Enlisted in the Marine Corps

[Occhidiangela]

Nor did I say that. But a pacifist must remember that his pacifism is protected by someone else, be it a police man or other such public servant who will indeed deal the other brutes of the world. Put another way, how effective is a dead pacifist? His moral example is best exercised while breathing, though in some cases martyrdom as a pacifist can have political effect.

I hear this one a lot-- most visibly from one of the Pentagon generals during the "war" part of the Iraq War (as opposed to the current "not war" part of the war). He was commenting on some of the anti-war protesters and saying "Isn't it great that they can protest? Iraqis can't." ("Rummy" hits this theme a lot too.) Yep, we have it better than they did, and yep, the people's ability to protest is being protected by the Constitution which in turn is protected by the military.* Yep, such irony that war protesters are enabled by military.

No irony at all, deliberate structure that is proven over time as cosistent with the Constitution. It was set up that way on purpose. The purpose of the military is to act as an arm of the leadership, in most free societies a leadership made up of elected representatives who are not in uniform, and who serve the needs and interests of The State. In America, the Posse Comitatus act of 1877, which was a reaction to the Radical Reconstruction, was passed to further limit what uses of military forces were authorized within the borders of the various and several States. Typically, what that boils down to is that the National Guard are an arm of the Governor of any given state, and are a tool he can use to address disaster or civil unrest like the LA riots of the early 1990's. Guard units were the troops who confronted the Viet Nam protestors when peaceful demonstration went beyond peaceful. This time around, it seems that the police departments were better prepared to address local concerns.

The federal forces, or the Regular army, must be Asked for by the Governor. When Hurricain Andrew hit, the Governor of Florida wasted 2 days before asking for federal troops to assist in the devastated area.

Which brings us to the War on Drugs, and the creeping use of military forces to support law enforcement by Justice, Treasury, and Transportation secretariats: the margins of the structure were most fully exploited by President Clinton, IMO, but the trend was initiated in the First Bush Administration. The argument from many was: well, we have all these well trained folks, the Cold War is over, lets use them to . . . fill in the blank. Some folks felt this was inappropriate, both those in uniform and those out. It seemed to blur the lines of the rules that protects the citizens of all 50 states from being acted on by an armed federal force except as authorized by Congress. ATF and the FBI, on the other hand, arms of the Justice Department, has no such Constitutional restraints.

It is the ability for Joe and Jane Citizen to publicly and very vocally protest our country's actions, and NOT suffer reprisals**, that makes this country great. Our country is not great because the military is so fearless and self-confident that it allows such behavior, it is great because that behavior is considered to be sacrosanct. Our military is great because it defends that sacrosanctity, uh, sancronicity, uh, supersynchrofragilisticity... and so far has defended it quite well. BUT it annoys me when some people get it backwards and smirk "Isn't it wonderful that they can protest? It's wonderful they live in a peaceful country protected by a strong military." No, what's wonderful is that they have a Constitution that gives them that right and that we have a military that willingly defends that Constitution.

I might have worded that differently, but yeah, your last line is right on the money. :)