Date: Sat, 09 Oct 1999 17:04:05 -0500 From: Sean Roach Subject: CDR: Re: Inferno: The Constitution & Gun Rights: It's bigger than the 2nd alone (fwd)
I was under the impression that that applied only to the army. I thought that it was the intention to keep the navy going full time.
There was no intent not to keep the army going full-time. The intent was to keep them from getting funding for long periods of time. In other words to make it harder for them to build a long-term command structure and weapons cache's (ie hide trusted soldiers away for rainy days). The army is intended for repelling invasions and insurrections, how often do those happen and how many last more than two years? If an actual invasion were to take place martial law would be invoked and the budget limits would be irrelevant at that point. But your point is true enough, and I was hoping somebody would bring this aspect up. It has some interesting points that don't seem to have been discussed. If you or others know of references I'd appreciate a vector. If we accept this view (which I have no problem with, it'd be hard for a Navy to invade Kansas - navies are self limiting) we are left with joint-contracts that involve the army and navy are unconstitutional. The other side would be that the navy must accept the more strict contractual limitations imposed on the army by the Constitution (what I actualy prefer because of new weapons systems). The intent is to keep the army on a short leash and to be able to simply bypass this by working with other arms of the military would be contrary to the Constitutions intent. One could transfer all the army soldiers to navy command and impliment an oppressive regime that way. I don't believe that was what was intended. It also raises the fact that since the Army Air Corp was turned into the Air Force (and this applies to the Navy and Marine Corp. as well) and no specific guidance was made via constitutional amendment as to its budget constraints it may be unconstitutional as currently implimented. Per the 10th there is nothing that gives Congress the authority to create new military forces outside of the army and navy. This should be done via a constitutional amendment. What we have today is a joint command that integrates all the various military forces under one umbrella. That joint command is an arm of the executive branch and not Congress, that may be unconstitutional itself. This raises the question of how seperate they are now and how congruent with the Constitution it actualy is. So, because of this the Joint Chiefs and the Pentagon may be unconstitutional as currently implimented, or one could argue that all budgets must be limited to 2 years. Since the Constitution requires such budgets to be reviewed from time to time it implies that a full budget review of the military is required every two years.
However, it is not my place to say that they would have done this had they had the chance.
If you're a citizen of the US not only is it your place it's your duty.
Too many of our regulations are based on this belief that our founding fathers would have seen things "my" way. I hate that the intent of the constitution is ignored so blatently, but judging intent is like proving opinion.
To quote Jefferson: The earth belonds to the living, not the dead. The founding fathers wanted Americans to be free peoples pursuing their own individual life, liberty, and happiness. It is the duty of all Americans to protect those rights, even from other Americans. We have to decide the way *we* want to live and the kind of world our children will inheret. The kind of world our forefathers had and the decisions they made within that milieu are good for exemplary review only. Santyana is a good guide. If nothing else it is clear the fight is never over. No matter what we do our children will have to fight it all over again on different ground and different issues. We should at least give them a fighting chance. I don't believe for a moment the founding fathers felt they had created a once-and-for-all document. Nor do I believe they felt they were living at the epitome of technical and social achievement within the total history of mankind. Part of Jeffersons stock and trade was advancement, it's why he created the University of Virginia. They knew they couldn't predict the future and the best peoples to judge it were the ones living it. What they wanted was a mechanism that would guarantee that the poeple had a say and were not ruled over by a despot or tyranny. They hoped to give us a good chance at reaching our individual and social goals, what those goals were are for us to decide. We, not the founding fathers, have to live with them after all. They were, if nothing else, simply trying to be good parents (both to a country and to their biological children) and teach us basic principles.
I'd like to see something more like the swiss have. Everyone gets basic. Perhaps as part of grades 11-12. Some few can stay on in administrative roles throughout. And rely entirely on the draft, but only for threats on home ground.
I don't believe in the draft, it is coersion and is contrary to the tenets of the Constitution. An army made of people who don't *want* to fight for their country will lose. An army of peoples who will die rather than surrender their liberty will always win, even if they are all killed they deny the oppressor their goals. One does not give up democracy to protect democracy. This does point up one aspect of nuclear defence that has also seldome been discussed, nuclear suicide. Instead of pointing weapons at other countries one points the weapons (lot's of them) at oneself. If another country begins a nuclear conflict (which is inherently unwinnable) the Earth as we know it will become uninhabitable. Who wants to subject their peoples to the starvation and other privations that will bring on. It is better to kill oneself quickly and humanely and in that act poison the well so the enemy suffers at their own hands and in the worst way. I believe we will never get rid of nuclear weapons, and shouldn't, and this is the only sane way to control their use. [1]