Throughout this series I’ve pointed to the importance of citizens militias, both in America’s founding and in the intellectual background of our crucial Second Amendment. What too few people realize is that such militias are more than some accident of history. Instead, they are the embodiment of a profound set of ideas, just as a large standing army embodies another, opposing set of ideas.
Militias composed of volunteers, represent and make effective the spontaneous order arising from free citizens. Standing armies directed by monarchs or other powerful executives, by contrast, make real and all too imposing the kind of top-down, coercive order imposed by oligarchies and tyrants. …