Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete F.
It is what happened
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What you said is not what happened:
"A head of state using a standing army"
There was no standing army being used against the will of a state governor. Washington D.C. is not a state. The President as commander-in-chief of the District of Columbia's national guard has the legal, constitutional power to use it in that city. The original notion of the Founders, that the central government did not have the authority to impose the power of a standing federal army on the states and the free citizens therein, never applied to D.C.
to occupy an American city, compel citizens off the street,
The National Guard were not "occupying" D.C. A military occupation is generally a military controlling a foreign territory by force. The American city in this case was being occupied by protesters, many of which were not residents of D.C., not by a standing army which was lawfully protecting the jurisdiction at the behest of the city's commander in chief.
stifle free expression and assembly, using paramilitary forces to smoke clergy out of their churches at the head of state’s whim, is pretty much the founders’ nightmare.
Free expression and assembly were not "stifled." It was moved a small distance. Non-peaceful, unlawful expression may have been stifled. I haven't heard about people being smoked out of their churches. I did hear about people not being allowed to attend their churches during the pandemic shutdown.
The Founders would have definitely approved of the President ordering his federal troops to quell destructive civil disorder in D.C. The Thugs and ANTIFA in the crowd had been turning the peaceful "occupation" into a violent, dangerous, life threatening, destructive one. The Founder's nightmare would have been a President who allowed the Capitol to be desecrated by thugs and criminals.
As for clearing a path for the President, the people had the right to hear him. The right to protest does not give the right to stifle the free speech of others, nor the right to deny others the right to hear their President.