Trump Fires Comey

[Bob Butler 54]

(05-13-2017, 08:33 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-12-2017, 05:46 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(05-12-2017, 10:02 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: We haven't relied upon state-based militias to a great degree since the Civil War. We have state national guards who activate largely for local emergencies (like national disasters) and are effectively reserves for the regular armed services. 

The National Guard is national.  The federal government pays most of the bills, and if a national emergency arises it can assume command of any unit.  Of note, the militia can be called by the federals to suppress insurrections, enforce the law and repel invasions.  None of those three functions involve the militia leaving the United States.  The National Guard was organized by Teddy Roosevelt as standing army units so it could be taken abroad.  Note, National Guard units were taken abroad extensively to Afghanistan and Iraq under Bush 43.

Another example of the control of the Guard came during the awakening.  George Wallace called up the National Guard to prevent universities from being integrated.  Washington DC proceeded to call up the Alabama Guard to to federal control.  Legally, Washington and the executive branch have the upper hand in commanding the National Guard.  A Guard general who follows the state command authority rather than the federal once the federals have mobilized them gets court marshaled.

But if troops are rebelling against the executive branch, things like legalities have become options anyway.  It is one thing to know the law.  It  is another to imagine a president like Trump doing bad enough stuff that troops of all ranks start ignoring the law.

There are a few states with true State Guards.  These states don't take money from Washington.  The federals can't preempt their use.  Such units are very rare these days.

Now, this to me is an example of a blue partisan refusing to listen to fact.  I have posted the above many times over the years.  You seem incapable of remembering or comprehending that the National Guard is not the militia.  The militia is essentially all male citizens of military age.  There are exemptions such as post office workers and shipyard employees who the founding fathers thought should remain on the job, even in a military emergency.  However, for the most part the militia is all guys of military age.

But the blue Jim Crow interpretation of things depends on a "National Guard is the militia" meme, and many blue extreme partisans cannot let go of that meme, no matter that it is clearly and absolutely wrong under the law.

Virginia has a State Militia, and it's called such.  It is the faculty, staff and student body of Virginia Military Institute.  As one of the professors noted, they will be called to duty immediately after the "women and children".  So the militia exists but its all ceremony and no action.  There is a concept in law that when something is moot, it ceases to exist in legal terms.  I think the militia is there.  Notice how the Scalia court danced around the issue by ignoring the justifying phrase in the 2nd Amendment.  It's hard to cite the nonexistent as a justification for anything.

So the next liberal court, and there will be one at some point, will have free reign to cite the militia, declare it moot and make the 2nd moot as well.  It's just a matter of time.   It's been obvious that gun ownership and use  is more akin to the ownership and use of those other deadly machines: automobiles and trucks.  As a privilege, it will still continue without the imprimatur of constitutional status.  It will also make it possible for urban areas to put limits on gun carrying in public.

Virginia has more traditional National Guard units as well.  But in addition, they have males of military age that are not members of any 'select militias'.  In the founding father's times, a lot of people were worried about state governors becoming tyrants as well as federal presidents.  Legally, the VMI faculty, staff and student body are no more the militia than the 29th Infantry Division.  Once you join a select militia such as VMI, in a military emergency one would report under the VMI chain of command rather than the general militia chain of command.

Again, you are making the typical blue mistake of confusing organized militia units with the militia.  The militia is roughly all males of military age.  This confusion was created by the Jim Crow supreme court to disarm blacks.  You could keep blacks out of select militias, but they would still be males of military age, thus would still be members of the militia, thus would still have a right to bear arm even if that right only belonged to members of the militia.  Thus, the Jim Crow supreme court changed the meaning of 'militia' on the fly.

You are also mistaken that the Scalia court disregarded the justification phrase, focusing entirely the implementation phase.  There were references to and echoes of The Commonplace Second Amendment in the decision, one of the best known of the 'standard model' papers.  It turns out there were lots of rights with justification phrases, mostly in the state constitutions, many of which were being written about the same time as the federal.  The 2nd Amendment has been the only right interpreted where the justification phrase is read as limiting the implementation phrase.  The Jim Crow interpretation is truly unique as to how to treat justification phrases.  There are states that declare that since publishers and reporters need freedom of the press, the People shall have freedom of the Press.  Rights were thought to be granted by God.  God doesn't give rights away in narrow limited ways.  If a right is a right, everybody shares said right.  This principle can be easily found if one examines the way rights were granted at the time.

If a right only belongs to a select group, it is not a right, but a privilege.  The founding fathers had had enough of the privileged nobility.  They didn't give away privileges.  They were into equality.

You are also falling into the blue wet dream of five old men rewriting the constitution.  It was supposed to happen in early 2017, just after Hillary's inauguration.  While there has been too much legislation from the bench over the years, recent courts are respecting the original intent more.  I am dubious of the court going so much against text, precedent and scholarship as the blue wet dreams.  Such would totally discredit the court.