It just seems like you're failing to acknowledge the logical consequences of the idea. If the looters in Minneapolis are conducting a civil war, military force against them is justified and appropriate.
A great many people in this country feel they're already having military force deployed against them and that police are little different from an occupying army, so officially militarizing he conflict would just mean different colors of uniform and cleaner rules of engagement.
As a practical matter, a resort to military force in a domestic theater signals a failure of governance. And to the extent that it is attempted, it will further erode the support of the military for the civilian command; many veterans and active-duty personnel have no faith in the commander-in-chief, and history suggests that in such cases many troops choose to remain in their barracks.
To be sure, insurrection could have dangerous and bloody consequences, but that's why people are rebelling against it. Different people are rebelling for different reasons across the political spectrum; folk on the left are angry about the deaths of people like George Floyd or Breonna Taylor, folk on the right are angry about the death of people like Duncan Lemp or Randy Weaver. There are big differences between different groups because of differing notions about race, property, the social order, history, and so forth, but there's a wide consensus that the status quo is oppressive both at home and abroad and that regular folk feel trampled upon.
Was it not just weeks ago that the President, in response to heavily armed demonstrations in statehouses, was tweeting out 'Liberate Michigan! Liberate Wisconsin! Liberate Virgina - your 2nd amendment rights are under attack!' Now he threatens military force when a different group of people rise up against a different perception of tyranny. There's plainly a big disagreement in this country about what constitutes liberty, where life ends and property begins, and so forth - ideological questions that can be reasoned out to some degree, but highlight quite different basic premises held by people of different birth and experience. History is in many ways the tale of such fundamental disagreements.
Notions of justification and appropriateness are ultimately appeals to a higher authority - civic, judicial, parental, political, or religious. Once the nature and legitimacy of authority itself comes into dispute, differences are resolved by other means. In this historical moment people are choosing to seize authorship of their own lives rather than dully play the roles that were written out for them. Make of that what you wish.
It just seems like you're failing to acknowledge the logical consequences of the idea. If the looters in Minneapolis are conducting a civil war, military force against them is justified and appropriate.
A great many people in this country feel they're already having military force deployed against them and that police are little different from an occupying army, so officially militarizing he conflict would just mean different colors of uniform and cleaner rules of engagement.
As a practical matter, a resort to military force in a domestic theater signals a failure of governance. And to the extent that it is attempted, it will further erode the support of the military for the civilian command; many veterans and active-duty personnel have no faith in the commander-in-chief, and history suggests that in such cases many troops choose to remain in their barracks.
To be sure, insurrection could have dangerous and bloody consequences, but that's why people are rebelling against it. Different people are rebelling for different reasons across the political spectrum; folk on the left are angry about the deaths of people like George Floyd or Breonna Taylor, folk on the right are angry about the death of people like Duncan Lemp or Randy Weaver. There are big differences between different groups because of differing notions about race, property, the social order, history, and so forth, but there's a wide consensus that the status quo is oppressive both at home and abroad and that regular folk feel trampled upon.
Was it not just weeks ago that the President, in response to heavily armed demonstrations in statehouses, was tweeting out 'Liberate Michigan! Liberate Wisconsin! Liberate Virgina - your 2nd amendment rights are under attack!' Now he threatens military force when a different group of people rise up against a different perception of tyranny. There's plainly a big disagreement in this country about what constitutes liberty, where life ends and property begins, and so forth - ideological questions that can be reasoned out to some degree, but highlight quite different basic premises held by people of different birth and experience. History is in many ways the tale of such fundamental disagreements.
Notions of justification and appropriateness are ultimately appeals to a higher authority - civic, judicial, parental, political, or religious. Once the nature and legitimacy of authority itself comes into dispute, differences are resolved by other means. In this historical moment people are choosing to seize authorship of their own lives rather than dully play the roles that were written out for them. Make of that what you wish.