Originally Posted by Dom1

Now, for those of you who love to take things to the extreme, I'm not saying there should be no standing military during times of peace, but a greatly reduced one

No standing army needs no standing army. You can't say that a standing army during peace threatens the liberties of people and then say, "but it is OK if we have a smaller one." Is there a magic number and if we have a standing army below that number our liberties are safe but when above they aren't?????

Yes, there is a magic number. There is a point at which you can defend the borders and interests abroad without posing a threat to the armed citizens. Don't ask me what that number is, I don't know, I'm not a general or military planner.

The world has changed, the Framers also owned slaves and didn't' see a problem with that. They didn't allow women to vote. They didn't allow some men to vote.

Apples and Oranges. Slaves didn't pose a threat to the nation, not even if they all rebelled at once. And yes, some of the framers absolutely had a problem with slavery, but reasoned that in order to maintain the union for the purposes of commerce and protection from England and Spain, it best not to rock the boat too much during the formation of our young republic. But provisions were made so that it would be possible to rectify that at some point in the future.

A standing army in the 21st century is necessary and while the size may be subjective, it does need to be large enough to respond in a timely manner against multiple threats.

Originally Posted by Teak

If, as you say ALL the founding fathers were against a "standing Army" during peace time, they should have said so in the Constitution, not in their personal letters.

First, I did NOT say ALL the founding fathers. Second, for example, the Supreme Court often decides a case with a simple ruling, and then the justices write their opinions on why they reached that decision to further illuminate the action taken. Same thing with the framers. Why on earth would you read the constitution and not the opinions and debates that led to it's creation. Let me guess, you're one of those that never reads the label, doesn't ask for directions and only opens the instruction manual after you've screwed it up to the point were you have no choice. It's kinda like trying to understand biology without knowing any chemistry. You'll be led to the wrong conclusions with frightening regularity.

That way it would have had some meaning.

It still has MUCH meaning, you just don't understand and therefore ascribe no meaning to it as a way of maintaining your belief system.

But instead they made numerous references to a peace time army, as if it were a forgone conclusion that one did exist, and would continue to exist, even after the British were defeated. You must remember that our Constitution was written during peace time, and we still had a standing army, not just a militia.