Comments by "Walter Bailey" (@walterbailey2950) on "The white pro-Trump and black power militias arming up before the US election" video.

  1. The United States does not have in the present day any group that James Madison or his colleagues would’ve recognized as a Militia. What we have today are what he would’ve termed armed mobs. In Madison‘s day militia meant a government organized force. It may have been privately armed and made of a part-time citizen soldiers but they didn’t act on their own. And it wasn’t voluntary either. All men of military age were required to enroll in every state in the 1790s. There’s also no historical evidence that any of the framers of the constitution subscribed to a theory that the purpose of arming citizens was to help them overthrow their own government or change it by force of arms. You can look all you want in the 18th century but you’ll never find a statement from any of the framers of the constitution to that effect because that is not what they saw as the purpose of the second amendment. What did they really think about the idea of using armed force against your own government? George Washington was very clear about this in what he said to the armed rebels opposing a federal tax on whiskey by attacking federal agents: “I. George Washington, President of the United States, do hereby command all persons, being insurgents, as aforesaid, and all others whom it may concern, on or before the 1st day of September next to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes. And I do moreover warn all persons whomsoever against aiding, abetting, or comforting the perpetrators of the aforesaid treasonable acts; and do require all officers and other citizens, according to their respective duties and the laws of the land, to exert their utmost endeavors to prevent and suppress such dangerous proceedings.” When they refused to retire as was commanded Washington federalized 13,000 State Militia and marched against them. He led the militia personally to crush the whiskey rebels and ordered the ringleaders charged with treason. They thought that the federal tax was the act of a tyrannical government. But Washington didn’t come with any letters of congratulations for the rebels exercising their “Second Amendment rights.” He didn’t recognize their armed resistance to federal authority as a legitimate exercise in defense of American liberty. And not even Thomas Jefferson intervened at the time to support the rebels. Think about that the next time you say the purpose of the second amendment is to overthrow our own government.
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