments:

Mt Top Patriot said...

That right there will never get old.
Like what you all did in Texas.
Thanks for posting it.

Another thing never gets old, the pic of your sweetheart with the quotation concerning always having a vote.
You know, 2014 is coming, lot of good folks are going to finally grasp the illusion of voting our way out of the dire straights we face is a fallacy. They are going to be very upset when they discover they have been played for suckers.

A hand sized sticker of your trademark is something I would happily find funds for if you offered them for sale. About 1.5" x 3.5".
Mighty bit of agitprop that right there.
Hope & Change I can believe in.
They say timing is everything.
Send ya some green upfront?

Ed said...

Surprisingly, Massachusetts did something similar more than sixty years ago for the cities and towns:

http://www.massresistance.org/docs/govt09/pandemic_bill/text_1950.html

Massachusetts also has an organized militia other than the Massachusetts National Guard:

http://states.ng.mil/sites/MA/resources/MSDF/default.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_State_Defense_Force

Kenneth Barn said...

Wow this was from 2005? Thank you for sharing this. I had no knowledge about this act until you've posted it. But is this still being practiced today? Your insights will be much appreciated.

Anonymous said...

The Militia should be mandatory in each and every state, from age 18-62, no exceptions, thus giving every citizen Buy-in towards the constitution and their country. Each state overall administratively runs the militia, but ideas like those presented in the article are out-of-the-box and should be considered. Uniforms and equipment should be standardized throughout a particular state IOT enhance state pride. Weapons should be standardized and issued to all militia members "with great power comes great responsibility."

Regards,
GHD

Anonymous said...

Yeah, gotta problem with my sheriff. He "says" he supports the constitution out of one side of his mouth and on the other supports the idea of a "universal background check" system. Our Sheriff was appointed outside of the voting cycle, and appears to look like he will resign outside of the voting cycle and we will once again be set with another appointed. So I ain't coordinating anything with this type of set up while living in an area that seems so ingrained to vote for the lessor of two evils. Hell we ain't voting Liberty back with this setup.