Stuff They Don't Want You To KnowWhat does the Consitution say about self-armed paramilitary forces? Can a state create its own defense force, functioning under the supervision of a governor rather than the command of the larger armed forces? Inspired by an earlier conversation with Conspiracy Realist Anonymous Owl, the guys explore the bizarre position of state militias in the U.S. -- and what this odd legal arrangement may mean for the future of the country.
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Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Nolan.
Our colleague Matt is on an adventure and shall be returning soon. They call me Ben. We are joined, as always with our super producer Dylan, the Tennessee pal Fake and most importantly, you are you. You are here that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Noel, Tonight, you and Dylan and I are embarking on the first part of what may be a continuing series. Remember a while back in our listener mail program, we received a letter from a conspiracy realist who was going to She was going to jury duty. She was auditioning for jury duty, and and she received I can't not think of it that way.
It's true.
What I mean, it's true.
Yeah, I passed one and I failed one, So you know, I guess that's that's not too bad.
Yeah.
I always what to call back though, right, the approval, the validation.
I am sort of until you realize what it entails.
Yeah, exactly so this uh, this conspiracy realist received a weird question in her in her jury duty process and they asked her if she had ever been in a state militia, which prompted her to write to us, and we found that this is a concept worth exploring in an episode or possibly a series thereof, because state militias are confusing. They've got a lot of different names. It's surprising that they exist in the United States because the US remains by every single metric no matter what else you think of. When you think of the US, you have to admit it has the world's most powerful and dangerous military yeveral times over. For sure.
It's sort of a claim to fame, right, seem to boast about it a little bit on the world stage. Additionally, various states in the United States may well be are in fact home to unsanctioned militaries or militias.
Right sort of. I don't know what do you call like improvised military. It's weird. We'll get to it.
These are groups of armed individuals united by any number of ideologies and goals, and we're going to talk about some of those goals and ideologies and what doth the militia make or what makes a militia?
Mm hmm yeah, because despite having this huge military individual states in this country can be home to their own sanctioned militias and as you said, their own unsanctioned militias. So we're going to pause for word from our sponsors, and when we return, we're going to explore the fact, fiction, and perhaps the danger of some of these organizations. Here are the facts, all right. First question, this was our first question too, What the heck is a state militia? Is it even legal?
Well, in the United States, the state militia, also known as a state defense force, is a military.
What is paramilitary? Man? I mean, wouldn't this kind of be extra paramilitary?
Paramilitary is a very interesting phrase. Sometimes it's used as a curse word. Essentially means a military that is not part of a country's official or legit armed forces. So this happens a lot, for instance in Central and South America, where an armed group, even a terrorist or secessionist group, will describe themselves as the military, and the actual government will say no, no, no, no.
Not it. Yeah.
So I mean, I guess we could definitely say that some of these types of groups we're talking about today could be considered paramilitary, though some of them are considered a military unit that operates under the authority of a state government rather than that of the federal government. That's, of course, when they're the legal versions of these things in that situation. Of those situations, these groups are authorized by state and federal law and under the command of the governor of each state.
Yes, yeah, and this gets confusing. It's important walk with us here, folks. These things, the state defense forces are not the same thing as the National Guard. I was going to have National Guard. Yeah yeah, and it's like, why are they different. The big difference is the national Guard of any state can be federalized, can be drawn into the larger armed forces in times of need, and that's been the law of the land ever since the National Defense Act Amendments of nineteen thirty three.
They usually refer to it as calling in the National Guard exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. Often you'll see that in maybe the aftermath of a natural disaster or other emergency situation. Uncle SAM recognizes the legality of state defense forces again separate from the National Guard in the Constitution, with one big caveat. They do have to be separate from the Guard and if you are a state defense force.
Like we have.
One of the most famous would be the Texas Guard. Right, that force cannot be drafted, cannot be called, cannot be ordered into the larger US Armed forces. This is under Freney policy, wonks. This is thirty two US Code oneh nine, Maintenance of Other Troops, which you can read in full online. It's got a weird wonky loophole though. All right, so this is one for all the draft dodgers out there.
If you this does not exempt you, right.
Yes, yeah, yeah, can you tell us a little more about that.
Well, it just it occurred to me what an interesting loophole this is because while the body, the organization, the actual state militia as a fighting unit, cannot be co opted by the US Army or Armed Services, individuals within it because of their service under these sanctioned state groups are not, however, exempt from being drafted as individual human people citizens into the forces.
Which is weird. And also, if you are already a member of the reserves, you can't be a member of the state defense force at the same time. So they built this intricate system of yes, nos, right, and every state, well almost every state has laws that authorize some version of a state defense force. Nineteen states plus Puerto Rico right now have active forces with different levels of activity and support and strength. You know, we mentioned the Texas State Guard. There's also an Ohio Naval Guard, which is interesting. We have the equivalent in our home state of Georgia. Basically, these things are the commanding authority of what has been called unorganized militias, which are still also legal technically, but it's a very broad term. And things go wrong, you by friend and Dylan Tennessee, Palfagan and I would be called in to be part of an organized militia like of stuff really went.
Bad, right because of our designation as able bodied men between the ages of seventeen and forty five.
Yes, who are not already in the armed forces or the national Guard.
Got it okay?
So maybe, without getting too terribly into the weeds, we can already see how this can get a little confusing, certainly through me for a loop. Certainly a complex and interlocking web of fighting forces, full of kind of bizarre overlapping areas and diagrammy bits and loopholes. So I guess the question is how did we get here? This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful United States Army. This is what is this as a militia?
Oh many day go by, right, yea, This idea makes sense, and to understand it we have to travel back to the origin of the United States. In general, an unorganized militia means that in times of dire need, extreme emergency, a state may not be able to rely entirely upon the federal Army, the US Armed Forces, so they need a citizen army they can call up immediately. This is not the same as an unsanctioned, self proclaimed militia, because this army, this unorganized militia, has the approval of the state's governor.
Yeah, that term though, unorganized militia. It just makes me think they're like running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They don't know which way is.
That right, right, shooting each other in the foot.
Yeah, Benny Hills m h exactly.
Yeah, Yeah, what was that Benny Hill theme? Can we do that real quickly? Oh boy, Dylan's got it. Yeah, it is, it is, it is. I always pictured Dylan rolling his eyes when we do those. We do those just leap of faith sound cues. But you're excellent at it. Thank you, sir.
We love you and we believe in you, Dylan.
But but you know now that you've got that image in your head of the Benny Hill style, you know, gunman running around frantically, Let's let's talk about what it really means, what an organized militia really means, and how it pertains or is or is not relevant in our current time.
Yeah yeah, yeah, So unorganized militias are more or less obsolete in the modern day because we have not reached that level of emergency. But you'll still see them around. The most famous is We're one of the most famous would be the Virginia Militia. Their members do wear uniform, they actively perform military duties. You find them pretty often in various Virginia State military schools. This wasn't always the case because when the US was founded itself a child of conspiracy in the seventeen seventies, all the way up to the early twentieth century, the US only had a minimal like actual Fax Army. As Laura and Vogelbaum would say. Instead, when they got into a tangle, when they got into a scrap, they called upon these state militias to give them the majority of troops for their fighting force. This was not ideal because all the like the troops in Georgia and the troops in I don't know, Rhode Island, may have very different standards of training, right, so some people might as well why be special forces and other guys are like first day ROTC.
So they it would vary pretty widely in their ability to deploy like quickly and efficiently from group to group. So let's move forward in time, fast forward, if you will, to the Spanish American War. As a result of the performance from militias and these other volunteer units, Congress did realize that there perhaps was a little inconsistency, let's just say, and they needed to do something about it.
Yeah, diplomatically put think of it this way, folks, when you go. One of the appeals of fast food is that a McDonald's burger is a McDonald's burger, right, something like it. It's uniform wherever you go. And they in Congress realized they needed everybody on the same page fighting wise. They wanted people at the same level. This leads to the Militia Act of nineteen oh three. That's the ancestor of the modern day National Guard that we have today. During World War One, Congress said, okay, every state, you can maintain what we'll call home guards. They're different from the National Guard, and everyone said, yay.
A collective woof if you will.
But there is a bit more to the story, and for that we need to move towards the Cold War era. Everyone up until that point kind of agreed that state militias were necessary just in case things, you know, really really.
Went south, like you were talking about earlier, Ben But.
In Russians there you go, Yeah, red Dawn, they're coming, They're coming. But everything changed in the nineteen eighties when some of these.
Groups started to have some issues with corruption.
Yeah, and mission creep. They we're getting a little too big for their breeches. One of the most infamous examples is nineteen eighty seven, the government of Utah had to clear the house militarily speaking looking at the Utah State Guard, he found that all but thirty one officers had to be fired immediately because the State Guard was absolutely riddled with Neo Nazis, felons and mental patients are This is a quote. This is not us. This is a quote from a paper at the time. The Kentucky New era.
Yeah, that tracks.
So let's fast forward once again for the last time to the present day. So, with the nature of these unorganized militias, these extra military groups kind of starting to be seen as having a bit of a troubled past, you might ask yourself, what do they actually do? I think we've been asking ourselves that from the start. In general, they do focus unmanaging emergency situations as well as participating and protecting homeland security. And most of these are ground troops. There are, however, some that take to the skies and to the seas, but mainly they are ground forces.
Yeah, yeah, overwhelmingly they are ground forces. And want to plant a seed for us here, fellow conspiracy realists, when you hear the word militia in the United States, what we often are going to think about will be what we will call those unsanctioned militias. Right, not unorganized, because nothing has gone horribly, horribly wrong to the point of the US dissolving. Right, there are no massive foreign militaries attacking you know, Missouri or anything. But we do see, but we do see a lot of concerns that have arisen in recent years about people self proclaiming as militia and then maybe lingering at polling places. The protect those polling places, and they'll say it's not voter intimidation, it's making sure the vote goes right.
Okay, I'm a little intimidated just thinking about it, to be honest. So amid this confusion, we see a lot of disturbing problems emerge. While the majority of these folks are acting in good faith, there are of course some to your point, band, who aren't.
So what about the groups that claim.
To be state militia that by their very nature have very little to know oversight at all, especially from where the you know, the federal government's concerned.
And why is this so confusing? Part of it is the depending on the state, these sanctioned groups may have different names entirely state military, state military force, state militia, state military reserve, state, and so on. And with all these terms being flown about, with all these questions about chain of command and the ultimate authority right and the ultimate aims of the organization, it's easy to see chaos and conspiracy blossom. We'll tell you what we mean by that afterward. From our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy. All right, we know the old problem of standardized training continues in the modern day. No, I'd like to share with everybody a quick story, and fortunately it's a story that's yeah, okay, great, it's a story that's going to be common unfortunately to a lot of us in the audience this evening. So the world's militaries, many of them, especially in the West, they have realized that you need to trade notes in class, right, So a French officer may have an exchange program, or the French military may have an exchange program wherein an officer visits the US and vice versa, and what they see there is even These modern militaries have discovered stark differences, not just in aspects of training, but in aspects of ideology and in aspects of culture. That's why these exchange programs are valuable, because you need to speak the same military language, especially if again things go wrong and you have to have an international ally to help you in whatever global operation or objective you're attempting to achieve. This standardized training stuff is is some it's you know what it is.
It's like.
It's like an aggravating chore that you always have to do, Like you know, you're washing your car and you realize that you're just going to have to wash it again, but you have to keep washing it because otherwise your car is going to get dirty, you know. Or putting gas in your car. You have to keep putting gas in your car it doesn't break down, or keep charging it so it doesn't break down. Annoying, and that's it's annoying, and it's necessary, and that's kind of where standardized training comes in. It's also just the tip of the iceberg. There's a huge problem with consistency when we talk about legal state militias, and the best way to illustrate it, along with your earlier note about corruption, is to go to a two thousand and seven New York Times investigation which found the problem was way worse, cartoonishly worse than most of us would imagine.
Well not yeah.
A great investigative journalist for the Times, Paul Vittello, looked specifically into the New York Guard and found that the issue was less with consistency across other organizations of this type, but more with a complete and utter lack of formal military training.
Pretty serious stuff.
In the article, i Vtello talks to one former commander of the Guard a Pierre.
David Lax, who put it to the Veslie.
If you are friendly with the governor and you always wanted to be a general, you asked the governor to make you a general, and poof, you're a brigadier general.
Who knew it was that easy? Sorry, everybody who went to West Point.
Yeah, yeah, it's rough, it is.
Yeah. It sounds then that we are we are looking at something that is anathema to an actual armed force, the idea that one could sit like European aristocrats of old, by a title that he did not earn. There's another This article is incredibly interesting. We found it on the New York Times wayback Machine, but you can also find it on web dot archive dot org. And in this we see that Vitello speaks with numerous people who are breaking down some of the uglier or not even ugly like, some of the more disappointing aspects of this state Defense Force. In particular, I want to give you some numbers real quick. Yeah, before mister Lax that you just quoted, there was a guy named George Liebner, and he talks at length about how he recruited politicians for the cause in the nineteen eighties. The New York Guard depend and depends upon largest they need annual grants known as member items. Its budget is about eighty five thousand dollars a year, which is obviously laughably small in comparison to other military budgets. Getting that out there, right. And so this guy Leibner, who was an accountant on Long Island, he said, look, I've got Guard members like State Senator Dean G. Skilos, who is now a colonel, and former Assemblyman Thomas F. Baraga. These are both Long Island Republicans. Oh, and Thomas F. Barraga is a major general in the Guard. And he said, they've sponsored some of these grants because here's the quote. He says, I'm basically giving these guys rank and title because they're supporting us financially. His logic is not inspiring, but it is sound. He says, we could I give these guys accept the title. I'm not stupid. If I ask some political guy to join the New York Guard and support our mission and I offer to make him a private, do you think he's going to join?
Yeah? Probably?
You know what I mean.
These guys don't get where they are without a little dash of ego. The article also makes note that the Guard's duties are often pretty ceremonial in nature rather than operational. We see some similar issues that are reflected in multiple other organizations in different states, a trend that kind of causes some critics to dismiss the whole concept.
As wanna be warriors, warrior wannabes, the.
Idea that some of these state guard folks are just people that couldn't cut it, you know, in the real military, and this was the best they could do, which the implication also being that there might be a bit of a chip on some because of this fact, right, right.
And that's that's pretty that's pretty rough. Obviously, we don't want to paint with a broad brush because a lot of these organizations are doing really good work, work that you would call volunteer work. You know, they're paying for their own uniforms, if they have uniforms, they're paying their own way to go to events. And like you said, a lot of these ceremonial functions are still very important emergency preparedness drills, color guards for funerals, you know, security for charity runs and things of that nature. Right, So training stuff this is good for the community overall, but is should account as military right? Should you be able to be a general for donating to a cause? We're going to say no. And a lot of generals, some of whom may be in the audience tonight, certainly ones I've spoken to in the past, would absolutely laugh in a scary way about the idea. Have you ever heard a general laughing personal It's not it's not pleasant.
Is it like villainous? When are we talking here?
It's very I mean it's.
Those we're a politicians. I see where you're going. No, it's for Oh, I don't even want to do it on air. I'll do it when we hang out because see each other later. Ben.
Should we get to the question of legitimacy. I think we've sort of started to poke at that one a little bit. But a lot of what we've talked to talked about thus far, at the very least are involving politicians. They're a state oversight to some degree. They are at the very least acknowledged, if not sanctioned, right by the state. Yeah, what about the ones that aren't and that are kind of operating in their own ideological bubbles?
Excellent?
And that's the segue, folks. So we're going to pause for a word from our sponsors, and then we'll return with perhaps the most disturbing question about state militias fact and fiction, the problem of legitimacy. And we've returned. All right, nol, what do we mean when we talk about legitimacy in this regard.
Yeah, it's certainly the other side of this very intense military commemorative coin. There are numerous groups who call themselves state or regional militias. However, these groups exist with no approval from the proper authorities. There's a really great compilation of fact sheets that Georgetown Law put out state by state on unlawful militias. So regardless of what your stance might be on this issue, it's definitely worth your time to check it out, find your give it a little look, see how it stacks up for you in your neck of the global woods.
As Ben would say.
Yeah, yeah, And we pulled up Georgia, of course, because we're very interested in what's happening in Georgia that that affects us immediately. But for every every faction you read, whichever state you go to, you'll find some of the same things, and Georgetown sums it up this way. It's a long quote, but we feel we need to we need to share it in full. They say, the following groups of armed individuals that engage in paramilitary activity or law enforcement functions without being called forth by a governor or the federal government, and without reporting to any government authority, are acting as unauthorized private militias. Go on, yeah, yeah, I mean they're pretty that's pretty explicit.
Right.
They're saying, Look, if someone didn't tell you your law enforcement, sorry, Bukeru, you are not law enforcement. Now you're just a group of guys with guns. Now you're just a posse, you know what I mean, with no marks of legitimacy. So Georgetown continues and they say, look, these unlawful groups quote sometimes trained together and respond to events using firearms and other paramilitary techniques, such as staking out tactical positions, operating in military style formations. They often purport to have authority to engage in military and law enforcement functions such as protecting property and engaging in crowd control. So Georgetown here is talking about people who take it upon themselves to dress in a uniform, maybe show up at a protest, sometimes a protest for a cause with which they disagree and say, hey, we're just keeping the peace. We're just keeping the peace.
You know what I mean.
Don't push me. I'm not going to push you. You will pushing on me. You're pushing on me.
That's really insisting upon yourself.
I mean, you know, we certainly heard about some members of some groups like this being around during the January sixth riots, whatever you want to call it uprising. Does this include groups like Proud Boys and some of these you know, armed kind of paramilitary seeming groups.
It can, Yeah, it's it's it's a pickle. I was going to call it picklish, it's a bag of badgers, because you can be a militant organization, right and it's legal to be almost any kind of organization you would like to be in the United States, at least on paper. And we have to note, to be completely honest, we're looking at act and intention here. Action is easy to prove legally. Intention is a little bit more difficult to prove.
Uh.
You know, regardless of where anybody stands on the issue at hand, there is absolutely nothing illegal in the United States about getting together to just shoot guns with your buddies or practice. I'm gonna I'm not gonna be dismissive, but to practice choreography.
Yeah, run some formation, run some drills. Whatever, that's your bunker, you know, your whatever it is, barn.
Types of dout.
I mean, it also makes me think of groups like forget the name or if they had an official name, but like Aiman Bundy, that was a militia, right, it wasn't like I mean, David Koresh, you know, things like that weren't those kind of militias. But I guess it's about it's about action and intention right as to whether you're a terrorist group or a militia or a cult. I don't mean to muddy the waters here, Ben, but I do think it's maybe worth it aside.
Yeah, absolutely, I agree with you. So the Branch Davidians started as as a cult or spiritual belief system before Koresh came in and usurped things, and under the Korreesh regime, the Branch Davidians became increasingly like an increasingly militant organization and apocalyptic and their reasoning right, these these things that we would call unsanctioned militias do come from militant organizations, and they don't all have the same aims. They don't all have the same objectives, right. A lot of times you'll find two different groups and they describe themselves as you know, the last real Americans, and they might meet each other and hate each other and totally disagree on everything else becase because real American means one thing to one group and another thing to the other group.
Yeah, And it also kind of leads me to the question of intention again, Like, is when you use the term militia versus like armed terrorist group or what have you? Are is the intention typically when you're talking about militia, about nationalism and about protecting you know, what's ours, what's theirs in terms of their little piece of the United States?
Or is it greater than that?
The sanction ones certainly seem like they're designed and meant to aid, you know, the state or the country at large. But some of these where the ideology gets a little trickier, their aims seem to be a little bit amorphist to me. But I just wonder if that term militia does require some nationalistic leaning.
Often yes, Yeah, because a terrorist operation or a terrorist organization would be attempting to attack the United States. Now, there are cases of militant groups or militant militia affiliated individuals who commit acts that we would legally consider terrorism. They don't think of themselves as terrorists. They think of themselves as agents of the greater good. Again, as I said earlier, the tricky thing is the intention, right, And there's been a lot of work done by the FBI, by various branches of law enforcement, and by some really ballsy journalists, honestly journalists and authors to get a better understanding of these groups, right, which again are disparate, divided, driven by different goals. And in that what we find is that often, often here in the US, these unsanctioned and militias do see themselves as a defensive force. And often the reasoning may be one of preparedness for an inevitable disaster or compromise of civilization, rule of law, or they may think that collapse has already occurred and they're fighting to, you know, as you said, protect what they see as theirs. But if they're peacefully assembling, that's that's in the constitution too, you know, that's in the letter of the law.
Get together in terms I mean, you know, right in terms of the ability to bear arms at least in and of itself. And to your point, Ben, it's not until they do something untoward. Let's just say that they are breaking the law just assembling and hanging out, maybe even sleeping in bunks and maybe doing a little prepping and having some ideas that maybe others might find a little over the top. None of those things in and of themselves are illegal.
Yeah, Like, think about this, gone to I've gone to weekend trips where you are essentially taking a workshop on various aspects of things like survivalism or you know, firearm training, things like that, totally legal. How many of those trips can I take before I get on a list? Spoiler, it's not the number of trips you take, it's the organizations that run the trip that's what gets you on a list. It's weird because it's such a murky, blurred line. It's what our British friends would call a sticky wicket. So where is the line between this idea of assembling, your right to bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment, your right to assemble peacefully, your right to prepare for the possibility of disaster and instability in the future. That's all fine, But when does it become illegal? This is where we go back to the legal experts. Let's pull a quote I can't remember. This may be from Cornell, it maybe from Georgetown, but in general, in general, it's so weird, man, because they're they're not describing a specific instance of law, right, they're not. They're not giving us a rubric. They're saying things like It kind of reminds me of the old PSAs, where they would say, here are some signs that your kids might be on the pot.
Yeah, right, they're worshiping the devil. Yes, you know some flags, let's.
Just say some some star signposts. Things like wearing military style uniforms, you know, possessing and deploying tactical gear, having some sort of identifying insignia, you know, on their military style uniforms, carrying, wielding using firearms or other such weapons. And here's a thing that kind of throws me a little bit. Operating within a coordinated command structure. So to your question, Ben, or your point, like, at what point does it go from being this kind of like simulation, you know, workshop thing, to actually running ops to having that coordinated command structure seems like it's heading in that direction, or it could be heading in that direction, and it's a little scary for that command structure to kind of operate in a vacuum.
Yeah, that command structure is key, and I'm happy that that you clocked out as well. A coordinated command structure the logistics behind the thing can be a big flag, as you noted, because when you have a command structure, you might also begin to have designation of rank. Now it's not just saying, oh, this guy they call Ben is calling the shots over at our bunker compound. Now it's you know, Brigadier eighteen star, a start whatever. Because they're making it up.
They're making it up. Okay, I follow.
You know, he told the adjutant Donkey Wonk or whatever in Idaho that it's time to move the aks across state lines and make sure that they make sure that if anyone pulls us over on the road, they contact the guy in the the guy in law enforcement who's also with the cause that game.
So at that point, we're talking about kind of co opting other parts of legally recognized you know, branches of state and federal government. I guess The question then becomes about scale and also about running these type of ops that you're talking about. At what point do you go from being a humble militia to being a genuine paramilitary force to be wrecked and with operating outside of the real deal, you know, military operated by the US government, possibly with very different goals and aims, possibly even with goals to overthrow parts of the governments and military.
Yeah, this is a series of great questions and we may not be able to answer them all this evening. Let's go to some crazy facts. These are These are facts that not everybody likes to hear on the political right or the political left.
Uh.
The Second Amendment does guarantee the right to bear arms.
Sorry, every time I hear that, Ben, Yeah, you know, I got my bare arms coming to exactly.
I think about that too. As a pause is just go god, we love this joke. So, in guaranteeing the right to bear arms, the Second Amendment does not allow for private paramilitary organizations.
But they just said that they do allow it though the military.
No, no, we said, we said they allow for peaceful assembly and you can have firearms and if the governor of a state approves something you can have a state defense force, but we can't all you know, at our upcoming live show in Brooklyn, we can't all of a sudden herald the creation of the Williamsburg Strike Force and then give ourselves all titles, uniforms, guns, and begin training.
Can I be the bagman? That's a military term.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, Brigadier bag man.
Okay, Oh, I love that. I even play the bagpipes when we march on Washington.
Great great or we march on yeah, you know the city.
Yeah, yeah, there we go.
The Supreme Court decided that private paramilitary organizations, meaning those unsanctioned by any representative of government. They said this was illegal, not once, but twice because it keeps coming up. Scots knocked it down in eighteen eighty six and then again in two thousand and eight because.
It didn't take the first time. I guess I wonder if it took the second time. Spoiler alert, I mean, I guess. Is the sticky wickets that's right, the sticky wicket though that you mentioned earlier, Ben, is at what point do it's so vague as to when a militia moves into the territory of paramilitary force and You can't really know unless I guess there are certain quote unquote militias that are maybe approaching that that are being monitored right because they're we're thinking they're going to make a move. Can we talk about that aspect of it a little bit, some of the surveillance. Sure, how far that goes and what puts you on the radar of the federal government.
I like that you're pointing this out yet, because we need to look at the other side of this. Again. There are many people, many organizations, volunteer organizations that have perhaps been unfairly targeted by mass surveillance. You know, I'm sure we have a lot of folks in the audience tonight who are saying, well, yeah, I train, or yes, I'm what you will call a prepper, you know what I mean. But I'm not trying to break the law. I'm just trying to be prepared like any good boy scout. So why am I getting targeted? When we see threats to the rule of law on a local, regional, federal level, then we, in theory also see constant investigation monitoring infiltration are to argue that the conspiracy the infiltration attempts occur on both sides, So the FBI or the state level version of it, like here in Georgia we have the GBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They will monitor these things in concert with the FBI and concert with local law enforcement. They may send somebody in to learn more about an organization, more about what they actually want to do. Is this a neo Nazi organization? Is this a hate group of some kind, a supremacist group of some kind, or are these people who I don't know. It's nuts because I have always suspected I've never really looked into this, but I've always suspected the monitoring drills down so far that at least a few undercover folks have even gone to civil war reenactments just to check in, just to be like, hey, you guys know this is re enactment, right.
Yeah, yeah, but just for funzies all fifty states. However, I guess to answer my own question from earlier, they don't prohibit the organizations themselves, but they do prohibit these unauthorized military militia rather in military units, from engaging in activities that would typically be reserved for the state militia, and that includes peacekeeping efforts you know, enforcing the law.
Right right, Like when you start trying to run checkpoints at the edge of your town, that is something law enforcement needs to do. That is something that the sheriff should be in charge of, you know, not us, not us.
In the gang.
You well, like on what authority are you stopping that car? That's that's a great example of where this stuff can get pretty crazy.
Well, at the end of the day, you know, might makes right, I.
Mean not really, but you know, if you have a gun, that's enough to enforce it. If you've got enough people behind you with the gun, that.
Are all you know, moving towards the same goals.
So like I mean, at the end of the day, if a militia, a private militia were to develop or go unnoticed or whatever and combine forces, perhaps with some other groups that could potentially rival larger, more organized state militias, they'd be the ones than charge, wouldn't.
They If things go wrong, if the rule of law does not hold, that's exactly right. And that's the thing. Yeah, the rule of law is a is a social covenant. You know. It's kind of like how people have faith in the stock market, or people have faith in physical currency, it works so long as everybody agrees that it works well.
And I think we're seeing a lot of this too in the current administration and their ability to just kind of try things out and go against this sort of decorum of what a president or what a government or presidential cabinet is historically meant to do and meant to be, and you sort of realize that the only thing holding all this together is people kind of just behaving themselves in the past, and then the moment someone decides to, you know, get ballsy with it and test the waters.
There aren't a whole lot of things in place to keep them from doing that.
There are a whole lot of things written to prevent that, but I've never seen a piece of paper stop a bullet exactly. Is the very cold way to say it. And you know, there's another fact that gets ignored in mainstream media. It's this government overreach can be real. Government forces get the privilege of deciding at their own discretion which groups are or are not considered illegal militia, and it's completely possible that some groups can be unfairly targeted. You do not have to look too far back into American history to find multiple examples of this. Think of the civil rights movement, right. You know, the think of gun control is nowadays a pretty wholesome and well intentioned concept in the modern version. Now, critics of gun control obviously are going to say an orwelly enforce is taking away your right to protect it so yourself, and once that right is gone, you'll never get it back. We understand that we're giving you that argument, that perspective, But then flip it and think about the fact that people who are proponents of gun control are saying, hey, we have an extraordinary and disgusting amount of mass shootings, chill shootings, especially right this could be prevent and the fastest answer save proponents of gun control obviously is to is to fix these firearm laws. But the origin of gun control in the US today, the concept itself, as well intentioned as it is, as wholesome as it is in its modern version, as aspirational noble as it is, it has some pretty disturbing racist roots at its foundation. Because people got the powers that be got a lot more concerned about gun control when they saw African American people. Sure organizations exactly right self defense initiatives. That is part of what triggered gun control as a rationale to smack down those folks. And we're not saying that's the case now, but we're saying it's important to acknowledge that these wholesome things can somehow sometimes have in city as origins. You know. The this this gets us back to this militia thing, because you could call something a militia if you just objected to the people right, peaceful protesters, you know, and there's maybe there's a there's a group of gun toting vegans. They're not gonna you know, they're not going to overrun the zoo or any or like a meat packing plant or anything. Uh, They're just doing weird commune lifestyle thing. And now you call them a militia because you don't like them.
Well, it's like the term radical, you know, like nobody calls themselves radicals. It's just the opposition that call you radicals as a term of abuse or a thought terminating cliche.
Yes, a thought terminating cliche where a phrase is weaponized to avoid further scrutiny. And again, to bring it all together, these concerns are coming up because the laws are confusing, because things are amorphous, and because they there are loopholes that can be exploited. This is only the beginning of a larger conversation, folks, thanks for tuning in. The big takeaway here is that yes, state defense forces are legal, and yes there are groups that say they are state defense forces or aspire to be, and those are, depending on their actions and intentions, very much not legal. And the line is a gradient.
But there are versions of them depending on their actions and intentions that could be considered just five one hundred.
Percent yeah, until they go paramilitary. This is a pickle. We're raising more questions than answers, which is why this is why we consider this a part one of a larger exploration. And we'd love to hear more from you, fellow conspiracy realist. Have you been involved with a local militia or a state defense force? Are you currently involved with one, sanctioned or un sanctioned. We cannot stress this enough. The law in your part of the US may differ. We'd also love to hear from folks in other parts, like what's it like in your neck of the Global Woods if you don't live in the United States, how does your country treat these organizations? What do those organizations do, How do they work? How do the laws around the work. We cannot wait to hear from you. We may have a part two on the way. Again. We're with you. We're sussing this out ourselves, and we'd love your help. You can find us online. You can find us on an email. You can find us on a telephonic device.
Yeah, first, and foremost on that foremost, just first. You can find us all over the internet at the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy, on YouTube where we have video content Glory for your perusing enjoyment, as well as on xfka, Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok. However, we're Conspiracy Stuff Show and also we're people. I'm how now Noel Brown on Instagram. How about you, Ben?
You can find me at a Philip Lawn Instagram. You can also go meet me at the appropriate monument at midnight ins of your city. Midnight monument coming soon to a moonless night near you. You can also, if you wish and the rumors are true, here and will give us a call on a telephonic device.
That's all right.
We're one eight three three std wit K you can leave a voicemail message of your choosing, tell us what you think about an episode, give us ideas for another episode. The time is yours and yours alone. Just be sure to give yourself a clever nickname. Doesn't that to be clever even just a nickname? And let us know if it's cool to use your message on the air. And Ben, could we do a quick plug for this thing we're doing. We're doing a live show as part of on Air Fest on February nineteenth at this incredible venue called National Sawdust in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Yes, yes, the rumors are true. Stuff they don't want you to know presents a conspiracy of sound. We don't want to spoil it too much, but we've got a lot of surprises for you ahead. We'll see. Let's say it this way. You can see the show at seven point thirty. You can join the show at six thirty. Yeah, yeah, six.
I think we are also just a little tiny tease. National Sawdust is a very audio forward venue with a crazy array of immersive speakers hidden in the walls of their incredibly beautifully designed space. And we're gonna make use of all of that both before, after and during the show, so come check it out. You can find more info at National Sawdust website or on AirFest And.
We'll also possibly we're still waiting to hear back, we'll possibly have an appearance by our parent company, Illumination Global Unlimited. Can't wait for you to hear it, can't wait for you to be there and see it. Can't wait for you to be part of the show, speaking a part of the show. If you have links, if you have photographs, if you have a burning question on your mind, please always write to us. We can all see it. When you write, we can all respond. We're available for these Internet community cays twenty four hours a night, seven evenings a week. All you have to do is walk a little further from the light. Join us out here in the dark.
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