Why The Founders Chose Citizen Soldiers Over a Standing Army

The Citizen Solider, replaced by the standing army

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – The standing army is open tyranny, Duane, and you’re not going to get very many conservatives to admit that the standing army is a threat to their way of life and to their liberty.  We think that controlling and dominating and acting in a domineering fashion across the entire known universe is how the freest and greatest countries in the history of Earth are supposed to act.  Yeah, the ones that aren’t around anymore acted like that.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Duane in Florida is next.  Hello, Duane, how are you?

Caller Duane:  Good, good.  I don’t need coffee in the morning.  I’ve got you to get my blood flowing.

Mike:  I have me to get my blood flowing.

Caller Duane:  I just wanted to make a comment.  You had talked about executive orders and so forth.  I think you touched a nerve on that.  It made me think of my reading of history back to the imperial Roman Empire when one Caesar would take an overthrow or make sure he wanted to stay in power, what’s the first thing he did?  He gave bonuses or raises to the army, to the military, to the legion, to the Praetorian Guard, to whomever.  He basically would keep the government in line by —

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Mike:  Bribing them.

Caller Duane:  Yeah, basically by bribing them.  If anybody doesn’t seem to understand the fact that if the president goes too far with executive privilege, so he calls it, and say: I’m going to give you a raise.  I’m going to do the minimum wage.  I’m going to bypass Congress.  This is worse than a Pandora’s box.  It’s open tyranny.  I do not understand why people don’t understand that.

Mike:  The standing army is open tyranny, Duane, and you’re not going to get very many conservatives to admit that the standing army is a threat to their way of life and to their liberty.  We think that controlling and dominating and acting in a domineering fashion across the entire known universe is how the freest and greatest countries in the history of Earth are supposed to act.  Yeah, the ones that aren’t around anymore acted like that.  Sure, you got me on that one.

Caller Duane:  I was a member of the National Guard for a few years, and before that I was active-duty military but —

Mike:  Let me ask you a question.  In a nutshell, what I’m saying and what others who have been on this show are saying and have said and will continue say, militarism is not patriotism.

Caller Duane:  I agree.

Mike:  For those of you that think it is, is the militarism that is exhibited or was exhibited by — you can see it on display now.  Is the militarism of the North Korean army marching through the streets of Pyongyang in that lockstep, all in a straight line, all kicking their legs up, all in unison, is that militarism?  Is that their expression of patriotism?  You bet your bottom dollar it is.  Do you think that’s a genuine love of the Kims and Sungs, or is that something that they have to do so that they and their children don’t wind up in some North Korean gulag?  That’s not a love of their land.  That’s what they are compelled to do.  Yet when we do it, [mocking] “We’re fighting for freedom.”  For whose freedom?

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My freedom is not at stake in most parts of the world.  The Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean are pretty good barriers to invasion, last I checked.  The satellites that sit above either of those coasts that scan for people that might invade are pretty good barriers to invasion.  Having a citizenry of 311 million people, 110 million of them able to keep and bear arms, is not an invitation to be invaded.  We’re not in any danger is my point.  Yet militarism is our calling card.  We don’t make anything anymore around the world.  We hire the world’s serfs to make things for us, and we have people encouraging that every day of the week.

Caller Duane:  I agree.  As a veteran, I’m proud that I served, but then I also question the issues behind that service.  I have a free mind.  I have a free will.  I want to say thank you for the veterans for serving and so forth, but there has to be an understanding that you cannot continue to place people like this on a pedestal.  It’s not that they are not doing a good job or they are not participating or whatever.  It’s the fact that they are part of this militarism that we are projecting.

When you elevate somebody or a body to that, it kind of whitewashes the whole issue behind the problem of militarism.  That takes a lot of understanding.  I kind of figured that out when I was in the National Guard, working with the state instead of the federal government.  There was this understanding that in an emergency we would be called up and we would defend our country.  That was kind of an important thing for us, yet we were there for our state, we were there for the people we knew in our towns, for the areas around us.  When there were emergencies, we were called and we responded.

Mike:  If you read the history of the war for American independence, you won’t find very many references to, in specific battles, if you study them — and it doesn’t matter which one you pick.  You could pick the ones across New Jersey and New York and Pennsylvania, Monmouth, Brandywine, Fort Washington, Long Island, Saratoga, Ticonderoga, and I know I’m leaving some out.  It’s not intentional.  It’s just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.  If you look at those battles, you will see from the historians that catalogued them and recorded them and repeated them for us so that we could read about them, you’ll see that Washington might have ordered the Pennsylvania 25^th to go and do a rear guard.  He might have ordered the Green Mountain Regulars from New Hampshire around the left flank.  He may have ordered the Maryland regulars or the Delaware regulars up into a flanking position.

My point is that your military identity was identified with what militia company you were with that served your state.  That’s what the ancient Roman did.  The ancient Roman served as a soldier only when he was called upon, when Rome or Sparta or whatever was threatened. He went off, put the battle gear on, took the plow, melted it down, made a sword and shield out of it, went and fought the bad guys, won the war, came home, stoked the fire up, took the sword and shield, melted it down, made a plow out of it, and went back to living his life.  He didn’t stay in the capital city for the rest of his existence with the same plow and the same sword demanding ever-increasing amounts of recompense for it.

Caller Duane:  I agree.

Mike:  The citizen soldier.  When I played that clip from Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson in the movie Gods and Generals, he addresses those men at Manassas as what?  [mocking] “Citizen soldiers, I’m here on the order of General Robert E. Lee.”  He doesn’t say “men of the Confederate Army.”   He doesn’t amalgamate them into one blob of confederacy.  He says citizen soldiers.  What does that mean, Duane?  What is a citizen soldier?

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Caller Duane:  I as a citizen bear a responsibility for the defense of my home and the defense of my surroundings, the defense of my state, the defense of my country.  When called upon, I need to fight to defend that.

Mike:  Your country is your state.  They’re one in the same.  You could be called into the service of the Union.  It says that in the Constitution. You would be called into the service of the federal union if circumstances warranted it.

End Mike Church Show Transcript