True Vs. False Militia And Why The Difference Matters - Parts 1-3
Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Ph.D., J.D.
They have four options:
Silence—to keep as many people as possible in the dark about revitalization of the Militia for as long as possible. If that does not work,
Misdirection—to lead the initially small number of self-educated idealists and activists into self-destructive behavior. If that does not work,
Defamation—to smother the movement in derision and demonization, so as to poison the minds of the general public, and thereby stunt the movement’s growth. And only if all these do not work,
Suppression—to employ brutal police-state methods to smash the movement (although such a course of action may prove problematic, possibly self-defeating, once the Militia have been revitalized in even a few States).
With the Internet in so many homes, silence is no longer a viable tactic. The idea already courses through the ether, easily accessible to all and not subject to erasure. Moreover, left to its own devices, it can only gain adherents and practitioners, because revitalization of “the Militia of the several States” offers the best alternative available to return this country to constitutional self-government by We the People in the near future.
Defamation is not at the present time a viable tactic, either. Inasmuch as derision and demonization contradict the tactic of silence, they can be employed only when silence no longer suffices: that is, only when an idea already threatens to explode into a powerful political movement. For revitalization of the Militia, however, that time has not quite arrived. So the Forces of Darkness need not yet mobilize their morally club-footed Goebbels-figures in the media and among the intelligentsiia—although this country can expect to hear from these ranters soon enough, as more and more common Americans wake up, listen up, and start to speak and act up, and the enemies of popular self-government try to shut them up with name-calling, bluster, and threats.
So, right now, Americans should expect the Forces of Darkness to favor misdirection in order to divert idealists and activists from the true Militia to various false “militias”. Misdirection can be adventitious, when the Forces of Darkness rely on common people who are acting in good faith, albeit mistakenly. Or it can be artificial, when the Forces of Darkness deploy their own malicious agents provocateurs and other operatives to conduct people down blind alleys.
1. In the first category are found most of those Americans around the country who already participate in, or contemplate joining, various private “militias.” By in large, their motivations are patriotic and to that extent laudable. Nonetheless, because few of them are legal historians, their research tends to be less than sufficient, their plans less than adequate, for the difficult task they have set themselves to perform.
Although some of these private “militias” claim “common law” as their basis, they cannot stand on such a foundation. For “common law” had nothing whatsoever to do with the formation and operation of the Militia in any of the Colonies or independent States prior to ratification of the Constitution. All of those Militia were the products of charters or statutes. And in none of them did judges or sheriffs play any directing role. Under the Constitution, therefore, the same pattern must obtain today.
As wholly private organizations with no legal authority peculiar to themselves—for certainly not a single one of them has been empowered by a State statute to participate in the activities they have taken upon themselves—these “militias” are necessarily not parts of the government of any State or Locality. Indeed, they view themselves as at least potential antagonists and opponents of “the government” in general—which they condemn (and not inaccurately) for serial oppressions already inflicted upon common Americans; which they suspect (and not unfairly) is plotting to commit even more of these offenses; and which they intend and are preparing to resist. Their resistance, however, they proclaim will be entirely defensive—an assertion supported by their behavior. For their members arm for and train in the small-unit tactics practiced by guerrilleros, steeling themselves for the day when “the government” causes some crisis so devastating that large numbers of Americans are compelled to rise up in open, armed rebellion, to preserve their lives, liberties, and property from wanton destruction.
That such a crisis is possible, perhaps rather probable, is anything but a paranoidal delusion that haunts these private “militias” alone. For example:
Some 9/11-type “terrorist strike,” whether real or engineered, might be used to rationalize a nationwide police-state lockdown under “emergency powers” and “martial law.”
As part of or in preparation for such a lockdown, a nationwide seizure of privately owned firearms might be attempted.
A gun grab might set the stage or provide the excuse for a nationwide round-up of dissidents for incarceration in concentration camps.
A monetary and banking collapse might usher in, or result from, a nationwide police-state crackdown. And,
Even an apparently benign “merger” that melds Canada, the United States, and Mexico into a North American Union could serve as a reason for confiscation of Americans’ privately owned firearms—because the “gun-control” laws in Canada and Mexico could not coexist with the rights Americans now enjoy under the Second Amendment; with “open borders” the traffic into and out of the United States would defeat those Canadian and Mexican laws; and, therefore, the Second Amendment would have to be set aside perforce of the North American Union’s supposed “supremacy” in hemispheric legislation.
In any event, when the day of reckoning finally dawns, for whatever reason, these various private “militias” expect to fight “the government” somewhere —in the forests, swamps, and hills—in the sewers and utility-tunnels of the big cities—in the residential rabbit warrens of suburbia—until the majority of the population finally comes to its senses and joins them. Or at least the “militias” will survive as guerrilleros, managing to elude extermination or capture.
Such private “militias” exist, and will continue to exist, because they embody the romantic legends that surround Robin Hood, Francis Marion, John Singleton Mosby, Michael Collins, the French Resistance, and the Hungarian freedom fighters. Unfortunately, in any major crisis in the near future they will fail of their purpose, because they will lack sufficient members, supporters, and sympathizers. This, for at least three reasons:
First, these private “militias” enjoy no credible claim to any actual legal authority as “militias.” And, absent color of authority, they cannot convince more than a small minority of Americans to participate actively in their operations, or the majority of their countrymen to support them even passively.
Second, these private “militias” tend to recruit their members almost exclusively from one social group: the so-called “gun culture.” For this reason, all too many Americans dismiss them as being composed of “extremists,” if not worse. Such misconceived disdain is the practical kiss of death for their strategy, because in the classical formulation guerrilleros are the fish, the rest of the people the sea—and without the sea in which to move, to find nourishment, and to hide from predators, the fish will die.
Third, and worst of all, these private “militias” predicate the necessity for their existence on the conclusion that the American people have already lost the major legal and political battle for liberty. For them, “the Constitution is dead”—“the government” is separate from, independent of, antagonistic to, and irretrievably the enemy of We the People—and tyranny cannot be deterred, forestalled, or defeated throughout this country, only feebly resisted here and there.
To characterize this argument as merely erroneous credits it too much. It is pernicious. For the Constitution is absolutely essential to prove what We the People’s powers are, and (even more to the point) what the powers of rogue public officials are not—in particular, that these usurpers and tyrants enjoy no more authority, and should expect no more obedience, than a bag-woman on the streets of New York City. After all, without the Constitution, what legal basis for self-government by We the People must public officials respect? If the honest ones want to claim their offices under the Constitution (as all of them do, at least in form), they must also admit the Constitution’s limitations on the powers of those offices. They cannot assert their constitutional powers without abiding by their constitutional disabilities. Therefore, they must concede We the People’s supreme authority under the Constitution, too. And as for dishonest, rogue public officials, the Constitution provides We the People with the most efficacious means to suppress their misbehavior, if Americans have the wit, the wisdom, and the will to use it—the very first step in the process being to affirm that those means are very much alive, not “dead.”
Part 2
Besides being wrong, the argument that the Constitution is “dead” is stultifying and defeatist. Stultifying, because it diverts the energies of the most active patriots into a wholly unproductive exercise—the only effective resistance to unconstitutional “government” being, not private action, but the unflagging defense of constitutional government by the people themselves. Defeatist, because, by eschewing constitutional means to oppose unconstitutional “government,” it concedes that some form of unconstitutional “government” will prevail, no matter who “wins” in the end.
In addition, the argument that the Constitution is “dead” encourages and further empowers America’s oppressors. On what legal basis can these villains be opposed, except that their conduct is unconstitutional? How will they be deterred from even worse wrongdoing in the future, if the Constitution provides no punishment today for the wicked deeds they have already committed? And without deterrence, what new horrors will they perpetrate tomorrow under color of some “emergency powers” they invent to rationalize their crimes?
Finally, by encouraging and empowering the Forces of Darkness in their misrule, the argument that the Constitution is “dead” accelerates the approach of a major economic and political crisis. This may be what some of the advocates of private “militias” imagine will be useful, on the theory that, when a massive crisis does strike, common Americans will finally wake up to what has happened and why. Maybe that will be the general reaction. But what good will it do for Americans to wake up, if at the same time they find themselves utterly unprepared to take effective action? All they will know is that they have lost, and that they can do nothing about it!
2. Proposals for private “militia” of this first type are less than helpful, not only because they are inherently ineffective, but also because, when their ineffectiveness becomes apparent, it may goad frustrated people into joining other types of private “militias” which are positively dangerous. This second form of misdirection also suffers from the inescapable defect that private “militias” of any variety can assert no color of legal authority for their specifically “militia”-related activities. However, unlike proposals which at least have the merit that the private “militias” they advocate are not inherently unlawful organizations, the second approach argues for private “militias” the very purpose of which is to prepare their members to engage in patently illegal activities.
These private “militias” are not to be strictly defensive organizations. Quite the contrary, they are intended to be offensive and aggressive. The scheme posits “militia” units the members of which agree—perhaps even bind themselves by oaths—to oppose by any effective means those people whom they condemn as “traitors.” Peacefully, if possible; but violently, if they deem it necessary. They will organize, arm, and train themselves as guerrilleros, more or less openly, in apparent compliance with local laws in the States that allow such private paramilitary activities for peaceful purposes. But, when a particular day for action arrives, some members of these “militia” units, on their own initiatives, will take violent action against perceived “traitors.” The rest of the units will do nothing, although they will be aware of the plan for some of them to act. Thus, on one day some of these “militiamen” may conduct an operation against one target, on another day others of them may strike another target, and so on.
These operations will be random, adventitious, decentralized, and uncoordinated—except that they will all radiate from the various “militia” units. The individuals carrying them out will be subject to no single, hierarchical chain of command or structure of leadership. Rather, they will answer only to themselves—except that they will imagine that their authority somehow derives from the “militia” units of which they are members; and in fact they will be at least tacitly supported by the others in those units. And inasmuch as this proposal presumes that “the government” cannot be actually overthrown by such minuscule “hit-and-run” operations (because the plan makes no provision for coalescing the “militia” units into suitably large and properly directed forces), these activities will continue to harass and punish “the government” and its supporters endlessly, in a “perpetual revolution.”
Obviously, under a scheme of this type, the private “militias” will function—and, more importantly, will be understood and intended by all their members to function—as locations and mechanisms to recruit, organize, indoctrinate, train, and deploy clandestine “cells” or (perhaps more descriptively) “wolf-packs” of self-authorized, self-activated, self-directed outlaws, who will form up, strike, then disperse and dissolve into their component individuals, perhaps never having the same composition in any two instances.
Even if such operations could ever prove legitimate in a guerrilla conflict in some gloomy future scenario drawn from Orwell’s 1984, they are completely out of place for reasserting constitutional self-government in this country here and now. Indeed, such proposals constitute a perfect formula for discrediting all “militias” as criminal conspiracies by designing some of them actually to operate as criminal conspiracies.
If an individual joins a group, for the purpose of training all the members of the group, and is aware that some members of the group, using their training, will engage in acts of illegal violence, and that to encourage, prepare for, and perpetrate such acts is the ultimate purpose of the group—then that individual as well as every other member of the group will be equally culpable for each and every one of the illegal acts committed by any member of the group. In such a group, therefore, every member will be held hostage: (i) to the acts of the most irresponsible, demented, or otherwise dangerous individual in the group; and (ii) to enticement, entrapment, and other schemes of agents provocateurs from rogue governmental agencies and malicious private organizations that ensnare any member of the group. For example, if but one member of such a private “militia” (on his own or through entrapment) converted a semi-automatic firearm into an unregistered machine gun or submachine gun; obtained grenades or similar munitions; or manufactured bombs, Molotov cocktails, or other explosives or incendiaries as the preliminary step to some act of violence directed (say) against a public official—then the whole group could be charged as a criminal conspiracy (such as some variety of criminal syndicalism), or even as a “terrorist” organization.
That being so, forming private “militias” of this sort would obviously be a most efficacious way to identify, inculpate, and eventually incarcerate patriots whose enthusiasm for freedom exceeded their prudence and respect for law. This is so obvious that no responsible American should ever consider participating in such an organization. For, not only would any individual who joined such a group transform himself into an outlaw, but also his participation would help to blacken the militia movement and discredit the militia idea, to alienate the rest of the citizenry, and to rationalize police-state suppression of every kind of private concerted activity involving firearms.
A scheme such as that explained above can be the product only of people who are either breathtakingly irresponsible and ignorant individuals—or transparent agents provocateurs. The latter possibility is not unlikely, because the whole business exhibits the familiar characteristics of rogue intelligence-agency “black operations”: namely,
urging Americans to engage in active resistance against “traitors” in “the government”;
organizing the most highly motivated patriots into discreet groups subject to infiltration, surveillance, and incitement;
inveigling them into violent illegal activity; then
imposing overwhelming force to strike them down as “outlaws”; and thereafter
using their example to demonize and destroy every other manifestation of even lawful opposition to usurpation and tyranny.
Even if the people who advocate schemes for such werewolfish private “militias” are not agents provocateurs—even if somehow they are acting in good faith, albeit with atrocious judgment—any responsible American must categorically oppose what they propose. As far as I am concerned, no one who advances such an idea (or sympathizes with it, for that matter) is qualified, or should be allowed, under any circumstances, to join one of the Citizens’ Homeland Security Associations that I have advocated in my book Constitutional “Homeland Security,” Volume One, The Nation in Arms.
Part 3
3. True—that is, constitutional—Militia suffer from none of these defects. Specifically:
•First and foremost, proponents of revitalizing “the Militia of the several States” refuse to assume that “all is lost” already, but instead concern themselves with how We the People, through their Militia, can preserve “the security of a free State” in this country today and throughout the foreseeable future, as the Constitution tells them they can.
•Rather than antagonists of “the government” in general, the Militia are permanent parts of each State’s government in particular, and temporary parts of the General Government when called into the actual service of the United States.
•Far from being organizations of questionable legality, let alone criminal conspiracies, the Militia are declared by the Constitution itself to be “necessary to the security of a free State,” and empowered and required by the Constitution itself to “execute the Laws of the Union.” Moreover, the Militia constitute the best way to put down usurpers and tyrants—because, when such miscreants employ armed force or the threat thereof to violate the law under color of the law, they are in insurrection and rebellion against the Constitution; and the Constitution itself assigns to the Militia the power and the duty to “suppress Insurrections.”
•Revitalization of “the Militia of the several States” can and will succeed, because We the People have the overwhelming numbers to make it work through their State legislatures, one State at a time. After all, proper constitutional Militia will consist not just of a few individuals drawn from a narrow segment of society (such as “the gun culture”), but of the vast majority of individuals enrolled from throughout the community. Militia training and duties will focus not only on firearms, but on all aspects of “homeland security,” much of which will have nothing to do with firearms. Thus, “the Militia of the several States” will need, and be able, to enlist members of the Society of Friends, as well as members of the National Rifle Association. In that way, the Militia will be unifying forces in every State, in the spirit of the “more perfect Union” that the Preamble sets as the Constitution’s very first goal—and in contradiction of the primary tactic of the Forces of Darkness, “divide and conquer.” And through unity will come strength, because We the People will become aware of their authority and power, when they finally concert their own efforts for “the common defense” and “the general Welfare.”
4. All this being so, what is to be done? Just as the Chinese character for “crisis” contains the characters for “opportunity” as well as “danger,” so too does America’s present situation exhibit both a bright and a dark aspect.
a. The bright side is the enthusiastic reception average Americans of all persuasions are giving to the Presidential candidacy of Representative Ron Paul. Now, Representative Paul should be encouraged to make revitalization of “the Militia of the several States” a fundamental, non-negotiable issue in the forefront of his campaign, for several reasons:
•The Militia are constitutionally required. For a constitutionalist President, whom the Constitution explicitly designates as “Commander in Chief * * * of the Militia of the several States,” that alone should suffice.
•Revitalization of the Militia is the best—and I believe the only—way to demolish the National police state now being erected by the NeoConzis and their stooges and fellow travelers in the General Government. And demolishing it must be every common American’s goal, before addressing any other issue—for once a police state clamps down on this country, all hope of peaceful reform will go by the boards. Once united, Ron Paul’s candidacy and a movement to revitalize the Militia could prove unstoppable, because, on both the political “right” and “left,” no one but a handful of supranational fascists, Neoconzis, and other subversives—and their utterly discredited political Pinocchios—wants a National police state.
•Revitalization of the Militia is the best—and I believe the only—way to restore real self-government to America, by having people participate, on a regular basis and in detail, in government in their own States and Localities throughout the periods between elections.
•Perhaps the President’s most important constitutional duty is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” the Constitution itself foremost among them. The Militia are the only establishments to which the Constitution explicitly assigns this function: “to execute the Laws of the Union.” Therefore, as Commander in Chief of the Militia, the President enjoys the constitutional authority to employ the Militia to fulfill his duty to “take Care.” And, in light of the numerous problems facing this country, from the current invasion of illegal immigrants to the imminence of a collapse of the monetary and banking systems, President Paul will need the assistance of the Militia at every turn.
Although he will be President, Ron Paul will not by himself be enough to turn this country around. For he will be a truly constitutional President, with powers the strict limitation of which he recognizes and respects. So he will need the full support of a self-governing people to ensure that “the Laws be faithfully executed” in the face of all the opposition that the Forces of Darkness will incite against him. And the Militia will provide this support. Who else can?
For example, President Paul will surely refuse, on constitutional grounds, to enforce the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and other abusive legislation of that ilk. For the time being, that may suffice. But the long run is a different matter. As a constitutionalist, President Paul cannot formally strike those statutes from the books. Neither can he unilaterally provide by “executive order,” “presidential proclamation,” or some other ukase the necessary new, constitutional “homeland-security” legislation America may require. For such legislation, he must look to a legislature, such as Congress—and perhaps a hostile Congress, at that. Even more important, he must create and leave in place a proper system of “homeland security” based on self-government by We the People. If he does not, some future Administration and subservient Congress may—probably will—put back into place something like the Patriot Act and related legislation, because the Forces of Darkness absolutely require a police state in this country to carry out their nefarious purposes. The only solution to this problem is to revitalize “the Militia of the several States.” As the Militias’ Commander in Chief, President Paul can promote whatever State legislation may be necessary to enable him to fulfill his constitutional duties in that particular. Each of the States can enact the requisite statutes independently of a recalcitrant Congress. And, once again in place, “the Militia of the several States” will provide a permanent bulwark against encroachments on Americans’ liberties by the Forces of Darkness. True federalism at work—the only way it can work under present circumstances.
For another example, the Federal Reserve System cannot be abolished by the President on his own initiative and immediately. And not just for constitutional reasons, either. Reform requires replacement of the banking cartel and its paper currency with constitutional systems of money and banking in such a systematic, carefully measured way as to avoid setting off an economic catastrophe. This will necessitate a gradual “bottom up,” not a sudden “top down,” approach—initially, on a State-by-State basis, so as to create an ever-expanding fait accompli that will force a reluctant Congress to follow suit (for an example, see my “electronic gold currency bill” for New Hampshire, at www.goldmoneybill.org). Obviously, inasmuch as monetary and banking stability is a key aspect of “homeland security,” the Militia can and should play a dominant role in pushing these reforms through at the State and Local levels, and then making them work in practice through the free market.
•A fundamentally important political principle is involved here, too. Even with Ron Paul as President, common Americans will have to stop thinking in terms of the Leader Principle—that is, who is to be President, or who is to control Congress or the Supreme Court—as if these vanishingly few individuals were the political “be all and end all” in this huge country. Instead, Americans must start thinking about—and actually taking charge of—self-government in their own States and Localities. The genius of America is not the Leader Principle, but the Popular Principle. And the Militia are the heart of the Popular Principle. For they put the Power of the Sword into the People’s hands. And with that come all other legitimate powers, “[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.”
(By the way, I have not discussed this matter with Representative Paul, or in any way been induced to make these suggestions by anyone in his campaign-organization.)
b. On the dark side is the possibility that Representative Paul will not be elected President in 2008. Given that possibility, you had better start working to revitalize “the Militia of the several States” right now—because, if one of the grotesque Republicractic puppet-candidates the Establishment is touting ends up in the White House, Americans will desperately need the Militia. If you do not want to live with serial false-flag “terrorist” strikes across this country; an ever-expanding, never-ending conflict in the Middle East; a draft in order to muster the cannon fodder to fight a billion Muslims to the last American; a domestic police state to suppress dissent in general and “disappear” true patriots in particular; chronic monetary and banking crises; the financial gutting of America’s middle class; national bankruptcy; and the end of America herself through imposition of a North American Union—then you need to participate in a nationwide, grass-roots movement to revitalize the Militia. Immediately, if not sooner.
Now is the time for the people who are America to start saving America. Where you happen to be is as good a place as any to begin. You have the means to do it, in your own hands. You have sufficient allies, in your family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. But if you sit back and do nothing, you will have only yourself to blame when you end up with nothing but grie
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Edwin Vieira, Jr., holds four degrees from Harvard: A.B. (Harvard College), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), and J.D. (Harvard Law School).
For more than thirty years he has practiced law, with emphasis on constitutional issues. In the Supreme Court of the United States he successfully argued or briefed the cases leading to the landmark decisions Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, and Communications Workers of America v. Beck, which established constitutional and statutory limitations on the uses to which labor unions, in both the private and the public sectors, may apply fees extracted from nonunion workers as a condition of their employment.
He has written numerous monographs and articles in scholarly journals, and lectured throughout the county. His most recent work on money and banking is the two-volume Pieces of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution (2002), the most comprehensive study in existence of American monetary law and history viewed from a constitutional perspective. www.piecesofeight.us
He is also the co-author (under a nom de plume) of the political novel CRA$HMAKER: A Federal Affaire (2000), a not-so-fictional story of an engineered crash of the Federal Reserve System, and the political upheaval it causes. www.crashmaker.com
His latest book is: "How To Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary" ... and Constitutional "Homeland Security," Volume One, The Nation in Arms...
He can be reached at:
13877 Napa Drive
Manassas, Virginia 20112.
E-Mail: Not available