🚀 go-pugleaf

Thus Spake klaatu <klaatu@clark.net>:


%>                         Article 1
%>                         Classification of Militia
%> Para 44-1.  Composition of miliita.--The militia of the Commonwealth of
Virginia
%> shall consist of all able-bodied citizens of this Commonwealth and all other
%> able-bodied persons resident in this Commonwealth who have declared thier
%> intnention to become citizens of the United States, who are at least sixteen
%> years of age, and, except as hereinafter provided, not more than fifty-five
%> years of age.  The militia shall be divided into four classes, The National
%> Guard, which includes the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard, the
%> Virginia State Defence Force, the naval militia, and the unorganized militia.
%> 
%> Sounds like it to me.
%>
%Sorry - the Militia is more a creation of our simian ancestors who
%banded together to defend against predators and competing simians, than
%it is of law.

John Locke.

%Law defines the Army, the Organized Militia, etc, but the Unorganized
%Militia, which is to say all persons between the ages of etc etc etc not
%enrolled in either the National Guards, or the Armed Forces of the US
%("standing army"), is not defined by law, it's simply an historical
%tradition. Men of arms-bearing age are the unorganized militia, that is
%all.

Negative.  Unorganized Militia is defined in both State Law and US Code.
 
%Unfortunately recent developments no longer deliver funding and training
%to militia units which qualify by adhering to certain standards,
%instead, the National Guards are not being absorbed as a part-time
%mostly-logistic corps of clerks who do part-time administrative work for
%the "standing Army".

Excuse me?  I suggest that you have little or no experience with the Guard.  I'm
a Combat Engineer (229th Eng BN, formerly 1/170th Inf).  Nothing remotely
clerkly.  I also know a number of Guardsmen who are Infantry (116th Inf Reg,
which went ashore at Normandy).  The Guard has fifteen independant combat (armor
and infantry) brigades, and 8 combat divisions.  You're describing the Reserves,
which are predominately CS and CSS assets.

%but insofar as regards civil war, rest assured, unless very radical
%steps are taken (and not military ones, rather think "justice=peace"),
%in my humble opinion I believe civil war on a variety of scales and
%within a variety of modes to be absolutely inevitable - in fact, within
%a purely philosophical mode, I call for it. there are huge segments of
%our population that are hagridden, disenfranchised and abused - and
%rather than that much blood be shed later, I call for a recurrent
%program of disruptional demonstration at all levels from here on in
%until justice is served and tyranny is recognized, in all of its forms,
%and summarily quashed by whatever means are necessary.

Rest assured that in such an unlikely scenario, said traitors would get the
buisness end of a riot baton.  Unless they start waving firearms, in which case,
they'll get shot.  Next silly statement.

%But by design they are being reduced to a merely clerkly and logistic
%role. Militias should be, like the Boy Scouts, Prepared to aid any and

I'm vaugely insulted.  Boy Scouts???

%all of their fellow citizens, particularly in cases of natural disasters

Which the National Guard responds to regularly.  Why don't you ask all those
Midwesterners who's filling sand bags?  Guardsmen, including some buddies I went
to AIT with.  Remember the blizzard of '96?  First weekend of January.  300
Guardsmen got called out to drive Hummers to take people in for dialysis,
deliver prescriptions, and so forth.


%As an aggregate of the taxational powers of the States, I argue that it
%does. But I might be tempted to argue that this power to tax should be
%only the result of a legitimately-enacted Constitutional Amendment.

There is an amendment to that effect.  

%What about every single citizen who can get their hands on gasoline,
%fertilizer and diesel fuel? which is to say just about every citizen?

Go for it.  See what happens.  I predict you blow yourself up.

%The Haitian Slave Revolution, where all on the same day absolutely every
%servant served their masters with puffer-fish?

Bingo.


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