FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED AUG. 31, 1997 THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz 'Necessary to the security of a free State' J.P. recently wrote: "I agree that things like the court system can be privately funded. ... However, my greatest concern is that a military that has to run a "pledge drive" in order to provision itself would not be capable of posing a credible deterrent to any nations bent on conquering the US. If you could address this point, I would appreciate it. # # # O.K. ... First, the notion that it's all right to steal at gunpoint "some modest amount, as long it serves a legitimate public need" ignores the simple moral truth that the end cannot be allowed to thus justify the means. When I loot your paycheck without your permission to do "good works," I can't possibly know whether that leaves you one dollar short of the money you needed to buy medicine for your dying mother, or one dollar short of the money you needed to complete an experiment that might result in the discovery of a cure for cancer. There is literally no way to measure the opportunities I thus steal from you, and how their potential results might weigh against what (start ital)I(end ital) decide to do with your money. (Even assuming power won't corrupt me until I can blithely assure you that "tobacco subsidies" are "in the public interest.") But on to J.P.'s main point: the need to fund a standing, federal army. The only thing that grants the United States government any legitimacy -- that supposedly differentiates it from some gang of bandits that swarms down from the hills and extracts tribute for as long as the coast seems clear -- is the Constitution. The Constitution would have not have been ratified by enough states to take effect without solemn binding promises that a Bill of Rights would quickly be enacted. Without the Bill of Rights, the Constitution is invalid and of no force. The Bill of Rights prominently features the Second Amendment, which instructs us: "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." This is a founding principle of our nation. Should the national government eviscerate or foreswear that principle, it is not only our right, but our duty, in Jefferson's words, to "alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government." The founding document does not find ANY role for a standing, professional army in preserving "the security of a free state." As a matter of fact, the founders traveled the land, preaching the EVILS of a professional, standing army. And they were right. Our domestic, professional, standing army today consists of individual legions, somewhat on the Roman model but also on the model of the personalized Waffen SS Divisions created as adjuncts to Hitler's Wehrmacht, with personal loyalty oaths sworn to the Fuhrer, and customized uniforms adopted with silver dagger or death's-head totems, etc. Currently going through precisely the kind of expansion and rearming that transformed Hitler's personal bodyguard from the scruffy SA brownshirts of 1934, to the well-armed, professional SS divisions of 1940, our own paramilitary legions are today dubbed "ATF, "FBI," "FBI Hostage Rescue," "DEA," etc. Some of these units now number in the THOUSANDS, and are authorized to deploy COMBAT AIRCRAFT. They routinely train with precisely the kinds of explosives and automatic weapons you or I could go to prison for merely possessing, and practice rapid helicopter deployment and "dynamic entry" into URBAN AREAS. These guys are not just getting ready to investigate the next Lindbergh kidnapping. Can such outfits exist in parallel with a strong citizen militia? They WILL not, and they are currently demonstrating this to us in spades, by infiltrating with agents provocateurs every legitimate citizen militia unit they can find, framing the leaders on amorphous "conspiracy" charges, and sending them away for decades. As they say in the popular sword and costume series, "There can be only one." But what is equally important, is to realize that a citizen militia is ADEQUATE to defend the security of a free state, even against the largest, most powerful, most technologically advanced power in the world. George Washington proved this in 1781. And for anyone who harbored the illusion that "conditions have so changed in 200 years" that this was no longer the case, the Vietnamese and then the Afghans successively proved it again, in our own lifetimes. Next time: Do we need a standing army, at all? Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin@lvrj.com. The web site for the Suprynowicz column is at http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/. The column is syndicated in the United States and Canada via Mountain Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas Nev. 89127. *** Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com "A well-regulated population being necessary to the security of a police state, the right of the Government to keep and destroy arms shall not be infringed."