🚀 go-pugleaf

Thus Spake mshinn@osf1.gmu.edu (Michael T Shinn):

%: Militia Act of 1903 is what formed the National Guard.  Note the title.
Anyway,
%: under the provisions of that law, militia units which met a certain standard
%: would be supplied and equipped by the Army.  Previous to that time, the
%: Commonwealth's forces were known as the 'Virginia Volunteers'.  
%
%Which doesn't mean a damn thing, since federal law take presedence, and
%the Guard would still be just another arm of the Federal Government - and
%sice its a standing Army - I call that an army.  A miltia is not an army.

If you want to argue that accepting Federal money makes a part-time force into a
standing army, be my guest.


%: You are right, BUT it does mention the constitution of the Commonwealth of
%: Virginia.  And as far as another Civil War, any scenario is so far-fetched
that
%: what-ifs are meaningless.
%
%Setting aside your personal opinion at the latter part of the statment,
%the first part is patently false.  Unless you took some other oath at
%MEPS, my oath said uphold and defend the consitution of the United States
%- and nothing about the Commonwealth.  

It's in there.  Check again.

%Aha - so its an army now?  Sure there not in the same militia?  (Forget
%it, you made my point)

Negative.   It is a Reserve of the United States Army _and_ a category of
Militia.  That's what dual role is.

%(WBTS... call it what it was The Civil War... sheesh, maybe the death of
%deterministic statehood and the birth of grand federalism.. but WBTS?)

War Between The States.  Which starts a flamewar every time I say it.

%Then you understand that the speration of the reserve and active
%components is growing harder and harder to define.  Especially with the

No argument.

%deployment of an all national guard unit to the Sinai, and other FEDERAL
%deployments during peace times.  The whole time I was a reservist we never
%called ourselves a militia - we always trained to the ARmy standard and
%training for federal contingencies except for CD - but even that was to
%the federal standard.

Of course.  Back to the bit about Militia Law of 1903.

%Well have to agree to disagree on this one, I don't recognize the
%definition of a standaing army as being equal to that of a militia.
%Regardless of the veracity of the need for a militia, thats immaterial to
%the argument which seprates an army for a militia.

I'll conceede that.

%: OK, I'll go halfway on this one.  The NRA vociferously supports those who
affirm
%: the basic premise of the Whiskey Rebellion, which is that the Federal
Government
%: does not have the power to tax (whether it be in general or them personally).

%
%I don't ever remember seeing tht as part of there platform.  I think you
%might be reading into your rhetoric on that one.  Last time I checked they
%were not a tax lobby, but a gun lobby. 

I didn't say that they made that case.  Just that they argue for the right of
those who do make that case to own assault weapons.

%Been there, took it, got an A.
%And I suppose weearing down the moral resolve of the USA didn't help win
%the war for the NV either did it?  It could only have been won with
%conventional weapons eh?

Nope.  What broke the US resolve was the Tet Offensive, which was about as
conventional as the 12th SS Panzers.

%I never said the Continential army was a partisan force, I said the war
%was won by partisians.  I suggest you check your history again, the
%contential army got some serious defeats handed to it.  And this nation
%wasn't as united as perhaps you my think during those revolutionary years,
%in fact whole towns changed sides many times depending on who was the
%victor that go around.

Of course the Continental Army got it's head handed to it.  But it's victories
first attracted French support, and finally decided most of the campaigns.  Most
notably at Yorktown, which decided the war.  And the Continental Army was
undoubtedly the center of gravity-if they had dispersed, the war would have been
over.

%It was the radical particians that won many of the battles of the
%revolutionary way, and some very very nasty infighting which guaranteed
%it.  It was thru the combined efforts of many that our independence was
%won, and not thru the arrogance assertion that the war was won by standing
%armies alone.

Read more carefully.  I didn't say the regulars won the war alone, just that it
was hardly the partisans that won it finally.

%: Next point-name a insurgency that suceeded without outside support.  There's
%: been one in history, and it's obscure enough that I doubt most people will
pick
%: up on it.
%
%How does Ghandi and India strike ya?

Not an insurgency.  A PR campaign. 

John M. Atkinson
jatkinso@gmu.edu
"A nation which despises its soldiers will all too soon 
have a despicable army
                 --Jerry Pournelle