Our Founding Fathers considered standing armies “instruments of tyranny.”  So, to defend us “against foreign danger” they drafted the 2nd Amendment.

The 2nd is the only Amendment that states its purpose: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Two hundred and more years later, we have a standing army and there is no connection between a “well regulated militia being necessary” and “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”  But, as I discussed here, the downside of a standing army is greater than ever.  As James Madison explained:

In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate.  Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency … Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other … No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Yet we are now in the midst of a “war on terror” that can by definition never end and, in our fear of terror, we are abandoning our freedom.

We have no Madison among this year’s Presidential candidates and never will get one if we don’t heed what he and more recently Eisenhower warned:

“Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Now, Presidential candidates and our media have, as this Gallup poll reveals, persuaded 24% of Republicans, 9% of Democrats and 15% of independents that terrorism is our most important problem.

But an “alert and knowledgeable citizenry” would know car accidents kill far more of us.  Twice as many Americans die every year from texting or talking on the phone while driving as died even on 9/11.

An average of just 32 Americans per year died in terrorist attacks in the next twelve years, fewer of them killed by Islamic terrorists than by disgruntled workplace and school shooters.  Meanwhile, over 30,000 of us are killed by firearms every year, one thousand times as many as are killed by terrorists.

President Eisenhower spoke of the need for balance, for a sense of proportion.  He would be gravely disappointed in us.

We plan to spend $70B-$90B a year, over $1,100B in total, on new weapons in the next 15 years (see Defense Modernization Plans Through the 2020s) “59% of [it on] just 10 programs–all of which are … primarily intended to support high-end conventional and nuclear conflict.”

Nuclear weapons are not usually considered appropriate against terrorists although one of our Presidential candidates did joke about nuking the Islamic State.

Our Unmanned Systems Roadmap FY2011-2036 to reduce American casualties will make warfare less troubling and more exciting for voters.

There will be few complaints about spending $1,100B+ on new weapons.  It is, after all, little more than our overall military spending every year.

So here we go.  We provoke hatred by killing innocents — of 2,500-4,000 people killed in drone strikes in Pakistan, 400-1,000 were civilians.  Some were “collateral damage,” some the result of a flawed algorithm that analyzes cellphone usage to assess likelihood of being a terrorist.

And we are provoking our only nuclear rival by building a new generation of nuclear weapons and quadrupling our forces on Russia’s border.

We’ve not just lost all sense of proportion — we’ve lost our senses altogether.