I was taking my post PT shower this afternoon and I started thinking. My Bride would warn that thinking on my part would set a dangerous precedent. Never the less I don't know why I was thinking about the Warrior Class or the second amendment to the constitution as I was soaping my wee danglies etc. but I did and now you can read about it.
The American Warrior Class
We tend to think of society as a single entity but it is, in fact, stratified. These layers of our society, classes if you will, can be expressed as the poor, the working class, the middle class, and the rich. There is less of a distinction between the working class and the middle class than exists between the others. Overall the majority of Americans fit neatly in the working and middle classes with the bell curve dropping off sharply with the poor and the rich. One of the most important facets of our American society is that one is not bound by caste one is currently in, i.e., the American dream. A person can be anything or go as for as that person's ability may take them. However, behind this a societal stratum is a fifth class that transcends the boundaries of all the others. This is the Warrior class. The Warrior class while once an acknowledged and critical piece of the societal pie is now largely a shadow culture. Early in our nations history the benefits and pitfalls of maintaining a standing military were actively debated. Governments fear disciplined armed bodies because they are a threat to their power. I will talk about this in a later post. Throughout the military we can see where families have generation after generation that "wear the cloth of the nation"'. In my family alone, we have had three consecutive generations serve in the armed forces not to include that members of my family tree have served in war and peace throughout the history of our nation. If you walk up to any Sailor, Marine, Soldier, or Airman assigned to this Combined Joint Task Force and asked if they were the first in their family to serve, far more than half would tell you that they are at least second generation military. I think that the warrior ethos is instilled by heritage. By that I mean when an individual decides to place many of personal freedoms on hold and even put their future in doubt by joining the military the majority do it for deep personal reasons. What I believe to be some of those reasons I have discussed in another post. I think these reasons are inherent to the individual's core values and in turn are passed on to their issue and so forth until they almost become a family birthright.
While it is undeniable that the warrior class thrives behind the scenes in our society but why is it not as an acknowledged a piece of the cultural pie as it was half a century ago? I think society in general has developed a fear of the warrior. I don't mean openly afraid but an internal fear of what the Warrior class represents or maybe what the others classes fail to represent. The Warrior forsakes his own personal comfort and safety to provide it for others. The nature of the Warrior class is to give back some of what was provided to us. Our society seeks life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In our early days as nation it was understood that these things are bought with the currency of blood and the Warrior class was the bank. I believe one of the better arguments against maintaining a standing military is that by maintaining a universal civilian militia every citizen would have an awareness of the price at which freedoms are bought. However, the concept is impractical as time and time again the militia soldier has proven a liability on the battlefield due to lack of training, discipline, equipage etc. The professional Warrior of today represents violence, destruction, and death. These are things generally frowned on by polite society which values safety, security and order. On the reverse side the Warrior also represents protection for the weak, help for the helpless, stability in the midst of chaos, things most of society has come to believe should be free for everyone. Society has come to believe that the freedoms and privileges (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), which are rented by blood sacrifice, should be free, perpetual, and they treat them accordingly. It would seem that we have become a gimme, gimme, gimme society. Society expects to given freedom, given protection, given order, given security. It has become an entitlement society. Well one portion of society has traditionally been the giver. The warrior stands between order and chaos and buys the things that the rest of society feels that they are owed for free. In short, the Warrior stands between the people and things that go bump in the night.
Government's inherent fear of an armed population
"The tree of liberty must, from time to time, be refreshed with the blood of patriots." This quote explains why governments fear an armed civil population and why the right of the American citizen to keep and bear arms was, and is so important as to be the 2nd amendment to the constitution of the United States. The government of this nation was created out of an armed insurrection against another legitimate government that no longer served the needs of the people. It was created as a government of the people, for the people, by the people. The merits of maintaining a standing military were fiercly debated. This new government knew that armed disciplined bodies were a threat to civilian government. Most of our founding fathers desired to maintain a civilian militia to provide for national defense, however; the geopolitical landscape of the world was very dangerous during that day and age and militia had more often than not proven itself unreliable in times of trial. A compromise was reached. The nation would maintain a small standing military that would provide the sturdy skeleton to be fleshed out with the citizen militia in time of war. The founders of our nation also understood one incredibly important truth. All governments everywhere will inherently devolve into corruption and oppression. Because they understood this truth they specifically designed the federal government with checks and balances and also engineered it to be relatively weak. This nation was a designed as a collection of sovereign states united under the umbrella of a LIMITED central federal government. One of the most important but least understood checks and balance that our founding fathers provided us as a defense against the inevitable corruption of government was the right of the people to keep and bear arms. They knew that eventually, if was not actively prevented, that our government would cease to be a government of the people, for the people, by the people and the tree of liberty would, once again, need to be refreshed with the blood of patriots. Today the tree of liberty is still relatively healthy and strong and may God grant that my children's children never see the need to refresh her.
TO THE TYRANT NEVER YIELD
