It's not wether it's a good idea or not, it's what's the federals governments responsibilities. Disaster response is not one of them. It makes us feel go to say it is, so we do it, but it's not there area of responsibility.

Our founding fathers were very careful to make as small a national government as was possibly needed. National defense is needed at a national level. Cities facing disaster can be handled locally.

A good example, was when I was a kid, a dam broke in Virginia where I lived. Our house was flooded, and we were stuck on the top floor for 4 days before the water subsided. We had no running water or food, but every day a boat came by and delivered food to us.

You know who that was? McDonalds. They fed thousands of people in the community while we were stranded, and they never expected a penny in return.

Communities and people can come together to overcome a disaster. They have a much harder time defending the country from invasion.

While it is somewhat of a different point of view than many would have to this question, the federal government has a responsibility to provide an effective military services and one of the responsibilities of the military services would be to aid local authorities in the event of an emergency; regardless of whether this emergency is a natural disaster, large scale accident, terrorist attack or act of war.

While I can’t say that I’m too familiar with FEMA, the problem with similar organizations is that they add unnecessary complexity to a situation for little or no benefit.

Ok, let me tweak the question further, for those who believe in restricting the size of government:

* Do people here believe that the federal government is the most competent at providing for national defense, or if something else, say states or private corporations, are more competent?

* If the answer is that the federal government is most competent at doing this, and you don't believe anyone else is, then what makes the military the only thing it is most competent at?

A single private corproation would be more competant for providing national defense on a national army level.

It's just you wouldn't want a single private corpoation running your entire army since  force is the last negotiation tool.

If you think the company running your private army is asking too much money.... ehhhh.  Who's to say they don't just overthrow you?

Even if they don't.  Then you gotta go about getting a whole new private army.  

It's pretty much the only job that can't be split up to prevent these problems. 

Not only that, it would allow for a corporate monopoly...That is usually not much better than a government monopoly.

At least with the current military structure, there is a hybrid of private and public companies - the government employs the troops while the private sector does the bulk of R&D and arms them. That way, businesses can compete for the most efficient delivering of arms to the sector. Is it perfect? Beyond no. But its the best that we can manage.

In a 'perfect' world, we would have militias only, and everyone would rally to the common cause of his brother and defend the state and nation. However, that has not been the historical case. Just look at the Toledo War. Ohio and Michigan were a few steps away from initiating a full scale war against eachother.

And to think... it was over toledo!

Yep. And if it wasn't for federal intervention, it would have blown up and people would have died....Over Toledo.

Of course, it ended up fine when the feds gave Michigan the Upper Peninsula (if you've wondered why Michigan has it instead of Wisconsin, that is the reason), but it still shows you that having militias as your main defense force isn't that smart.

Also, if the United States of had a standing army before the run-up to 1812, there would be no Canada. We would of taken it from the Brits. However, due to the lack of equipment and training, our militias were owned by the Canadians.

I am leaning towards the belief that the "right to bear arms" is what the founding fathers had in mind for what America had as a military.  The idea was to have militias defend the country.  The idea wasn't to offload the entire military on the federal level, and the citizens without arms.  The founding fathers would likely be appauled at how we developed a military-industrial complex.  How the heck do citizens have the ability to overthrow the government now, if need be?  They don't have the same level of weapons.  And shoot, if you do start to collect weapons and store them, and live there, there will be a standoff in front of your place, and the media would call the place a "compound".

I do agree with that. If private citizens could own bigger, better weapons (like they can in Switzerland), our need for a standing army would be much less. IMO, the best we could do is dissolve the federal military into the national guard, and require states to contribute their manpower to a mutual defense force.

Oh yeah... it's a real catch 22 though.  Back in those days most guns were fairly cheap and the differnces between the cheap and expensive weren't that big.

Though now in an era where things like tanks, jetfighters and such cost millions opon millions... what can you do?

I guess you could secretly collect LAWs and RPGs or something... even then.