Talk:Constitutional militia movement

'Anti-Government'?
This weasel word needs to be removed. It doesn't even mean anything.

What is 'anti-government'? Being against the current policies of the US Government? Being Anarchist (Which these groups are not?)

It's a word that has no meaning other than to sow a subconscious feeling of negativity on the reader.

We might as well put in Doubleplusungood-militia in as a word while we're at it.

24.158.40.69 (talk) 06:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Coming up on 2 years with no objection to this suggestion, so I made the change. Since there was no discussion on it, I made a very small change (inserting "federal" in the middle). My choice is as sourced as the original author's, which is predicated upon political reports and/or headlines.--Sctn2labor (talk) 23:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)


 * They don't seem particularly fond of state government either. &mdash; goethean &#2384; 23:43, 15 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I understand the concern, but take a chance to read the Weeber and Rodheaver paper which is the sourcing for that paragraph. They are very clear and use the term "anti-government" as definition of modern militia groups.  Per policy around here we should be trying to stick faithfully to the sourcing, and the sourcing says "anti-government".  It goes on and describes "constitutionalism" as being a desire to revert the present day government to a nostalgic  "original"  government of the original ten amendments.   SaltyBoatr (talk) 02:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Flagging Controversy section as uncited
I am Flagging the Controversy section as a problem because it does not cite sources.. please improve it and add cititations for any POV posted or it will be removed.


 * The recent addition to this section needs a source who these critics are. Furthermore a note would be appropriate why this is a main point in the controversy worth mentioning. It rather looks like a side note. Robinandroid (talk) 21:41, 29 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I consider it a Weasel_word and have deleted the phrase. Robinandroid (talk) 14:00, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

New book by Robert Churchill
The new book by Robert H Churchill, To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant's Face: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement, University of Michigan Press (March 3, 2009) ISBN 0472116827, presents a very different treatment of the subject, and one that explicitly and credibly debunks works of the other writers cited in this article as impaired or defective. Churchill was one of the early debunkers of Michael A. Bellesiles whose work has now been thoroughly discredited, so his stance on this topic deserves to be given great weight. I will be blending in material from this book into the various articles related to the topic. Bracton (talk) 19:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Similar topic to Militia movement?
It seems to me that this article covers a substantially similar topic to Militia movement, and the two should probably be merged. This article claims to be about the 'constitutionalist wing' of the militia movement - but what does that mean? Does it mean that the rest of the militia movement don't support the Constitution? Who are the rest, anyway?

When this article was nominated for deletion back in 2007, some raised concerns that it was a POV fork of militia movement; those issues still remain. A merge might be a good idea. Robofish (talk) 22:16, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The other main wing of the modern militia movement is the Christian Patriot movement. I also recall there are a few other minor wings, but  I can't recall details at the moment as it has been a couple years since I read up on this topic.  If you want to check for yourself, I recall that this was studied and documented especially well by  Stanley Weeber and Daniel Rodeheaver, see the references listed in the article to read.  I am quite certain this is not a POV fork, but rather it is a truly distinct (though esoteric) topic.  SaltyBoatr (talk) 03:26, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * My memory on this is returning somewhat, I think I got the "constitutionalist wing" term from reading the book by DJ Mulloy, who breaks down the militia movement into two parts, the "New World Order conspiratorial" aka the Christian Patriots, and the Consitutionalists. See here.  SaltyBoatr (talk) 03:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The recent book by Churchill cited above largely displaces other references cited and now stands as perhaps the most important, in part because it examines those earlier writings and finds serious methodological flaws in many of them that cast doubt on their credibility. Anyone editing these WP articles really needs to read Churchill's book first.

We have here a geographic scope problem, in that much of what is in both militia movement and constitutional militia movement pertains only to the United States, and those parts that do could be merged. However, there have also been militia movements in other countries through history, mainly movements advocating strengthening militia in preparation for some threat. However, almost all such movements have a constitutionalist aspect in their respective countries. On the other hand, the constitutional militia movement could also be characterized as a constitutionalist movement with a militia aspect or "wing". Churchill mostly describes episodes in a long militia movement with constitutionalist wings, but much of the historical continuity he reports has consisted of constitutionalist efforts that did not manifest in militia "wings", but focused on public education, legislation or ligitation. So it may be more accurate to write of a general whig or republican movement through history that sometimes emphasized political, sometimes judicial, and sometimes militia, or some combinations of them. Given that readers may approach these subjects from various angles, it would seem to work better to proliferate articles that are somewhat duplicative (with cross references). Bracton (talk) 21:42, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Just in case
Anyone challenges the addition of the PC and MP as CM, see. And I'm not convinced this should be a separate article. Dougweller (talk) 09:52, 21 August 2012 (UTC)