WILL THE US MILITARY EVER FIRE ON AMERICAN CITIZENS?

I am a first hand student of History.  I was alive when FDR died.  I was alive when Hitler died.  I was a baby but the shadow of that recent history was clearly visible as I grew up.  As a German, one who grew up in a German community, one who spoke it in part as a child, one who could commonly hear it on the street, my connection to and study of Nazi history is profound.  Then I moved to and lived in Germany during the First Gulf War.   While there I befriended ex Nazis.  Some who had fought.  Some who were still sympathetic to Hitler.  Some who had been Hitler youth.  Sure I ran across a large number who were astonished that they and their fathers would kill and burn human beings in ovens. 

The question was then and still stands is, why would the German men who did these horrid things do them.  Of course no one I ever met did.  Or didn't admit to it.  The reality is it was a job.  Times were tough and jobs hard to come by.  Cruelty was easier if connected to a paycheck.

Even though uniformed, for the most part the cruelest of them were not military.  The Military had a code of not killing civilians needlessly.  Most military men are much more noble than we give them credit for.  NO, those most easily persuaded by a paycheck were those most easily convinced to commit sadistic acts of death and terror were quasi civilians.  Lower level people.  More animalistic. Second class people.  Sure, there were Generals and others who were just as sadistic, but the run of the mill conscript saw killing civilians as unacceptable.  Not true for all, but many.

This speaks to the question that floats around first asked by Jim Garrow which is, "would our US troops fire on civilians in case of civil disobedience".  If history is any indication, even upon the order of the commander in chief of the USA, at Obama's direct order, I do not now believe they would.  I believe that the morality and right mindedness would cause many if not most (other than commanders) to either disobey the order directly or become really bad shots.

So, what is a despot to do.  If he cannot command the military to terrorize the population into submission, what can he do?  He can create his own army.  From salaried people. Brownshirts.  First fill the ranks with loyalists without morals.  Then find the most dependent and least qualified to control.  Those without moral centers trained for excellence.  Those people WILL fire on a population.  They have no reason not to and they need the paycheck.  I use as evidence the willingness of the cops to kill the unarmed young woman who was driving badly with a baby in the car.

I also see the cruelty of park rangers unwilling to allow senior citizens to use a bathroom because of the "Shutdown".  The sadism of a president not allowing grieving widows and children to meet the coffin of their husbands and fathers. Who stand "bravely" guard against WWII vets who want to visit the memorials dedicated to them.  While no shots have "yet" been fired, I now see who and how this happens.  When FEMA, the Weather Service, the Park System, the IRS and several other agencies manned by civilian bureaucrats are armed like WWIII is about to break out in the USA, that is disturbing.  Add to that the militarization of our domestic police forces bypassing Posse Comitatus law.  Tanks in the streets.

I believe based on what we have seen the last couple years bodes evil for the days to come.  Without a change, soon, we may be coming to a time none of us ever considered.  I am not sanguine about this. I have been considering the events of the last several days, low level armed agents pushing people around, kicking them out of their houses.

Our government is out of control.  If this were middle 1930s early in Germany when this began to decline at this rate perhaps someone spoke up then.  They may have ended up dead.  Or missing. They didn't have the internet then.  But that doesn't mean we couldn't be "Disappeared" as well.  In my work life I have also rubbed shoulders with radicals from Chile and Argentina who got rid of "troublemakers".  I was in a car with some of them (they were customers of mine in the data business and they visited me from South America).   They talked of taking opposition for a ride in a helicopter over the Andes and tossing them alive out of the copter.  "Do you know how high they bounce they asked me laughingly".  These were not military men.  They were part of the government and used "disappearance" as a way to rid the nation of opposition troublemakers.

Their government was out of control.  So is ours.  Now what do we do?