A civilized society has to make some provision for those who would trample the rights of others by committing barbarous acts against them, hence penal systems.
A man who violates the life, liberty, property, or the pursuit of happiness of others, has forfeited his right to be treated as a free and responsible citizen.
As to the balance of your reply, you seem to still be trying to make a case for the right of government to force the citizens into activities and behaviors which they may not choose for themselves.
Because our government has done this in the past, doesn't make it right.
America was founded upon certain foundational principles of individual freedom and liberty. Of these, the principle of the supremacy of the citizen and the individual states over the federal government, is fundamental.
This is the point I am making, and the one you seem to be failing to come to terms with.
>America was founded upon certain foundational principles of individual freedom and liberty. Of these, the principle of the supremacy of the citizen and the individual states over the federal government, is fundamental.
>
>This is the point I am making, and the one you seem to be failing to come to terms with.
*sigh* - You fail to see the thrust of my point; it is that freedom is not “free.” It requires maintainance. The responsibilities of the Citizen include certain obligations: of which include serving in the militia (if that Citizen is male) and Jury duty; both of these ARE as you put it coerced-actions. Jury duty *IS* coercable on part of the government, refusal to go/serve could result in your arrest; the penalties of disregarding your obligation to the militia are, however, disastrous: invasion.
It is precisely because of the attitude of “the militia isn’t me, so I don’t have to care” in the general population of the US that we have an illegal alien problem — while the government can call out the militia there is no law, to my knowledge, preventing the militia from “calling itself” to uphold/enforce* the law with it’s implements of war {though most people would knee-jerk calling them vigilantes} — and because it is “somebody else’s problem” and “that’s what the [federal] army is for...” people allow themselves both the false sense-of-security and the never-think-to-themselves/what-if possibility that they could find themselves in a battlefield.
*The minuteman border project is/was a militia of sorts; the problems weren’t because government was requiring their actions, but precisely because government was impeding their actions. AZ is an interesting case in its immigration law because it showed that the federal government has “refused [its] Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good;” and there is a method which, using the militia, would determine if it is actually actively hostile and/or Treasonous (in the US Constitution definition).