{"id":215881,"date":"2021-12-06T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-06T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/?p=215881"},"modified":"2021-12-21T10:56:16","modified_gmt":"2021-12-21T15:56:16","slug":"ron-desantis-wants-an-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/blog\/ron-desantis-wants-an-army\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron DeSantis Wants an Army"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You\u2019ve probably heard that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants to create his own militia that would be controlled by . . . guess who, the governor.  In other words, one of the worst right-wing MAGA governors in the country is proposing he have his own private army at his disposal. The governor wants to call it the \u201cFlorida State Guard,\u201d the purpose of which is supposedly to help with \u201cstate-specific emergencies\u201d without being \u201cencumbered by the federal government.\u201d He has requested state lawmakers provide $3.5 million to fund 200 volunteers, although it\u2019s a good bet both numbers will grow larger over time.  There is no reason to think his Republican-led legislature will not happily oblige.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The governor claims the force would be available to assist the national guard in handling natural disasters like hurricanes, which are admittedly a serious problem in Florida.  According to the governor, \u201cthe Florida State Guard will allow civilians from all over the state to be trained in the best emergency response techniques and have the ability to mobilize very quickly.\u201d Further, it would give him \u201cthe flexibility and ability needed to respond to events on our state in the most effective way possible.\u201d Sounds good if we could take the governor at his word and know for certain that the guard would never be used for anything more, but unfortunately, we can\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be fair, similar \u201cstate guards\u201d already exist in over 20 states, and Florida previously had such a force during World War II, when national guard members were fighting overseas.  But the thought of someone like DeSantis having his own militia is downright frightening.  The governor claims the force will assist with natural disasters, but what\u2019s to stop him from using it for his own political purposes such as the violent repression of his enemies, including non-violent protestors simply exercising their rights granted by the First Amendment?<\/a>  It\u2019s too easy to imagine this \u201cstate guard\u201d becoming the governor\u2019s private paramilitary force or secret police, harking back to Hitler\u2019s SA and SS in 1930s Nazi Germany.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Individual States Should Not Have Their Own Paramilitary Forces.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"soldiers<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, individual states should be discouraged from becoming little paramilitary-based empires, and thus \u201cCivil Wars\u201d waiting to explode.  One example of what can happen occurred in 2015 when Texas governor Gregg Abbot (who vies with DeSantis for the title of worst MAGA Republican governor in the country) used his own state guard to monitor federal military exercises based on a ridiculous rumor that the federal government was using Walmart parking lots to establish military control.  Fortunately, the situation didn\u2019t escalate into violence, but it should remind us of the potential for disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right-wing MAGA governors like DeSantis and Abbot,<\/a> along with their ever-handy Republican-led legislatures, should have neither a paramilitary force nor a secret police squad at their disposal.\u00a0 These people are already doing their best to consolidate power by suppressing the vote and stealing elections,<\/a> so why should they be trusted with their very own militia?\u00a0 Too many of their MAGA base already have hearts set on fighting another \u201cCivil War\u201d and white vigilantism is already a serious problem.<\/a> It\u2019s painfully obvious what\u2019s going in America right before our eyes, and the fewer militias and vigilantes we have in our midst the better off we will be\u2014and the better the chance that our democracy will survive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve probably heard that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants to create his own militia that would be controlled by . . . guess who, the governor.  In other words, one of the worst right-wing MAGA governors in the country is proposing he have his own private army at his disposal. The governor wants to call […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-posts","category-pelham"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215881"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216137,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215881\/revisions\/216137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}