Very serious question.

To be honest, it is a little late for the Stranger to be waking up to this reality but thanks for joining the party. If you guys were a real alternative newspaper, hell even if you listed to some progressive radio like Randi Rhodes or Mike Malloy you'd have seen this coming.

But the problem for me isn't as much the military acting like police; it's the police acting like military.

Listen, if the polls from now on out project Obama at a 10+ point lead, it will become very difficult for Republicans to steal the election without people scratching their heads as to why polling was completely incongruent with the outcome. If this is the case, perhaps they WILL have to resort to some sort of false-flagging or something.

See, it's a difficult subject because thinking about it makes one want to shut down and curl up into a ball when realizing that there is no evidence to the contrary that our current POTUS wouldn't do such a thing.

i assume the most likely scenario for those who dare to protest is getting your ass kicked or killed.

Or, everything will be fine. My tin foil hat has been blocking transmissions from moonbat base so what do I know.

The combination of a unitary Executive and virtually unlimited law enforcement authority up to and including declaring martial law is a recipe for dictatorship. Frankly it's more power than I would like to see a President of either party possess.

Probably right now they're thinking either: A. Civil unrest prompted by economic collapse or B.civil unrest, particularly among minority communities, prompted by a conspicuously stolen election a la Zimbabwe or the Ukraine's Orange Revolution.

one brigade would not suppress the outrage that would ensue.

Whatever. And don't be afraid to say it in a public forum, either, ya know?

Thank you for your continued service to our country. The US Navy rocks! (and hopefully kicks Somali pirate ass really soon.)

TI was planning ahead.

Denver's police union is facing criticism for printing a commemorative T-shirt that makes light of the use of violence by police, particularly in the wake of 154 arrests during the week of Democratic National Convention this past August.

"We get up early, to beat the crowds," the shirt reads, followed by "2008 DNC." The words flank a grinning police officer holding a baton and wearing a hat with a crossed-out number "68," presumably making reference to activist organization Recreate 68, which staged several anti-war demonstrations during the convention.

So it's a point of worry that an "Iraq-seasoned brigade has been reassigned, for the next 12 months, to the control of U.S. Army North. That is, the United States?" Well, how many brigaded are there that are *not* "Iraq-seasoned?" At this rate I expect to hear that the practice of sending National Guard troops to Iraq was to give them experience for quelling riots when it emerges that McCain-Palinhitlerburton stole the '08 election.

Besides, I thought we were supposed to be bringing troops home. Hasn't that been on the progressive agenda all along?

Worked great for me!

If I were reading that scenario in a history book, I'd expect the worst.

One thing we know for sure is that our military will have no objections to bombing and shooting civilians here in the US just like the countless thousands of innocent men, women and children they've brutally murdered in Iraq.

They're war criminals.

Even if a Democrat inherits this level of executive power, it's still a bad idea.

The good news is that a brigade is only about 2,500 soldiers. The bad news is that they only really have to hit a relative handful of cities. I think you'd need at least 200 soldiers to hold down the hippies in an average sized city, probably a little more. That way they could only really enforce martial law in about a dozen cities.

If they're just here to fuck with the election they could probably be devestating. They could disrupt the election in dozens of cities in key swing states and could change the election. If they're here to suppress revolution they'll need more.

So, what do we do about it? Arm ourselves before it happens? I can tell you this. If this goes down the way we're fearing it could I'll be calling in dead to work. Literally.

This sort of left bullshit of the army being full of child killers is what allows the sort of paranoia seen here to flourish. People who choose to join the army are, at least in general, committed to up holding principles of their country. Principles free and fair elections.

It is highly unlikely that any large group of American soldiers will be willing to kill their fellow citizens and over throw the government.

On the other hand if such a thing were to happen there are still lots of sane civilians committed to owning guns for many reasons including this situation, but I forgot guns are bad and we can't trust people to own them so take them away.

As far as unpopular presidents deploying troops against their own populations, we only have to look at those notable examples, Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabe, and Hu Jintao, notable conservatives all, right?

@31 ... think what you like by all means--I didn't hear an answer to either of my questions. Just because I'm skeptical about alarmism that we might be returning to a new version of Haymarket or Kent State (which I remember personally btw), doesn't mean I'd be supportive of it if it actually came to pass.

You and I are basically in agreement when the discussion moves away from me personally. Your implication that I must be a Republican just because I don't join the amen chorus is wrong, however. Not all conservatives are in the tank for the GOP. I'm an independent conservative, as I've said before in this forum, and over my lifetime I've donated more to Democrats than Republicans--though, I must admit, always to individual candidates, not to the Party itself.

Thanks for that completely logical and well-thought out response!

The facts, however, plainly show that our soldiers don't care who they're torturing, bombing and killing.

Their Lord and Savior, Preznit Caligutard, says "shoot" and they shoot.

Ah, here we go again gearing up with the Cheney-Bushitlerburton talk. I love it. Liberalism at its looniest

For a blanket, boilerplate dismissal of concerns about the suspension of Posse Comitatus that was Brendan's initial reason for concern. If your point is just that you cringe when you hear "Chimpy McBushitler" or whatever then I'm in full agreement.

If you essentially agree with the intent of the post, though, which is that it is cause for alarm when the federal government starts talking casually about using troops to keep the peace domestically, then I don't understand the dismissive tone.