Police, Military: Different Roles, Different Goals
In his essay above, Major General McGregor notes, “Using the military to police the citizenry was anathema to our Founders,” and further reminds us that this misuse of military power is “one of history’s tragic paths to tyranny and oppression.”
One of history’s most famous examples of this path to tyranny is Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon River at the head of his legion. In bringing his army into Rome, he knowingly violated the explicit orders of the Roman Senate as well as the sacred tradition of the Roman Republic. It was an act of treason and a declaration of war against the republic. Civil war soon followed. So began the reign of the Caesars and the transition from republic to empire.
Our Founding Fathers were mindful of this example and many others from history’s dustbin of lost freedoms. They recognized that military force is necessary to protect the nation both from invasion from without and insurrection from within. However, they also struggled with the perennial conundrum of how to prevent politicians and generals from using the military to establish dictatorship. The checks and balances they established in our constitutional system strictly limit the federal government’s use of the military, with the unorganized militias (the armed citizenry) and the organized state militias serving as counterposing forces to the national military.
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