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To: r9etb
You started off by implying that a disorganized force was not only as good as, but actually better than the trained British military.

In a sense that's true; the ragtag continentals never compared favorably to the regulars.

However, you appear to be distorting that into a claim that, somehow, disorganized fighting is better. The issue isn't organized vs. disorganized; it's coercive versus non-coercive. The claim under dispute is that defense is impossible without forcibly extorted tax dollars and absolute government control of the military.

And they had valid reasons for saying so. But they were also not fools -- which is why they ended up creating a standing army very soon after independence.

Don't let Washington fool you. He was a proponent of the standing army since before the revolution was won. His scorn for the continentals' lack of training and discipline makes perfect sense when you remember that he fought in the British army in the French and Indian war. One of his first acts as president was to provoke the Whiskey rebellion, and then use that standing army of his to cow Pittsburgh into submission.

71 posted on 02/20/2006 9:24:08 AM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: Shalom Israel
The real questions being: could the Americans have beat the British without help from the standing military of France? Could the revolution have been won without the creation of a national army? No.

Let it be noted that you're arguing against what is probably the most widely acknowledged "legitimate function of government." In order for your idea to work at all, you must make a number of significant assumptions about what people are like and what sort of world your system must operate in; and you must ignore the lessons of history at the same time.

81 posted on 02/20/2006 9:46:00 AM PST by r9etb
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