Always a threat to Liberty: Standing Armies

The Father of the U.S. Constitution (James Madison) said it best:

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.

Thomas Jefferson also was opposed to the idea of standing armies during peacetime:

There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army.

Were armies to be raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never should have been without them. Our resources would have been exhausted on dangers which have never happened, instead of being reserved for what is really to take place.

Nor is it conceived needful or safe that a standing army should be kept up in time of peace.

In case any of you crazy Republican lurkers and other opponents of Liberty want to accuse me of being anti-American or being in bed with the terrorists, eat a dick. You can clearly see that two of the founding fathers (and both former U.S. Presidents) were strongly opposed to standing armies. Obviously, we should revisit the notion and consider changing our current policies... we've strayed from the principles of Liberty that founded this country.

That's unless you're the type that hates Liberty (and war gives you a hard-on).

Read more here!