Troops in LA and DC - are we seeing what the founders feared? Letter to the Editor

What was feared in our founding era is happening now.

Troops on the ground in Los Angeles and now in Washington, D.C., facing off against Americans: This was a great fear by our Founders regarding how a large standing army could be misused by the government and could lead to a tyrannical government.

When the new U.S. Constitution was sent to the states for ratification, this became a major reason the anti-Federalists opposed ratification. Their fears were made very clear at the time by New York Judge Robert Yates, writing as ”Brutus,” that “the liberties of the people are in danger from a large standing army,” either because “the rulers may employ [the army] for the purposes of supporting themselves in any usurpation of power, which they may see proper to exercise,” or because of the “