No one gave the 9/11 terrorists a bomb, and look at what they managed to pull off.
I don’t disagree that fear of standing armies was widespread. On the contrary, I would say that a large majority of politically active Americans of the day did share that feeling. It was, after all, one of the basic tenets of Whig philosophy and Toryism had been purged during the Revolution ( along with many of the Tories ). But there were 2 branches of Whiggism, Court and Country. The “Federalists” represented the Court ideology which, as the name might lead you to believe, favored a stronger central government than the Country ideology upheld by your typical “Antifederalist”. Court Whigs were less fretful about standing armies and the Regulation of Massachusetts ( AKA “Shay’s Rebellion” ) and other rural disturbances in 1787 played up in the papers tended to make such men more apprehensive about the lack of a standing army to impose their will upon the backcountry.
Madison was exagerating when he said that all hands agreed standing armies were evil. If not then how can you explain the fact that nine state delegations voted against Mason’s proposal? I would guess that Madison was just throwing a bone to the other side because as he says the clause wouldn’t have prevented standing armies. Again though, the best proof that fear of standing armies wasn’t widespread in the federal convention is the fact that the government produced did not forbid them.
The 20th Century is not my period but it is well known that America didn’t maintain a large standing army until after WW2 so don’t bother digging up any cites for that. If you wish to argue that this change constitutes the militarization of America then I won’t contradict you. You have the history right whether it proves your point or no. You don’t need a large standing army to have an interventionist foreign policy though as even a cursory review of the presidency of Woodrow Wilson would show.
2sense is exactly right in pointing out that we’ll make the constitution fit the problem before we discard it.
I found this a propos the OP:
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2003_09_01_belmontclub_archive.html#106401071003484059
Boiled down: One nuke and the US can think about some sort of limited response; but if terrorists gain the capacity to produce nukes, the US is going to be faced with the choice of its own slow death, or else killing massive numbers of inncent Muslims.
Bit of a false dichotomy, but some truth to it.
Um, cite?
An interesting note on religious extremists: most think America is the land of the godless. A recent book has come out on the subject. TERROR IN THE NAME OF GOD: Why Religious Militants Kill by Jessica Stern. A New York Times review of the book (available for perusal to those who are subscribed to that newspaper) shows how it is often very difficult to determine which rhetoric comes from which religion. When extremism crops up, the dispensational distinctions seem to disappear, notwithstanding the ironic fact that many of the fundamentalist groups see the other extremist views as the true representatives of the “others” they are fighting against. Black separatists and white supremecists actually formed alliances over the years for this very reason (the groups were actually in agreement over what the general course of society was, even though they were violently opposed to the other group). Extremism is not an easy thing to study and while many think they are qualified to comment on the subject, it turns out that few people actually spend the time investigating the structures, beliefs, and actions of these fringe groups until after-the-fact. Then theorizing about the motivations goes on that is absolutely absurd and sometimes wrong (like the quote above) because snap-judgements are more easily had than those that are come by means of actual research.
Just my $0.02.
And it has been obsolete for exactly 100 years, ever since the Wright Brothers built the first airplane. Arguably, even before: when Great Britain built the Dreadnought.
When all you needed was a gun no different than the squirrel rifle you have on the wall at home, militias made sense.
When there was no important or relevant difference between a wooden, sail-powered merchant ship, and a wooden, sail-powered warship, a standing Navy was moronic.
But that argument died the real death when the Airplane came to pass.
Not everybody has the aptitudes to fly.
Virtually no one has the aptitudes to be a true Combat Aviator.
And the skills needed to maintain & use air-to-air weapons? Most Air National Guardsmen start out as Regulars, and with good reason.
The need fror carefully trained, technology-wise soldiers is impossible to deny—if, that is, you want the US to win wars.
I don’t believe that it’s possible to have an all militia military, today.
Your argument was valid, once upon a time.
Times change.
Doesn’t that movie “The Siege” take this position? That if there were Israel-style suicide bombings in the US, that we would quickly move to a system where the military (Bruce Willis) is rounding up people who look Arab and putting them in camps.
2sense: I would disagree that Madison was throwing them a bone, but thanks for the response.
Bosda: No. If you look at the top of my post, you’ll see that the clauses about the Army and the Navy follow one another in the Constitution, and the Navy clause has no sunset provision. The reason why is rather simple when you think about it: if you want to occupy a country, you need an army. As in Iraq.
So the true threat to liberty comes from an army. Navy and Air Force are justifiably defensive in nature, and I’m sure if the Constitution were being written today by people of the same outlook, no one would insist on a sunset provision for the Air Force.
To protect a nation defensively, a militia does just fine. On the other hand, if you want to go on the offensive, you need an army.
2sense: a quick note re Wilson: from what I can figure out, he had a relatively hard time getting us into WWI. Bush had it far easier getting us into Iraq, for the simple reason that the forces were there and available, and unlike Wilson he didn’t have to resort to a draft. Which to my mind, anyway, is a stark illustration of the danger a standing army presents.
I wasn’t refering so much to the involvement in defeating the Central Powers as Wilson’s military interventions in Nicaragua, Haiti, the Domincan Republic, Cuba, Panama, Russia, and most of all the 11 times he ordered troops into Mexico.
Mmm, you have a point. Although, with the exception of Russia, the rest of those places were conveniently close by.
11 times into Mexico? Wousa. Is that some kind of a record?