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Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 09:07:14 +0800
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FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED AUG. 31, 1997
    THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
    'Necessary to the security of a free State'

    J.P. recently wrote: "I agree that things like the court system
can be
privately funded. ... However, my greatest concern is that a military
that
has to run a "pledge drive" in order to provision itself would not be
capable of posing a credible deterrent to any nations bent on
conquering
the US. If  you could address this point, I would appreciate it.

    #  #  #

  O.K. ...

  First, the notion that it's all right to steal at gunpoint "some
modest
amount, as long it serves a legitimate public need" ignores the simple
moral truth that the end cannot be allowed to thus justify the means.

  When I loot your paycheck without your permission to do "good
works," I
can't possibly know whether that leaves you one dollar short of the
money
you needed to buy medicine for your dying mother, or one dollar short
of
the money you needed to complete an experiment that might result in
the
discovery of a cure for cancer.

  There is literally no way to measure the opportunities I thus steal
from
you, and how their potential results might weigh against what (start
ital)I(end ital) decide to do with your money. (Even assuming power
won't
corrupt me until I can blithely assure you that "tobacco subsidies"
are "in
the public interest.")

  But on to J.P.'s main point: the need to fund a standing, federal
army.

  The only thing that grants the United States government any
legitimacy --
that supposedly differentiates it from some gang of bandits that
swarms
down from the hills and extracts tribute for as long as the coast
seems
clear -- is the Constitution.

  The Constitution would have not have been ratified by enough states
to
take effect without solemn binding promises that a Bill of Rights
would
quickly be enacted. Without the Bill of Rights, the Constitution is
invalid
and of no force.

  The Bill of Rights prominently features the Second Amendment, which
instructs us: "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."

  This is a founding principle of our nation. Should the national
government eviscerate or foreswear that principle, it is not only our
right, but our duty, in Jefferson's words, to "alter or abolish it,
and to
institute new Government."

  The founding document does not find ANY role for a standing,
professional
army in  preserving "the security of a free state." As a matter of
fact,
the founders traveled the land, preaching the EVILS of a professional,
standing army. And they were right.

  Our domestic, professional, standing army today consists of
individual
legions, somewhat on the Roman model but also on the model of the
personalized Waffen SS Divisions created as adjuncts to Hitler's
Wehrmacht,
with personal loyalty oaths sworn to the Fuhrer, and customized
uniforms
adopted with silver dagger or death's-head totems, etc.

  Currently going through precisely the kind of expansion and rearming
that
transformed Hitler's personal bodyguard from the scruffy SA
brownshirts of
1934, to the well-armed, professional SS divisions of 1940, our own
paramilitary legions are today dubbed "ATF, "FBI," "FBI Hostage
Rescue,"
"DEA," etc.

  Some of these units now number in the THOUSANDS, and are authorized
to
deploy COMBAT AIRCRAFT. They routinely train with precisely the kinds
of
explosives and automatic weapons you or I could go to prison for
merely
possessing, and practice rapid helicopter deployment and "dynamic
entry"
into URBAN AREAS. These guys are not just getting ready to investigate
the
next Lindbergh kidnapping.

  Can such outfits exist in parallel with a strong citizen militia?
They
WILL not, and they are currently demonstrating this to us in spades,
by
infiltrating with agents provocateurs every legitimate citizen militia
unit
they can find, framing the leaders on amorphous "conspiracy" charges,
and
sending them away for decades.

  As they say in the popular sword and costume series, "There can be
only one."

  But what is equally important, is to realize that a citizen militia
is
ADEQUATE to defend the security of a free state, even against the
largest,
most powerful, most technologically advanced power in the world.

  George Washington proved this in 1781. And for anyone who harbored
the
illusion that "conditions have so changed in 200 years" that this was
no
longer the case, the Vietnamese and then the Afghans successively
proved it
again, in our own lifetimes.

  Next time: Do we need a standing army, at all?

Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las
Vegas
Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin@lvrj.com.
The web
site for the Suprynowicz column is at http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/.
The
column is syndicated in the United States and Canada via Mountain
Media
Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas Nev. 89127.

***


Vin Suprynowicz,   vin@lvrj.com


"A well-regulated population being necessary to the security of a
police
state, the right of the Government to keep and destroy arms shall
not be infringed."