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That's great news, but let's not forget that the National Guard didn't sign up to be Trump's police, didn't want to be there, and had their lives disrupted by being mobilized for a cheap political stunt. They're not the bad guys here.
Let's not pretend there are no itchy trigger fingers in the national guard.
The Guard does have a good number of your ‘renta-cop’, ‘mall cop’, ‘southern hunting bro’ types… that get their rocks off by playing war on the weekends, or deploying every few years, absolutely.
But, there’s also a larger population of underprivileged, overburdened, and poverty stricken civilians trying to make ends meet by selling their very bodies to the elite so they can play their little war games.
Should we lump them in with the police and ICE? ‘They made their choices!’, sure… but, it’s class warfare here and the elite have an outsized hand on the lever. They make us poor, so that the crumbs they feed us are enough to turn us against each other.
The guardsmen also signed multi-year contracts. ICE and the police can and will give anyone a badge with no questions or obligations. That makes a big difference in how they behave and who joins. Right now ICE is selecting for the worst of the worst of us. Anyone signing up at this time knows of their awful reputation and apparently wants to be associated with it.
The overalap isn't as small as you imply. If they aren't bendable into order following drones, they don't make it in. That's literally the entire point of Basic Combat Training.
BCT is just about making you react and listen to orders in high stress situations, like when a machine gun is clacking right over your head. That does mean overriding fear responses and making you quick to react but they don't have you stand up and drop down a hundred times because it makes you more likely to spit on the Constitution if an orange turd tells you to. Hell, I remember Obama's inauguration a dude was running around with his official photo cheering.
What exactly do you think that means?
The few photos I've seen showed unarmed Guardsmen. The national guard isn't automatically issued weapons and live ammo when called out.
Pretty hard to have an itchy trigger finger when you don't have a rifle or ammo.
They are. They volunteered knowing FULL well what kind of shit the US does and condones. Every single one of them.
Sure, but this is national guard, not enlisted service members. It's more a defensive force just in case, and they do a lot of domestic support work, like after natural disasters and stuff. Most of them aren't expecting to be involved in the shitty stuff the US does elsewhere.
You can argue they're still supporting it, but it's not the same as those who enlist. Now that they're being used to do shitty stuff within the US though, I wouldn't be surprised if they struggle to find as many volunteers.
all means all.
The "just following orders" defense. That's a bold choice