From: LewRockwell
January 29, 2014
While visiting the elite Battle Command Training Program at Fort Leavenworth, “I head discussion of the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids the National Guard to act as a local police force,” reported Robert D. Kaplan in his 1996 book An Empire Wilderness. “The implication was that turbulence within the United States might one day require the act to be repealed.”
During a discussion of the use of the military to suppress domestic
terrorism, a Marine major declared: “The minute I heard about Oklahoma
City, I knew who did it – rednecks, the kind of guys from southern
Idaho.” That officer went on to predict that owing to the presence of
such turbulent people “`a time may come when the military will have to
go domestic,’” Kaplan related.
At least some of the “rednecks” who reside in southern Idaho agree
with that anonymous major’s assessment. A bill before the Idaho State
Legislature, HB 367,
would effectively abolish the Posse Comitatus Act as it applies to law
enforcement in the Gem State by permitting the National Guard to “assist
federal and state law enforcement agencies in interdicting the
importation of controlled substances” and participating in the
officially licensed plunder called “civil asset forfeiture.” When
authorized to act as a “state law enforcement agency,” the Guard will be
allowed to participate “in the sharing of property seized or forfeited
and receive property and revenues…..”
The amendment containing this enhancement of the Guard’s mission,
significantly, would be inserted just above an existing provision
allowing county sheriffs to enlist the aid of the Guard to deal with
“any breach of the peace, tumult, riot, resistance to process of this
state, or a state of extreme emergency, or imminent danger thereof….”
Translated into practical terms, this would allow any of the state’s 44
sheriffs to seek the assistance of the National Guard any time they
anticipate resistance to a forfeiture action. After all, everybody in
Idaho has guns, a
fact that has been invoked by police officials across the state to
justify the acquisition of combat-grade armored vehicles from the
Pentagon. This means that any time law enforcement sets out to steal somebody’s property through “asset forfeiture” – something that was recently done as part of a federal investigation into “illegal” card games at a private residence – there is “imminent danger” of armed resistance.
Republican state representative Linden Bateman of Idaho Falls (which, for the record, is in southern Idaho) told the Idaho Reporter that
“There seemed to be no major opposition to this bill” in the
Legislature. Gov. Butch Otter has reportedly read and approved the draft
measure. No objections have been heard from Idaho’s “constitutional
sheriffs” – the officials who resolved to oppose new federal gun
restrictions, but whose independence is neutralized by their dependency
on federally supported asset forfeiture.
While Pentagon planners and their assets in law enforcement may be
haunted by visions of a “redneck” uprising in Idaho, it’s clear that
they can count on the support and cooperation of Quislings in the state
government.
UPDATE:
Parrish Miller reports that “Rep. Mike Moyle has asked unanimous
consent to send the bill back to committee for amending” — which means
that it may be dead for this session. In addition, he pointed out that
in the original version of this article I mistakenly attributed the
quote from Rep. Bateman to Rep. Brandon Hixon. My thanks to Miller for
the update, and the correction.
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