I have a question for you. In fact I have a few, but I'll start with: Why has that word, 'militia' become so demonized, so associated with the fringe, with racists or with domestic terrorism? Historically, especially here in the United States, militia started out with both humble and honorable beginnings. Why is it that every effort is made to make militia out to be criminals, when quite the opposite is true, most of the time?

Well, there's an agenda. Actually, there's probably more than one agenda. Think for just a minute what a "good" militia is. A "good" militia is a group of highly-trained volunteers who usually take some kind of oath like the one to "uphold and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies both foreign and domestic" and whose training is geared towards community service. Right off, you see that word, "volunteers" and you have to realize that being volunteers, they are beyond the influence of special interests who might try to influence the militia's agenda with remuneration. So, some law enforcement individuals and/or groups perceive the militia as competition, but with the difference that the militia is only interested in upholding and defending the constitution, not in fulfilling some politician' s agenda. In this light, it makes sense that some corrupt politicians and/or law enforcement individuals and/or groups see the upstanding patriot militia groups as a threat, as competition, and with their connections, those who are corrupt can take advantage of their position to demonize the militia group, using an all-too-willing media (but that's another story.).

Of course, law enforcement doesn't have to be corrupt to perceive the militia as competition. Let's face facts. If the citizenry were properly trained and actively involved in the community, the need for professional law enforcement would diminish as would the need to collect taxes to pay the salaries of those professionals. This presents two major dilemmas to city managers who like to have a reliable police force - a standing army, if you will - and who like to keep the justification for the large budget which they use as a foundation of their power. The bottom line is that if the citizens were self-sufficient, there would be much less need for all the government that's in place today (with its huge budget) and the socialists - who like having large public treasuries from which to "redistribute wealth" (into their own pockets, of course) would have to find another public treasury to plunder, somewhere else.

So, an independent, informed citizenry presents at least a monetary threat to the law-enforcement establishment so law-enforcement is engaged in a struggle to maintain power. On the other side, the militia is involved in the struggle to prevent anyone from gaining power over the citizenry. The militia is for the citizen, who is deemed the center of our form of government by this country's founders, while law-enforcement promotes and protects their own establishment - their little "empire" in big government - which may be unconstitutional. So, in the eyes of law-enforcement, the militia is "the enemy" and they will use any tactic to keep the citizenry from organizing into militias that might then decide that law-enforcement is evil and therefore doesn't need the big budget or the big drug industry pay-offs.

These all have to do with perception, however, and don't address what the militia is or should be engaged in besides upholding and defending the constitution of the United States of America and preserving the rule of law of the land. We'll get to that soon enough, though. It also paints quite a dismal picture of law-enforcement, one that isn't always deserved. Again, such blanket assessments are inaccurate, but the possibilities and opportunities for good and bad on both sides of the issue are as numerous as the number of individuals involved which again should highlight the fact that militia is being painted broadly with the same brush with the result that the militia is demonized -- once again pointing to some agenda held by professional law enforcement.

Another one of the possible agendas is to undermine the rule of law and to disarm the American people. This is the only way a foreign or domestic enemy can overthrow this country. They will have to disarm us, first. By demonizing the militias and using propaganda to promote the big lie that the National Guard (which is under the control of the federal government -- big brother himself) is the "real" militia, our enemies can undermine the second amendment and then the rest of the Articles of Amendment and the Constitution, the foundation of our form of government, which is the rule of law. There is a great fear by people who hold this agenda that the militia might interfere with their plan to subvert our form of government and replace it with totalitarian socialist/communist rule, so they also have an interest in seeing the militia demonized. That way, citizens quite naturally become reluctant to join militia groups and those groups remain small and relatively unorganized, thus presenting less of a threat to socialist/communist infiltrators/invaders.

Now, the militia is about making the individual citizenry of this country more self-sufficient, less dependent on government, more able to run things locally with a minimum of resources taken from the public treasury (which is funded by your tax dollars). The militia is the ultimate in what has been coined as "volunteerism", something that, ironically, the very self-same socialists currently in power in Washington DC have tried to promote. The only part that differs is that the government in Washington wants us to be dependent on them, thus assuring their long-term comfort at our expense, whereas the militia wants none of that. The militia that I know only want to accomplish what our corrupt law enforcement will not. One of the things corrupt law enforcement will not do is clean up it's own act. Unlike the usurpers in Washington who have lost sight of any and all boundaries of reason, who have forgotten what form of government we have in this country, militia exist to serve the community and if they were free to do that, the corruption would be excised. Since so many agendas are tied to so much money, we now have a government that is in place to rule, not to serve, and the militia, being at cross purposes with that philosophy is targeted, just because they would return America to freedom.

How does the militia make the citizenry more free, more self-sufficient, more like the original America the colonists forged out of revolution? Well, the militia provides training. Training in firearms, civil defense, mountaineering, radio communications, first-aid, survival, conservation and just about anything else it takes to develop the individual to be a valuable member of the community, to be a leader - all funded on the individual level, since we still believe in a fundamental principle of being an American, that being the concept of private ownership. You see, we, the people are the government and the government in this country is here to serve, not to rule. Unfortunately, those who disagree with that philosophy have money and media access and have used both to keep you from "joining" the militia. They have defamed our collective character, they have created the perception that they are the "good guys" and that we are the "bad guys", the "domestic terrorists".

Correcting the record One of the manufactured perceptions militia groups have to correct is that they're anti-government. Well, the form of government created by the founding fathers of this country, as set out in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Articles of Amendment is anti-government. At least, it's anti-government in that it's against government that wishes to rule rather than to serve. It certainly was anti British government, now wasn't it? Once again, I must remind you that government rule always results in tyranny, not liberty. That saying, "When the people fear the government, there's tyranny" holds true here and you have to consider that an ever-increasing, ever-expanding government will always end up as a tyranny.

Of course, there has to be some form of government or there's anarchy. But government in this nation is supposed to be for the people, by the people and this model only works when government is local and small, operating in plain view of the people that live in that locale. Hence the ninth and tenth Articles of Amendment to the constitution. Hence the need for a "good" militia that wishes to serve on a local level so that rule of law is preserved in the locale where that elected government operates rather than keeping a professional "militia" (a.k.a. mercenaries) or police force that is funded by the tax collector and administered by politicians who may attempt to usurp power from the true owners of government, the people. So, the perception that militias are anti-government only holds true as government becomes unconstitutional.

Why do we want to have a constitutionally-sanctioned, well regulated, volunteer militia? Well, one good example is in law enforcement. If people were allowed to defend themselves and others from violent crime, the criminals would get the idea that it's too risky to commit the crime in the first place. I mean, if law enforcement was carried out by trained citizens who aren't paid and those trained citizens were everywhere, the criminals would have no place to commit the crimes out of sight of law-enforcement. The alternative would be to raise taxes and increase the ranks of professional law enforcement so that they can be everywhere. There's a down side to that idea, however. We'd then have a police state, which would be fine for the police who are in it for the power, position and the money, but the citizenry would again be trapped under totalitarian rule by big government. That police state of professional law-enforcers would do things to ensure their continued existence as a professional force and they'd have a lot of assistance from other vested interests. So, the converse is also true in that it is in the best interest of a standing body of "professional" law enforcement to have criminals running around free - to justify the existence of that body, which is why they don't want citizens to defend themselves and will eventually prohibit it - in accordance with U.N. doctrine.

This brings us to another reason to have a well-regulated, constitutional "good" militia, and that is to educate the public about the dangers of big government, police states, corruption of our form of government by those with monetary interests and the decay of rule of law. Having a "good" militia also discourages invasion by foreign enemies. We've already addressed domestic enemies (corrupt politicians, corrupt law enforcement and other criminals.), but this is another major reason to maintain a constitutional militia.