Well, Jim_B, I think we mostly understand each other. We probably don't agree with each other yet, but I think that with one exception the misunderstandings are pretty much gone. Hopefully, while each of us thinks the other is a little misguided, there's no reason for us to get into a barroom brawl with each other.
Let me try to clear up that one remaining misunderstanding. I didn't intend to appear as though I was trying to qualify for your support by claiming to be part of the citizen militia. I was using your lack of tangible support for me as an example only in the capacity in which I'm a professional--and that is certainly not my capacity as a militia member. Not only don't I know any professional militia members, I don't know of any professional militia members.
My comment about not caring about your support or lack of it in my capacity as a militia member had two geneses: on the one hand, I was using my experience as a militia member (which is the closest thing I have to military experience) to try to understand the military's need for popular support. On the other hand, I was making the assumption that professionals should need less popular support in their job than amateurs, and applying that assumption to make the point that if amateur militia members didn't care about public support, it was a little puzzling that professional military personnel would.
Since then, I've thought about my statement a little more, and I don't think I still stand by it. It seems unlikely that the militia will ever realistically be employed in foreign warfare, for a number of reasons; that means that its most likely use will probably be in guerrilla warfare on our own soil against occupation forces of some government--whether it be our own or a foreign one. And in such a situation, popular support would be very important indeed--not for the morale of the militia, but for the continued existence of the militia. We'll depend for many of our more mundane supplies on the generosity of the populace, and our operational security will depend on ordinary folks who happen to see us not running straight to the garrison commanders and reporting. We'll probably also find strategic, tactical, and operational intelligence from the people helpful.
That is to say, in other words, we will be a service of the free market. If the free market does not value us or see a need for us, we will go the way of the Betamax standard, and for the same reasons.
As well we should.
