Return on Investment

The Colonel isn't a conspiracy theorist -- when it comes to this republic's national government, he just doesn't think it is competent enough to pull off the kinds of convoluted secretive plans with which it is often credited.

What the Colonel does believe our republic's national government is very capable of is taking the path of least resistance and punishing its citizens instead of the nation's enemies.

For the past two decades plus, the U.S. federal government has done just that -- justifying restrictions on constitutionally protected rights in the name of security, while conducting little more than what professional military thinkers and planners would regard as "limited objective" operations.

To be sure, that sort of governmental reaction to outside threats is not a new phenomenon.  One can find federal reactionary restrictions in every "emergency" since the founding of the Republic.  They all amount to accumulation and consolidation of power in the hands of the national governing elite at the expense of the individual and State rights explicitly "guaranteed" in the Constitution and justified as necessary for the safety and security of the individuals and States.

Here's the rub -- the citizens of the Republic already pay an exorbitant price in blood and treasure for their security. The American people fund and field the most effective security apparatus the world has ever seen -- the United States Armed Forces.  American taxpayers field an all-volunteer force, equip it with state-of-the-art weapons, supply it like no other force in the history of warfare, train it like no other force in the history of armies, and compensate its members on a scale way beyond any other on earth.   And yet, instead of seeing a return on their most costly investment, the American people watch the most effective bulk of their military sit idly in their barracks as threats to their security gather in plain sight.

Mark the Colonel's words, another major attack on U.S. soil is coming.  The Colonel harbors not one shred of doubt in his military mind that another attack is coming -- and you don't either.

When it does, (in the Colonel's version of a perfect world -- BEFORE it does), the citizens of this great republic deserve a rich return on their investment -- not a doubling down of restrictions on their rights.