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>>64381454
It's not coup risk that makes the NG exist still, but it is closely related and if you trace it all the way back it is one of the reasons for the reasons that the NG exists. The long and the short of it:
1. Founding fathers and constitutional framers don't want a large standing military (for three main reasons, all directly related to freedom: Cost impinges on citizen's freedom from undue tax, tyranny risk because it can be used by the federal government to enforce unjust rule on the states and citizens, tyranny risk because is a coup risk in and of itself).
2. Founding fathers instead design a system based around state militias, where there would be a tiny federal standing army that, if needed, could have personnel voluntarily released to it by state militias, and state militias who couldn't deploy outside their state. Intention is that Federal government is outpowered by states, doesn't have to pay for a standing army, and and can't be couped by the army.
3. Fast forwards to the Civil War, Union and Confederates both shit on this concept and mass mobilise what are effectively giant and centrally controlled armies. Union wins and the standing army remains largely in place semi-permanently because of occupation duties and to prevent future secession.
4. Fast forwards to 1903, the new Militia Act extinguishes a meaningful concept of militias in America by turning all organized state militias into the NG and leaving the states only with everything that wasn't actual militia controllable or controlled by the state and calling it an "unorganized militia". The Supreme Court views this as unconstitutional (because it is) and the compromise is to make the NG sort of under state control so that it's sort of constitutional enough to not be instantly struck down. The result is that nearly all base funding for NG is federal, and but states have pay while activated.
Next post is the most important bit.
