Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Nolan.
Speaker 1: Our colleague Matt is on an adventure and shall be
Speaker 1: returning soon. They call me Ben. We are joined, as
Speaker 1: always with our super producer Dylan, the Tennessee pal Fake
Speaker 1: and most importantly, you are you. You are here that
Speaker 1: makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Noel, Tonight,
Speaker 1: you and Dylan and I are embarking on the first
Speaker 1: part of what may be a continuing series. Remember a
Speaker 1: while back in our listener mail program, we received a
Speaker 1: letter from a conspiracy realist who was going to She
Speaker 1: was going to jury duty. She was auditioning for jury duty,
Speaker 1: and and she received I can't not think of it
Speaker 1: that way.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: What I mean, it's true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I passed one and I failed one, So you know,
Speaker 3: I guess that's that's not too bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always what to call back though, right, the approval,
Speaker 1: the validation.
Speaker 2: I am sort of until you realize what it entails.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly so this uh, this conspiracy realist received a
Speaker 1: weird question in her in her jury duty process and
Speaker 1: they asked her if she had ever been in a
Speaker 1: state militia, which prompted her to write to us, and
Speaker 1: we found that this is a concept worth exploring in
Speaker 1: an episode or possibly a series thereof, because state militias
Speaker 1: are confusing. They've got a lot of different names. It's
Speaker 1: surprising that they exist in the United States because the
Speaker 1: US remains by every single metric no matter what else
Speaker 1: you think of. When you think of the US, you
Speaker 1: have to admit it has the world's most powerful and
Speaker 1: dangerous military yeveral times over. For sure.
Speaker 3: It's sort of a claim to fame, right, seem to
Speaker 3: boast about it a little bit on the world stage. Additionally,
Speaker 3: various states in the United States may well be are
Speaker 3: in fact home to unsanctioned militaries or militias.
Speaker 2: Right sort of. I don't know what do you call
Speaker 2: like improvised military. It's weird. We'll get to it.
Speaker 3: These are groups of armed individuals united by any number
Speaker 3: of ideologies and goals, and we're going to talk about
Speaker 3: some of those goals and ideologies and what doth the
Speaker 3: militia make or what makes a militia?
Speaker 1: Mm hmm yeah, because despite having this huge military individual
Speaker 1: states in this country can be home to their own
Speaker 1: sanctioned militias and as you said, their own unsanctioned militias.
Speaker 1: So we're going to pause for word from our sponsors,
Speaker 1: and when we return, we're going to explore the fact, fiction,
Speaker 1: and perhaps the danger of some of these organizations. Here
Speaker 1: are the facts, all right. First question, this was our
Speaker 1: first question too, What the heck is a state militia?
Speaker 1: Is it even legal?
Speaker 3: Well, in the United States, the state militia, also known
Speaker 3: as a state defense force, is a military.
Speaker 2: What is paramilitary? Man? I mean, wouldn't this kind of
Speaker 2: be extra paramilitary?
Speaker 1: Paramilitary is a very interesting phrase. Sometimes it's used as
Speaker 1: a curse word. Essentially means a military that is not
Speaker 1: part of a country's official or legit armed forces. So
Speaker 1: this happens a lot, for instance in Central and South America,
Speaker 1: where an armed group, even a terrorist or secessionist group,
Speaker 1: will describe themselves as the military, and the actual government
Speaker 1: will say no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: Not it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I mean, I guess we could definitely say that
Speaker 3: some of these types of groups we're talking about today
Speaker 3: could be considered paramilitary, though some of them are considered
Speaker 3: a military unit that operates under the authority of a
Speaker 3: state government rather than that of the federal government. That's,
Speaker 3: of course, when they're the legal versions of these things
Speaker 3: in that situation. Of those situations, these groups are authorized
Speaker 3: by state and federal law and under the command of
Speaker 3: the governor of each state.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and this gets confusing. It's important walk with
Speaker 1: us here, folks. These things, the state defense forces are
Speaker 1: not the same thing as the National Guard. I was
Speaker 1: going to have National Guard. Yeah yeah, and it's like,
Speaker 1: why are they different. The big difference is the national
Speaker 1: Guard of any state can be federalized, can be drawn
Speaker 1: into the larger armed forces in times of need, and
Speaker 1: that's been the law of the land ever since the
Speaker 1: National Defense Act Amendments of nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 3: They usually refer to it as calling in the National
Speaker 3: Guard exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Often you'll see that in maybe the aftermath
Speaker 1: of a natural disaster or other emergency situation. Uncle SAM
Speaker 1: recognizes the legality of state defense forces again separate from
Speaker 1: the National Guard in the Constitution, with one big caveat.
Speaker 1: They do have to be separate from the Guard and
Speaker 1: if you are a state defense force.
Speaker 2: Like we have.
Speaker 1: One of the most famous would be the Texas Guard. Right,
Speaker 1: that force cannot be drafted, cannot be called, cannot be
Speaker 1: ordered into the larger US Armed forces. This is under
Speaker 1: Freney policy, wonks. This is thirty two US Code oneh nine,
Speaker 1: Maintenance of Other Troops, which you can read in full online.
Speaker 1: It's got a weird wonky loophole though. All right, so
Speaker 1: this is one for all the draft dodgers out there.
Speaker 2: If you this does not exempt you, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, can you tell us a little more
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 3: Well, it just it occurred to me what an interesting
Speaker 3: loophole this is because while the body, the organization, the
Speaker 3: actual state militia as a fighting unit, cannot be co
Speaker 3: opted by the US Army or Armed Services, individuals within
Speaker 3: it because of their service under these sanctioned state groups
Speaker 3: are not, however, exempt from being drafted as individual human
Speaker 3: people citizens into the forces.
Speaker 1: Which is weird. And also, if you are already a
Speaker 1: member of the reserves, you can't be a member of
Speaker 1: the state defense force at the same time. So they
Speaker 1: built this intricate system of yes, nos, right, and every state,
Speaker 1: well almost every state has laws that authorize some version
Speaker 1: of a state defense force. Nineteen states plus Puerto Rico
Speaker 1: right now have active forces with different levels of activity
Speaker 1: and support and strength. You know, we mentioned the Texas
Speaker 1: State Guard. There's also an Ohio Naval Guard, which is interesting.
Speaker 1: We have the equivalent in our home state of Georgia. Basically,
Speaker 1: these things are the commanding authority of what has been
Speaker 1: called unorganized militias, which are still also legal technically, but
Speaker 1: it's a very broad term. And things go wrong, you
Speaker 1: by friend and Dylan Tennessee, Palfagan and I would be
Speaker 1: called in to be part of an organized militia like
Speaker 1: of stuff really went.
Speaker 3: Bad, right because of our designation as able bodied men
Speaker 3: between the ages of seventeen and forty five.
Speaker 1: Yes, who are not already in the armed forces or
Speaker 1: the national Guard.
Speaker 2: Got it okay?
Speaker 3: So maybe, without getting too terribly into the weeds, we
Speaker 3: can already see how this can get a little confusing,
Speaker 3: certainly through me for a loop. Certainly a complex and
Speaker 3: interlocking web of fighting forces, full of kind of bizarre
Speaker 3: overlapping areas and diagrammy bits and loopholes. So I guess
Speaker 3: the question is how did we get here? This is
Speaker 3: not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful United
Speaker 3: States Army. This is what is this as a militia?
Speaker 1: Oh many day go by, right, yea, This idea makes sense,
Speaker 1: and to understand it we have to travel back to
Speaker 1: the origin of the United States. In general, an unorganized
Speaker 1: militia means that in times of dire need, extreme emergency,
Speaker 1: a state may not be able to rely entirely upon
Speaker 1: the federal Army, the US Armed Forces, so they need
Speaker 1: a citizen army they can call up immediately. This is
Speaker 1: not the same as an unsanctioned, self proclaimed militia, because
Speaker 1: this army, this unorganized militia, has the approval of the
Speaker 1: state's governor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that term though, unorganized militia. It just makes me
Speaker 3: think they're like running around like chickens with their heads
Speaker 3: cut off. They don't know which way is.
Speaker 1: That right, right, shooting each other in the foot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Benny Hills m h exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, what was that Benny Hill theme? Can we
Speaker 1: do that real quickly? Oh boy, Dylan's got it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is, it is, it is. I always pictured Dylan
Speaker 1: rolling his eyes when we do those. We do those
Speaker 1: just leap of faith sound cues. But you're excellent at it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir.
Speaker 2: We love you and we believe in you, Dylan.
Speaker 3: But but you know now that you've got that image
Speaker 3: in your head of the Benny Hill style, you know,
Speaker 3: gunman running around frantically, Let's let's talk about what it
Speaker 3: really means, what an organized militia really means, and how
Speaker 3: it pertains or is or is not relevant in our
Speaker 3: current time.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, So unorganized militias are more or less
Speaker 1: obsolete in the modern day because we have not reached
Speaker 1: that level of emergency. But you'll still see them around.
Speaker 1: The most famous is We're one of the most famous
Speaker 1: would be the Virginia Militia. Their members do wear uniform,
Speaker 1: they actively perform military duties. You find them pretty often
Speaker 1: in various Virginia State military schools. This wasn't always the
Speaker 1: case because when the US was founded itself a child
Speaker 1: of conspiracy in the seventeen seventies, all the way up
Speaker 1: to the early twentieth century, the US only had a
Speaker 1: minimal like actual Fax Army. As Laura and Vogelbaum would say. Instead,
Speaker 1: when they got into a tangle, when they got into
Speaker 1: a scrap, they called upon these state militias to give
Speaker 1: them the majority of troops for their fighting force. This
Speaker 1: was not ideal because all the like the troops in
Speaker 1: Georgia and the troops in I don't know, Rhode Island,
Speaker 1: may have very different standards of training, right, so some
Speaker 1: people might as well why be special forces and other
Speaker 1: guys are like first day ROTC.
Speaker 3: So they it would vary pretty widely in their ability
Speaker 3: to deploy like quickly and efficiently from group to group.
Speaker 3: So let's move forward in time, fast forward, if you will,
Speaker 3: to the Spanish American War. As a result of the
Speaker 3: performance from militias and these other volunteer units, Congress did
Speaker 3: realize that there perhaps was a little inconsistency, let's just say,
Speaker 3: and they needed to do something about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, diplomatically put think of it this way, folks, when
Speaker 1: you go. One of the appeals of fast food is
Speaker 1: that a McDonald's burger is a McDonald's burger, right, something
Speaker 1: like it. It's uniform wherever you go. And they in
Speaker 1: Congress realized they needed everybody on the same page fighting wise.
Speaker 1: They wanted people at the same level. This leads to
Speaker 1: the Militia Act of nineteen oh three. That's the ancestor
Speaker 1: of the modern day National Guard that we have today.
Speaker 1: During World War One, Congress said, okay, every state, you
Speaker 1: can maintain what we'll call home guards. They're different from
Speaker 1: the National Guard, and everyone said, yay.
Speaker 2: A collective woof if you will.
Speaker 3: But there is a bit more to the story, and
Speaker 3: for that we need to move towards the Cold War era.
Speaker 3: Everyone up until that point kind of agreed that state
Speaker 3: militias were necessary just in case things, you know, really really.
Speaker 2: Went south, like you were talking about earlier, Ben But.
Speaker 3: In Russians there you go, Yeah, red Dawn, they're coming,
Speaker 3: They're coming. But everything changed in the nineteen eighties when
Speaker 3: some of these.
Speaker 2: Groups started to have some issues with corruption.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and mission creep. They we're getting a little too
Speaker 1: big for their breeches. One of the most infamous examples
Speaker 1: is nineteen eighty seven, the government of Utah had to
Speaker 1: clear the house militarily speaking looking at the Utah State Guard,
Speaker 1: he found that all but thirty one officers had to
Speaker 1: be fired immediately because the State Guard was absolutely riddled
Speaker 1: with Neo Nazis, felons and mental patients are This is
Speaker 1: a quote. This is not us. This is a quote
Speaker 1: from a paper at the time. The Kentucky New era.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that tracks.
Speaker 3: So let's fast forward once again for the last time
Speaker 3: to the present day. So, with the nature of these
Speaker 3: unorganized militias, these extra military groups kind of starting to
Speaker 3: be seen as having a bit of a troubled past,
Speaker 3: you might ask yourself, what do they actually do? I
Speaker 3: think we've been asking ourselves that from the start. In general,
Speaker 3: they do focus unmanaging emergency situations as well as participating
Speaker 3: and protecting homeland security. And most of these are ground troops.
Speaker 3: There are, however, some that take to the skies and
Speaker 3: to the seas, but mainly they are ground forces.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, overwhelmingly they are ground forces. And want to
Speaker 1: plant a seed for us here, fellow conspiracy realists, when
Speaker 1: you hear the word militia in the United States, what
Speaker 1: we often are going to think about will be what
Speaker 1: we will call those unsanctioned militias. Right, not unorganized, because
Speaker 1: nothing has gone horribly, horribly wrong to the point of
Speaker 1: the US dissolving. Right, there are no massive foreign militaries
Speaker 1: attacking you know, Missouri or anything. But we do see,
Speaker 1: but we do see a lot of concerns that have
Speaker 1: arisen in recent years about people self proclaiming as militia
Speaker 1: and then maybe lingering at polling places. The protect those
Speaker 1: polling places, and they'll say it's not voter intimidation, it's
Speaker 1: making sure the vote goes right.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm a little intimidated just thinking about it, to
Speaker 3: be honest. So amid this confusion, we see a lot
Speaker 3: of disturbing problems emerge. While the majority of these folks
Speaker 3: are acting in good faith, there are of course some
Speaker 3: to your point, band, who aren't.
Speaker 2: So what about the groups that claim.
Speaker 3: To be state militia that by their very nature have
Speaker 3: very little to know oversight at all, especially from where
Speaker 3: the you know, the federal government's concerned.
Speaker 1: And why is this so confusing? Part of it is
Speaker 1: the depending on the state, these sanctioned groups may have
Speaker 1: different names entirely state military, state military force, state militia,
Speaker 1: state military reserve, state, and so on. And with all
Speaker 1: these terms being flown about, with all these questions about
Speaker 1: chain of command and the ultimate authority right and the
Speaker 1: ultimate aims of the organization, it's easy to see chaos
Speaker 1: and conspiracy blossom. We'll tell you what we mean by
Speaker 1: that afterward. From our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 1: All right, we know the old problem of standardized training
Speaker 1: continues in the modern day. No, I'd like to share
Speaker 1: with everybody a quick story, and fortunately it's a story
Speaker 1: that's yeah, okay, great, it's a story that's going to
Speaker 1: be common unfortunately to a lot of us in the
Speaker 1: audience this evening. So the world's militaries, many of them,
Speaker 1: especially in the West, they have realized that you need
Speaker 1: to trade notes in class, right, So a French officer
Speaker 1: may have an exchange program, or the French military may
Speaker 1: have an exchange program wherein an officer visits the US
Speaker 1: and vice versa, and what they see there is even
Speaker 1: These modern militaries have discovered stark differences, not just in
Speaker 1: aspects of training, but in aspects of ideology and in
Speaker 1: aspects of culture. That's why these exchange programs are valuable,
Speaker 1: because you need to speak the same military language, especially
Speaker 1: if again things go wrong and you have to have
Speaker 1: an international ally to help you in whatever global operation
Speaker 1: or objective you're attempting to achieve. This standardized training stuff
Speaker 1: is is some it's you know what it is.
Speaker 2: It's like.
Speaker 1: It's like an aggravating chore that you always have to do,
Speaker 1: Like you know, you're washing your car and you realize
Speaker 1: that you're just going to have to wash it again,
Speaker 1: but you have to keep washing it because otherwise your
Speaker 1: car is going to get dirty, you know. Or putting
Speaker 1: gas in your car. You have to keep putting gas
Speaker 1: in your car it doesn't break down, or keep charging
Speaker 1: it so it doesn't break down. Annoying, and that's it's annoying,
Speaker 1: and it's necessary, and that's kind of where standardized training
Speaker 1: comes in. It's also just the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 1: There's a huge problem with consistency when we talk about
Speaker 1: legal state militias, and the best way to illustrate it,
Speaker 1: along with your earlier note about corruption, is to go
Speaker 1: to a two thousand and seven New York Times investigation
Speaker 1: which found the problem was way worse, cartoonishly worse than
Speaker 1: most of us would imagine.
Speaker 2: Well not yeah.
Speaker 3: A great investigative journalist for the Times, Paul Vittello, looked
Speaker 3: specifically into the New York Guard and found that the
Speaker 3: issue was less with consistency across other organizations of this type,
Speaker 3: but more with a complete and utter lack of formal
Speaker 3: military training.
Speaker 2: Pretty serious stuff.
Speaker 3: In the article, i Vtello talks to one former commander
Speaker 3: of the Guard a Pierre.
Speaker 2: David Lax, who put it to the Veslie.
Speaker 3: If you are friendly with the governor and you always
Speaker 3: wanted to be a general, you asked the governor to
Speaker 3: make you a general, and poof, you're a brigadier general.
Speaker 1: Who knew it was that easy? Sorry, everybody who went
Speaker 1: to West Point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's rough, it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It sounds then that we are we are looking
Speaker 1: at something that is anathema to an actual armed force,
Speaker 1: the idea that one could sit like European aristocrats of old,
Speaker 1: by a title that he did not earn. There's another
Speaker 1: This article is incredibly interesting. We found it on the
Speaker 1: New York Times wayback Machine, but you can also find
Speaker 1: it on web dot archive dot org. And in this
Speaker 1: we see that Vitello speaks with numerous people who are
Speaker 1: breaking down some of the uglier or not even ugly like,
Speaker 1: some of the more disappointing aspects of this state Defense Force.
Speaker 1: In particular, I want to give you some numbers real quick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: before mister Lax that you just quoted, there was a
Speaker 1: guy named George Liebner, and he talks at length about
Speaker 1: how he recruited politicians for the cause in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: The New York Guard depend and depends upon largest they
Speaker 1: need annual grants known as member items. Its budget is
Speaker 1: about eighty five thousand dollars a year, which is obviously
Speaker 1: laughably small in comparison to other military budgets. Getting that
Speaker 1: out there, right. And so this guy Leibner, who was
Speaker 1: an accountant on Long Island, he said, look, I've got
Speaker 1: Guard members like State Senator Dean G. Skilos, who is
Speaker 1: now a colonel, and former Assemblyman Thomas F. Baraga. These
Speaker 1: are both Long Island Republicans. Oh, and Thomas F. Barraga
Speaker 1: is a major general in the Guard. And he said,
Speaker 1: they've sponsored some of these grants because here's the quote.
Speaker 1: He says, I'm basically giving these guys rank and title
Speaker 1: because they're supporting us financially. His logic is not inspiring,
Speaker 1: but it is sound. He says, we could I give
Speaker 1: these guys accept the title. I'm not stupid. If I
Speaker 1: ask some political guy to join the New York Guard
Speaker 1: and support our mission and I offer to make him
Speaker 1: a private, do you think he's going to join?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Probably?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: These guys don't get where they are without a little
Speaker 3: dash of ego. The article also makes note that the
Speaker 3: Guard's duties are often pretty ceremonial in nature rather than operational.
Speaker 3: We see some similar issues that are reflected in multiple
Speaker 3: other organizations in different states, a trend that kind of
Speaker 3: causes some critics to dismiss the whole concept.
Speaker 2: As wanna be warriors, warrior wannabes, the.
Speaker 3: Idea that some of these state guard folks are just
Speaker 3: people that couldn't cut it, you know, in the real military,
Speaker 3: and this was the best they could do, which the
Speaker 3: implication also being that there might be a bit of
Speaker 3: a chip on some because of this fact, right, right.
Speaker 1: And that's that's pretty that's pretty rough. Obviously, we don't
Speaker 1: want to paint with a broad brush because a lot
Speaker 1: of these organizations are doing really good work, work that
Speaker 1: you would call volunteer work. You know, they're paying for
Speaker 1: their own uniforms, if they have uniforms, they're paying their
Speaker 1: own way to go to events. And like you said,
Speaker 1: a lot of these ceremonial functions are still very important
Speaker 1: emergency preparedness drills, color guards for funerals, you know, security
Speaker 1: for charity runs and things of that nature. Right, So
Speaker 1: training stuff this is good for the community overall, but
Speaker 1: is should account as military right? Should you be able
Speaker 1: to be a general for donating to a cause? We're
Speaker 1: going to say no. And a lot of generals, some
Speaker 1: of whom may be in the audience tonight, certainly ones
Speaker 1: I've spoken to in the past, would absolutely laugh in
Speaker 1: a scary way about the idea. Have you ever heard
Speaker 1: a general laughing personal It's not it's not pleasant.
Speaker 2: Is it like villainous? When are we talking here?
Speaker 1: It's very I mean it's.
Speaker 4: Those we're a politicians. I see where you're going. No,
Speaker 4: it's for Oh, I don't even want to do it
Speaker 4: on air. I'll do it when we hang out because
Speaker 4: see each other later. Ben.
Speaker 3: Should we get to the question of legitimacy. I think
Speaker 3: we've sort of started to poke at that one a
Speaker 3: little bit. But a lot of what we've talked to
Speaker 3: talked about thus far, at the very least are involving politicians.
Speaker 3: They're a state oversight to some degree. They are at
Speaker 3: the very least acknowledged, if not sanctioned, right by the state. Yeah,
Speaker 3: what about the ones that aren't and that are kind
Speaker 3: of operating in their own ideological bubbles?
Speaker 2: Excellent?
Speaker 1: And that's the segue, folks. So we're going to pause
Speaker 1: for a word from our sponsors, and then we'll return
Speaker 1: with perhaps the most disturbing question about state militias fact
Speaker 1: and fiction, the problem of legitimacy. And we've returned. All right, nol,
Speaker 1: what do we mean when we talk about legitimacy in
Speaker 1: this regard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's certainly the other side of this very intense
Speaker 3: military commemorative coin. There are numerous groups who call themselves
Speaker 3: state or regional militias. However, these groups exist with no
Speaker 3: approval from the proper authorities. There's a really great compilation
Speaker 3: of fact sheets that Georgetown Law put out state by
Speaker 3: state on unlawful militias. So regardless of what your stance
Speaker 3: might be on this issue, it's definitely worth your time
Speaker 3: to check it out, find your give it a little look,
Speaker 3: see how it stacks up for you in your neck
Speaker 3: of the global woods.
Speaker 2: As Ben would say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And we pulled up Georgia, of course, because
Speaker 1: we're very interested in what's happening in Georgia that that
Speaker 1: affects us immediately. But for every every faction you read,
Speaker 1: whichever state you go to, you'll find some of the
Speaker 1: same things, and Georgetown sums it up this way. It's
Speaker 1: a long quote, but we feel we need to we
Speaker 1: need to share it in full. They say, the following
Speaker 1: groups of armed individuals that engage in paramilitary activity or
Speaker 1: law enforcement functions without being called forth by a governor
Speaker 1: or the federal government, and without reporting to any government authority,
Speaker 1: are acting as unauthorized private militias. Go on, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they're pretty that's pretty explicit.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: They're saying, Look, if someone didn't tell you your law enforcement, sorry, Bukeru,
Speaker 1: you are not law enforcement. Now you're just a group
Speaker 1: of guys with guns. Now you're just a posse, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, with no marks of legitimacy. So
Speaker 1: Georgetown continues and they say, look, these unlawful groups quote
Speaker 1: sometimes trained together and respond to events using firearms and
Speaker 1: other paramilitary techniques, such as staking out tactical positions, operating
Speaker 1: in military style formations. They often purport to have authority
Speaker 1: to engage in military and law enforcement functions such as
Speaker 1: protecting property and engaging in crowd control. So Georgetown here
Speaker 1: is talking about people who take it upon themselves to
Speaker 1: dress in a uniform, maybe show up at a protest,
Speaker 1: sometimes a protest for a cause with which they disagree
Speaker 1: and say, hey, we're just keeping the peace. We're just
Speaker 1: keeping the peace.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Don't push me. I'm not going to push you. You
Speaker 1: will pushing on me. You're pushing on me.
Speaker 2: That's really insisting upon yourself.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we certainly heard about some members
Speaker 3: of some groups like this being around during the January
Speaker 3: sixth riots, whatever you want to call it uprising. Does
Speaker 3: this include groups like Proud Boys and some of these
Speaker 3: you know, armed kind of paramilitary seeming groups.
Speaker 1: It can, Yeah, it's it's it's a pickle. I was
Speaker 1: going to call it picklish, it's a bag of badgers,
Speaker 1: because you can be a militant organization, right and it's
Speaker 1: legal to be almost any kind of organization you would
Speaker 1: like to be in the United States, at least on paper.
Speaker 1: And we have to note, to be completely honest, we're
Speaker 1: looking at act and intention here. Action is easy to
Speaker 1: prove legally. Intention is a little bit more difficult to prove.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, regardless of where anybody stands on the issue
Speaker 1: at hand, there is absolutely nothing illegal in the United
Speaker 1: States about getting together to just shoot guns with your
Speaker 1: buddies or practice. I'm gonna I'm not gonna be dismissive,
Speaker 1: but to practice choreography.
Speaker 3: Yeah, run some formation, run some drills. Whatever, that's your bunker,
Speaker 3: you know, your whatever it is, barn.
Speaker 2: Types of dout.
Speaker 3: I mean, it also makes me think of groups like
Speaker 3: forget the name or if they had an official name,
Speaker 3: but like Aiman Bundy, that was a militia, right, it
Speaker 3: wasn't like I mean, David Koresh, you know, things like
Speaker 3: that weren't those kind of militias. But I guess it's
Speaker 3: about it's about action and intention right as to whether
Speaker 3: you're a terrorist group or a militia or a cult.
Speaker 3: I don't mean to muddy the waters here, Ben, but
Speaker 3: I do think it's maybe worth it aside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I agree with you. So the Branch Davidians
Speaker 1: started as as a cult or spiritual belief system before
Speaker 1: Koresh came in and usurped things, and under the Korreesh regime,
Speaker 1: the Branch Davidians became increasingly like an increasingly militant organization
Speaker 1: and apocalyptic and their reasoning right, these these things that
Speaker 1: we would call unsanctioned militias do come from militant organizations,
Speaker 1: and they don't all have the same aims. They don't
Speaker 1: all have the same objectives, right. A lot of times
Speaker 1: you'll find two different groups and they describe themselves as
Speaker 1: you know, the last real Americans, and they might meet
Speaker 1: each other and hate each other and totally disagree on
Speaker 1: everything else becase because real American means one thing to
Speaker 1: one group and another thing to the other group.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it also kind of leads me to the
Speaker 3: question of intention again, Like, is when you use the
Speaker 3: term militia versus like armed terrorist group or what have you?
Speaker 3: Are is the intention typically when you're talking about militia,
Speaker 3: about nationalism and about protecting you know, what's ours, what's
Speaker 3: theirs in terms of their little piece of the United States?
Speaker 2: Or is it greater than that?
Speaker 3: The sanction ones certainly seem like they're designed and meant
Speaker 3: to aid, you know, the state or the country at large.
Speaker 3: But some of these where the ideology gets a little trickier,
Speaker 3: their aims seem to be a little bit amorphist to me.
Speaker 3: But I just wonder if that term militia does require
Speaker 3: some nationalistic leaning.
Speaker 1: Often yes, Yeah, because a terrorist operation or a terrorist
Speaker 1: organization would be attempting to attack the United States. Now,
Speaker 1: there are cases of militant groups or militant militia affiliated
Speaker 1: individuals who commit acts that we would legally consider terrorism.
Speaker 1: They don't think of themselves as terrorists. They think of
Speaker 1: themselves as agents of the greater good. Again, as I
Speaker 1: said earlier, the tricky thing is the intention, right, And
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of work done by the FBI,
Speaker 1: by various branches of law enforcement, and by some really
Speaker 1: ballsy journalists, honestly journalists and authors to get a better
Speaker 1: understanding of these groups, right, which again are disparate, divided,
Speaker 1: driven by different goals. And in that what we find
Speaker 1: is that often, often here in the US, these unsanctioned
Speaker 1: and militias do see themselves as a defensive force. And
Speaker 1: often the reasoning may be one of preparedness for an
Speaker 1: inevitable disaster or compromise of civilization, rule of law, or
Speaker 1: they may think that collapse has already occurred and they're
Speaker 1: fighting to, you know, as you said, protect what they
Speaker 1: see as theirs. But if they're peacefully assembling, that's that's
Speaker 1: in the constitution too, you know, that's in the letter
Speaker 1: of the law.
Speaker 3: Get together in terms I mean, you know, right in
Speaker 3: terms of the ability to bear arms at least in
Speaker 3: and of itself. And to your point, Ben, it's not
Speaker 3: until they do something untoward. Let's just say that they
Speaker 3: are breaking the law just assembling and hanging out, maybe
Speaker 3: even sleeping in bunks and maybe doing a little prepping
Speaker 3: and having some ideas that maybe others might find a
Speaker 3: little over the top. None of those things in and
Speaker 3: of themselves are illegal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, think about this, gone to I've gone to
Speaker 1: weekend trips where you are essentially taking a workshop on
Speaker 1: various aspects of things like survivalism or you know, firearm training,
Speaker 1: things like that, totally legal. How many of those trips
Speaker 1: can I take before I get on a list? Spoiler,
Speaker 1: it's not the number of trips you take, it's the
Speaker 1: organizations that run the trip that's what gets you on
Speaker 1: a list. It's weird because it's such a murky, blurred line.
Speaker 1: It's what our British friends would call a sticky wicket.
Speaker 1: So where is the line between this idea of assembling,
Speaker 1: your right to bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment,
Speaker 1: your right to assemble peacefully, your right to prepare for
Speaker 1: the possibility of disaster and instability in the future. That's
Speaker 1: all fine, But when does it become illegal? This is
Speaker 1: where we go back to the legal experts. Let's pull
Speaker 1: a quote I can't remember. This may be from Cornell,
Speaker 1: it maybe from Georgetown, but in general, in general, it's
Speaker 1: so weird, man, because they're they're not describing a specific
Speaker 1: instance of law, right, they're not. They're not giving us
Speaker 1: a rubric. They're saying things like It kind of reminds
Speaker 1: me of the old PSAs, where they would say, here
Speaker 1: are some signs that your kids might be on the pot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, they're worshiping the devil. Yes, you know some flags, let's.
Speaker 3: Just say some some star signposts. Things like wearing military
Speaker 3: style uniforms, you know, possessing and deploying tactical gear, having
Speaker 3: some sort of identifying insignia, you know, on their military
Speaker 3: style uniforms, carrying, wielding using firearms or other such weapons.
Speaker 3: And here's a thing that kind of throws me a
Speaker 3: little bit. Operating within a coordinated command structure. So to
Speaker 3: your question, Ben, or your point, like, at what point
Speaker 3: does it go from being this kind of like simulation,
Speaker 3: you know, workshop thing, to actually running ops to having
Speaker 3: that coordinated command structure seems like it's heading in that direction,
Speaker 3: or it could be heading in that direction, and it's
Speaker 3: a little scary for that command structure to kind of
Speaker 3: operate in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that command structure is key, and I'm happy that
Speaker 1: that you clocked out as well. A coordinated command structure
Speaker 1: the logistics behind the thing can be a big flag,
Speaker 1: as you noted, because when you have a command structure,
Speaker 1: you might also begin to have designation of rank. Now
Speaker 1: it's not just saying, oh, this guy they call Ben
Speaker 1: is calling the shots over at our bunker compound. Now
Speaker 1: it's you know, Brigadier eighteen star, a start whatever. Because
Speaker 1: they're making it up.
Speaker 2: They're making it up. Okay, I follow.
Speaker 1: You know, he told the adjutant Donkey Wonk or whatever
Speaker 1: in Idaho that it's time to move the aks across
Speaker 1: state lines and make sure that they make sure that
Speaker 1: if anyone pulls us over on the road, they contact
Speaker 1: the guy in the the guy in law enforcement who's
Speaker 1: also with the cause that game.
Speaker 3: So at that point, we're talking about kind of co
Speaker 3: opting other parts of legally recognized you know, branches of
Speaker 3: state and federal government. I guess The question then becomes
Speaker 3: about scale and also about running these type of ops
Speaker 3: that you're talking about. At what point do you go
Speaker 3: from being a humble militia to being a genuine paramilitary
Speaker 3: force to be wrecked and with operating outside of the
Speaker 3: real deal, you know, military operated by the US government,
Speaker 3: possibly with very different goals and aims, possibly even with
Speaker 3: goals to overthrow parts of the governments and military.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a series of great questions and we
Speaker 1: may not be able to answer them all this evening.
Speaker 1: Let's go to some crazy facts. These are These are
Speaker 1: facts that not everybody likes to hear on the political
Speaker 1: right or the political left.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: The Second Amendment does guarantee the right to bear arms.
Speaker 3: Sorry, every time I hear that, Ben, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: I got my bare arms coming to exactly.
Speaker 1: I think about that too. As a pause is just
Speaker 1: go god, we love this joke. So, in guaranteeing the
Speaker 1: right to bear arms, the Second Amendment does not allow
Speaker 1: for private paramilitary organizations.
Speaker 2: But they just said that they do allow it though
Speaker 2: the military.
Speaker 1: No, no, we said, we said they allow for peaceful
Speaker 1: assembly and you can have firearms and if the governor
Speaker 1: of a state approves something you can have a state
Speaker 1: defense force, but we can't all you know, at our
Speaker 1: upcoming live show in Brooklyn, we can't all of a
Speaker 1: sudden herald the creation of the Williamsburg Strike Force and
Speaker 1: then give ourselves all titles, uniforms, guns, and begin training.
Speaker 2: Can I be the bagman? That's a military term.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure, Brigadier bag man.
Speaker 2: Okay, Oh, I love that. I even play the bagpipes
Speaker 2: when we march on Washington.
Speaker 1: Great great or we march on yeah, you know the city.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there we go.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court decided that private paramilitary organizations, meaning those
Speaker 1: unsanctioned by any representative of government. They said this was illegal,
Speaker 1: not once, but twice because it keeps coming up. Scots
Speaker 1: knocked it down in eighteen eighty six and then again
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight because.
Speaker 3: It didn't take the first time. I guess I wonder
Speaker 3: if it took the second time. Spoiler alert, I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess. Is the sticky wickets that's right, the sticky
Speaker 3: wicket though that you mentioned earlier, Ben, is at what
Speaker 3: point do it's so vague as to when a militia
Speaker 3: moves into the territory of paramilitary force and You can't
Speaker 3: really know unless I guess there are certain quote unquote
Speaker 3: militias that are maybe approaching that that are being monitored
Speaker 3: right because they're we're thinking they're going to make a move.
Speaker 3: Can we talk about that aspect of it a little bit,
Speaker 3: some of the surveillance. Sure, how far that goes and
Speaker 3: what puts you on the radar of the federal government.
Speaker 1: I like that you're pointing this out yet, because we
Speaker 1: need to look at the other side of this. Again.
Speaker 1: There are many people, many organizations, volunteer organizations that have
Speaker 1: perhaps been unfairly targeted by mass surveillance. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: sure we have a lot of folks in the audience
Speaker 1: tonight who are saying, well, yeah, I train, or yes,
Speaker 1: I'm what you will call a prepper, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. But I'm not trying to break the law.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to be prepared like any good boy scout.
Speaker 1: So why am I getting targeted? When we see threats
Speaker 1: to the rule of law on a local, regional, federal level,
Speaker 1: then we, in theory also see constant investigation monitoring infiltration
Speaker 1: are to argue that the conspiracy the infiltration attempts occur
Speaker 1: on both sides, So the FBI or the state level
Speaker 1: version of it, like here in Georgia we have the GBI,
Speaker 1: the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They will monitor these things
Speaker 1: in concert with the FBI and concert with local law enforcement.
Speaker 1: They may send somebody in to learn more about an organization,
Speaker 1: more about what they actually want to do. Is this
Speaker 1: a neo Nazi organization? Is this a hate group of
Speaker 1: some kind, a supremacist group of some kind, or are
Speaker 1: these people who I don't know. It's nuts because I
Speaker 1: have always suspected I've never really looked into this, but
Speaker 1: I've always suspected the monitoring drills down so far that
Speaker 1: at least a few undercover folks have even gone to
Speaker 1: civil war reenactments just to check in, just to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys know this is re enactment, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but just for funzies all fifty states. However,
Speaker 3: I guess to answer my own question from earlier, they
Speaker 3: don't prohibit the organizations themselves, but they do prohibit these
Speaker 3: unauthorized military militia rather in military units, from engaging in
Speaker 3: activities that would typically be reserved for the state militia,
Speaker 3: and that includes peacekeeping efforts you know, enforcing the law.
Speaker 1: Right right, Like when you start trying to run checkpoints
Speaker 1: at the edge of your town, that is something law
Speaker 1: enforcement needs to do. That is something that the sheriff
Speaker 1: should be in charge of, you know, not us, not us.
Speaker 2: In the gang.
Speaker 1: You well, like on what authority are you stopping that car?
Speaker 1: That's that's a great example of where this stuff can
Speaker 1: get pretty crazy.
Speaker 2: Well, at the end of the day, you know, might
Speaker 2: makes right, I.
Speaker 3: Mean not really, but you know, if you have a gun,
Speaker 3: that's enough to enforce it. If you've got enough people
Speaker 3: behind you with the gun, that.
Speaker 2: Are all you know, moving towards the same goals.
Speaker 3: So like I mean, at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: if a militia, a private militia were to develop or
Speaker 3: go unnoticed or whatever and combine forces, perhaps with some
Speaker 3: other groups that could potentially rival larger, more organized state militias,
Speaker 3: they'd be the ones than charge, wouldn't.
Speaker 1: They If things go wrong, if the rule of law
Speaker 1: does not hold, that's exactly right. And that's the thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the rule of law is a is a social covenant.
Speaker 1: You know. It's kind of like how people have faith
Speaker 1: in the stock market, or people have faith in physical currency,
Speaker 1: it works so long as everybody agrees that it works well.
Speaker 3: And I think we're seeing a lot of this too
Speaker 3: in the current administration and their ability to just kind
Speaker 3: of try things out and go against this sort of
Speaker 3: decorum of what a president or what a government or
Speaker 3: presidential cabinet is historically meant to do and meant to be,
Speaker 3: and you sort of realize that the only thing holding
Speaker 3: all this together is people kind of just behaving themselves
Speaker 3: in the past, and then the moment someone decides to,
Speaker 3: you know, get ballsy with it and test the waters.
Speaker 2: There aren't a whole lot of things in place to
Speaker 2: keep them from doing that.
Speaker 1: There are a whole lot of things written to prevent that,
Speaker 1: but I've never seen a piece of paper stop a
Speaker 1: bullet exactly. Is the very cold way to say it.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's another fact that gets ignored in
Speaker 1: mainstream media. It's this government overreach can be real. Government
Speaker 1: forces get the privilege of deciding at their own discretion
Speaker 1: which groups are or are not considered illegal militia, and
Speaker 1: it's completely possible that some groups can be unfairly targeted.
Speaker 1: You do not have to look too far back into
Speaker 1: American history to find multiple examples of this. Think of
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement, right. You know, the think of
Speaker 1: gun control is nowadays a pretty wholesome and well intentioned
Speaker 1: concept in the modern version. Now, critics of gun control
Speaker 1: obviously are going to say an orwelly enforce is taking
Speaker 1: away your right to protect it so yourself, and once
Speaker 1: that right is gone, you'll never get it back. We
Speaker 1: understand that we're giving you that argument, that perspective, But
Speaker 1: then flip it and think about the fact that people
Speaker 1: who are proponents of gun control are saying, hey, we
Speaker 1: have an extraordinary and disgusting amount of mass shootings, chill shootings,
Speaker 1: especially right this could be prevent and the fastest answer
Speaker 1: save proponents of gun control obviously is to is to
Speaker 1: fix these firearm laws. But the origin of gun control
Speaker 1: in the US today, the concept itself, as well intentioned
Speaker 1: as it is, as wholesome as it is in its
Speaker 1: modern version, as aspirational noble as it is, it has
Speaker 1: some pretty disturbing racist roots at its foundation. Because people
Speaker 1: got the powers that be got a lot more concerned
Speaker 1: about gun control when they saw African American people. Sure
Speaker 1: organizations exactly right self defense initiatives. That is part of
Speaker 1: what triggered gun control as a rationale to smack down
Speaker 1: those folks. And we're not saying that's the case now,
Speaker 1: but we're saying it's important to acknowledge that these wholesome
Speaker 1: things can somehow sometimes have in city as origins. You know.
Speaker 1: The this this gets us back to this militia thing,
Speaker 1: because you could call something a militia if you just
Speaker 1: objected to the people right, peaceful protesters, you know, and
Speaker 1: there's maybe there's a there's a group of gun toting vegans.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna you know, they're not going to overrun
Speaker 1: the zoo or any or like a meat packing plant
Speaker 1: or anything. Uh, They're just doing weird commune lifestyle thing.
Speaker 1: And now you call them a militia because you don't
Speaker 1: like them.
Speaker 3: Well, it's like the term radical, you know, like nobody
Speaker 3: calls themselves radicals. It's just the opposition that call you
Speaker 3: radicals as a term of abuse or a thought terminating cliche.
Speaker 1: Yes, a thought terminating cliche where a phrase is weaponized
Speaker 1: to avoid further scrutiny. And again, to bring it all together,
Speaker 1: these concerns are coming up because the laws are confusing,
Speaker 1: because things are amorphous, and because they there are loopholes
Speaker 1: that can be exploited. This is only the beginning of
Speaker 1: a larger conversation, folks, thanks for tuning in. The big
Speaker 1: takeaway here is that yes, state defense forces are legal,
Speaker 1: and yes there are groups that say they are state
Speaker 1: defense forces or aspire to be, and those are, depending
Speaker 1: on their actions and intentions, very much not legal. And
Speaker 1: the line is a gradient.
Speaker 3: But there are versions of them depending on their actions
Speaker 3: and intentions that could be considered just five one hundred.
Speaker 1: Percent yeah, until they go paramilitary. This is a pickle.
Speaker 1: We're raising more questions than answers, which is why this
Speaker 1: is why we consider this a part one of a
Speaker 1: larger exploration. And we'd love to hear more from you,
Speaker 1: fellow conspiracy realist. Have you been involved with a local
Speaker 1: militia or a state defense force? Are you currently involved
Speaker 1: with one, sanctioned or un sanctioned. We cannot stress this enough.
Speaker 1: The law in your part of the US may differ.
Speaker 1: We'd also love to hear from folks in other parts,
Speaker 1: like what's it like in your neck of the Global
Speaker 1: Woods if you don't live in the United States, how
Speaker 1: does your country treat these organizations? What do those organizations do,
Speaker 1: How do they work? How do the laws around the work.
Speaker 1: We cannot wait to hear from you. We may have
Speaker 1: a part two on the way. Again. We're with you.
Speaker 1: We're sussing this out ourselves, and we'd love your help.
Speaker 1: You can find us online. You can find us on
Speaker 1: an email. You can find us on a telephonic device.
Speaker 3: Yeah, first, and foremost on that foremost, just first. You
Speaker 3: can find us all over the internet at the handle
Speaker 3: Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist on Facebook with our Facebook
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Speaker 3: have video content Glory for your perusing enjoyment, as well
Speaker 3: as on xfka, Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok. However, we're
Speaker 3: Conspiracy Stuff Show and also we're people. I'm how now
Speaker 3: Noel Brown on Instagram. How about you, Ben?
Speaker 1: You can find me at a Philip Lawn Instagram. You
Speaker 1: can also go meet me at the appropriate monument at
Speaker 1: midnight ins of your city. Midnight monument coming soon to
Speaker 1: a moonless night near you. You can also, if you
Speaker 1: wish and the rumors are true, here and will give
Speaker 1: us a call on a telephonic device.
Speaker 2: That's all right.
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Speaker 3: I think we are also just a little tiny tease.
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