Our experience with Great Britain had been that the Mother Country had a bad habit of using a standing army to impose violence on the civilian population. Our militia attempted to protect the civilian population, but after success at Concord and a failure at Breed's Hill, though it was a costly victory for the British, most of the fighting in the ensuing revolution was conducted by Continental regulars.
The militia system never worked well in the United States. Nevertheless, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention steadfastly distrusted standing armies and wanted to keep our standing army as week as possible, even zero out its size, if they could. So, they provided for a strong militia.
By the time of World War II technology had evolved to the point that militia were no longer sufficient to protect the country. The Korean War taught us that, like it or not, our role on the world stage dictates that we have a strong national force to protect our own shores and to project power overseas when needed. Our experience in the two world wars had also taught us that we were much better off if we reached out and protected ourselves against burgeoning threats when they were still far away, rather than let them reach our shores. In both of those catastrophic wars we were able to live normal, or near normal lives at home while our military fought in other people's countries. They suffered the destruction of war, while our homeland remained safe. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 only reinforced those lessons.
However, most of our population remains skeptical of too much power in our central government. I hope they always hold on to that skepticism, but do not let rational suspicion of the accumulation of power turn into paranoia. Even though I have spent my adult life as a "running lackey dog of the imperialist war machine," I generally trust my government. Still, I share some skepticism with my fellow Americans, and I do not trust a government that does not trust me to own my own militarily effective firearm.
If you don't live here, don't ease your paranoia by knocking our constitutionally protected freedoms. Just quietly eat your heart out and worry about what your national government can do to you.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
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