I’ve been negligent …

I’ve been negligent in keeping up with the Homespun Blogger Symposium questions, and the one this week is something I’ve touched on before. The question is:

This week President Bush is kicking around the idea of increasing the role of the US armed forces in reacting to major natural disasters here at home. This seems to be pushing up against the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 pretty hard. This law prevents the US military from acting in a law enforcement role within our borders. Following the Civil War, it made sense to provide a sense of sovereignty to the states that had law behind it from enforcing an overbearing federal government from wrongly using federal troops in a domestic role.

What are your thoughts about this mission creep for our military, especially in a time when we’re at war with a major portion of our forces engaged?

I don’t see the difference between a federal government wrongly using federal troops in 1878 vs wrongly using them in 2005. The issue of Posse Comitatus is not to prevent the Feds from doing the right thing with them once in a while, but preventing them from doing the wrong thing with them ever. Once you open that door, as governments are wont to do, they will not give up that power. Disaster relief, as wonderful an idea as that may sound now, will be the foot in the door for wider misuse of that power in the future.

And it’s not like the states don’t have access to federal troops if they ask for them. The governor of Louisiana was quite tardy in her reaction, but we shouldn’t penalize the other 49 governors and give the Feds the ability to commandeer the process just because of one’s mistake. The meaning of the Interstate Commerce clause has been expanded beyond all recognition. Just imagine what would happen if that same fate befell the Insurrection Act. Do you think the federal government, under any party, will reign itself in? (Hint: The guys who wrote the Constitution said “No”.)

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