Leading up to Trump’s “see me again saying words and dates” speech on the 4th of July, one of the most obvious criticisms was the Founding Father’s objections to the display of the Military.
Unfortunately, I did not see anything actually quoting the founders. These days people (especially conservative conmen) have a way to say what the Founders thought despite the fact that we can actually read their words. So I have wondered what did they actually say so that it can’t be flipped.
We need to bear in mind that the display is a reminder of the power of the military as a standing army. Also we need to remember when Hamilton or Madison writes of “war” they mean military action so that includes today’s euphemisms of “police action,” “stability operation,” “counterinsurgency,” or “humanitarian intervention”. And that it was the opposite of Peace – that is they’d regard us to be at war having troops deployed everywhere (actually their greatest nightmare)- trumps display epitomizes everything they fought against and intended from the Constitution.
But again let’s recall their words, James Madison:
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. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare
This really is prescient. Unfortunately, even down to the debts that armies cost (costs of parading them around?).
Even more prescient:
Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.
It’s truly amazing how antithetical the event is to what is celebrated. There’s no ambiguity. What’s worrisome is how closely what is happening resembles what they feared (and perhaps we should more).
In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. 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. ~ James Madison, Speech before Constitutional Convention (6/29/1787).
In parading the military around Trump not just showed how out of touch he is with the spirit and ideals of our Democracy, from the very words of the Founders, he shows he is the embodiment of everything they meant to protect against. Our democracy isn’t under siege, it’s been conquered to an extent it needs to be taken back.