Edwin Vieira's point about the absence of state- and local-based militias in
America has made me think about the Second Amendment. I'm swamped but
eventually want to read Vieira's book. The Second Amendment says this:
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.
As Vieira points out, liberal opinion about the Second Amendment since the 1960s has emphasized the individual right to bear arms, but the Second Amendment is not couched in the language of individual rights. Rather, it makes an affirmative statement about militias, namely, that they are necessary to the security of a free state.
As Vieira notes, this reasoning was based on the writings of John Trenchard in "An Argument, Shewing that a Standing Army Is Inconsistent with a Free Government and absolutely destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy."
The Second Amendment makes a positive assertion about freedom, which I suspect because of cognitive dissonance, is almost universally overlooked.
The Second Amendment makes this argument: If there is no militia, then there is no freedom. Since Americans largely ended the state militias in the early 20th century, according to the Second Amendment we no longer have a free state--or at least one that is secure.
"Cognitive dissonance" refers to the tendency to avoid accepting contradiction. Since we have been trained to believe that America is a free state and that the Constitution is the document that protects that freedom, we tend to overlook the affirmative claim that without a militia, which we lack except ceremonially, we are not free or that freedom is at risk. Nevertheless, the language is plain.
The lack of interest among liberals in the reconstitution of state-based militias and the institution of universal military training (not necessarily service, but training) is that there is a large inconvenience to being trained and that universal service requires an element of coercion. As well, we tend to confuse individual self-indulgence with freedom.
Freedom does not mean that we are free to be paid without working, and it does not mean that we are free to live in a secure state without contributing to its defense. The voluntary, pay-for-service standing army is coercive because taxes are coercive, and they are necessary to support the standing army.
A citizens' militia is also coercive, but it removes the monopoly on violence currently held in Washington and downloads it to the state, community, and individual levels. That creates a valid resistance point to authoritarian power, and it also enhances the military as a defensive rather than an aggressive institution.
I don't yet have a conclusion to this line of reasoning, but many pathologies of post-World War I America stem from irresponsibility, the breakdown of the family, lack of self-confidence, and de-masculinization that arises from fatherless homes and politically correct indoctrination in female-dominated schools.
A reconstitution of militias may help reinvent freedom in America and may serve as an antidote to a range of politically correct pathologies.
https://www.thedailybell.com/…/anthony-wile-edwin-vieira-o…/
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.
As Vieira points out, liberal opinion about the Second Amendment since the 1960s has emphasized the individual right to bear arms, but the Second Amendment is not couched in the language of individual rights. Rather, it makes an affirmative statement about militias, namely, that they are necessary to the security of a free state.
As Vieira notes, this reasoning was based on the writings of John Trenchard in "An Argument, Shewing that a Standing Army Is Inconsistent with a Free Government and absolutely destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy."
The Second Amendment makes a positive assertion about freedom, which I suspect because of cognitive dissonance, is almost universally overlooked.
The Second Amendment makes this argument: If there is no militia, then there is no freedom. Since Americans largely ended the state militias in the early 20th century, according to the Second Amendment we no longer have a free state--or at least one that is secure.
"Cognitive dissonance" refers to the tendency to avoid accepting contradiction. Since we have been trained to believe that America is a free state and that the Constitution is the document that protects that freedom, we tend to overlook the affirmative claim that without a militia, which we lack except ceremonially, we are not free or that freedom is at risk. Nevertheless, the language is plain.
The lack of interest among liberals in the reconstitution of state-based militias and the institution of universal military training (not necessarily service, but training) is that there is a large inconvenience to being trained and that universal service requires an element of coercion. As well, we tend to confuse individual self-indulgence with freedom.
Freedom does not mean that we are free to be paid without working, and it does not mean that we are free to live in a secure state without contributing to its defense. The voluntary, pay-for-service standing army is coercive because taxes are coercive, and they are necessary to support the standing army.
A citizens' militia is also coercive, but it removes the monopoly on violence currently held in Washington and downloads it to the state, community, and individual levels. That creates a valid resistance point to authoritarian power, and it also enhances the military as a defensive rather than an aggressive institution.
I don't yet have a conclusion to this line of reasoning, but many pathologies of post-World War I America stem from irresponsibility, the breakdown of the family, lack of self-confidence, and de-masculinization that arises from fatherless homes and politically correct indoctrination in female-dominated schools.
A reconstitution of militias may help reinvent freedom in America and may serve as an antidote to a range of politically correct pathologies.
https://www.thedailybell.com/…/anthony-wile-edwin-vieira-o…/
No comments:
Post a Comment