RANT

It's 6:06 and Patrick and Junior are watching a DVD, "The Replacements".

Here is a rant I wrote in a forum yesterday about Paranoia:

Self-governing free populations have always been fearful or "paranoid" of uniformed authority that they have no control over. This fear reaches as far back as the Roman Republic, when triumphant Generals returning from war could enter Rome, but not at the head of their armies. It was Julius Caesar who broke with this law, Crossed the Rubicon with his army and ended Civilian control and founded the Roman Empire.

That is why we have a second amendment to our constitution, so we have the ability, if need be, to overthrow a government that becomes tyrannical, by force of arms. That's exasctly what our founding fathers did. That's why our police forces, municipal and county, are generally headed by local elected officials.

In the last few decades of the last century, our national police forces, FBI and BATF, for example, began taking on the trappings and equipment of a military force, and began killing civilians and this gave rise to the organization and training of civilian militia groups. Somebody in government was wise enough to reign these roque FBI and BATF leaders in. In recent years, the Border Patrol and the Immigration Service have wielded powers that scare some Americans. And since 9-11, the scale has tipped in favor of reduced freedoms for the civilian population, whether neccesssary or not, at the hands of uniformed and armed entities, and many Americans are watching this trend with concern.

Our national Armed Forces are under the authority of elected Civilian Authority, the President. And our state National guards are under the authority of elected state Governors.

Americans trust their local cops and deputy sheriffs, because these forces are comprised of their friends and neighbors, and they can remove their local sheriff by the electoral process should he displease them. But state cops, national cops, federal game wardens, anybody with a uniform that we don't know and can't vote out of office, we are leary of, whether the danger from them is real or imagined.
Paranoia? Maybe. But Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty.
That , and most Americans don't like somebody telling them what to do, who isn't paying them to do it, other than of course, their wives and teenage children.

-30-