Let's Call Out the Militias - Letter to Editors

Let’s call out the militias—peace militias
The rapid spread of gas drilling by hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") in Pennsylvania has meant the forced imposition of corporate will, aided and abetted by UNrepresentative government, on U.S. citizens given almost no chance to learn what's hitting them. Given the sheer brute force, complexity, and relative newness of horizontal fracturing, the proven toxic chemicals it uses, and the vast harm fracking has caused elsewhere, mere common sense says citizens of a democracy should be given a moratorium to decide whether they want this process to rule their lives. And given the scope on which it's planned, it surely will rule our lives.
Of course, it's a given that corporations with vast profits to earn have utter contempt for democracy. What's good for Halliburton is what's good for America, period. But except for the courageous few who have embraced a moratorium, like U.S. Congressman and Senatorial candidate Joe Sestak, our politicians have betrayed their Constitutional mandate to defend the lives and freedoms of U.S. and Pennsylvania citizens. I for one plan to spend all my ample free time assuring that those who don't support a moratorium are defeated at the polling booth—and recalled if elected.
But now there's talk of eminent domain and forced pooling to enforce the will of "frackers" on free citizens of Pennsylvania. And they have the Orwellian gall to claim this will allow them to do fracking in a safer, more socially responsible way—when in fact there's no hard, objective scientific proof (only the pie-in-the-sky promises of gas industry touts) that horizontal fracking can be done safely at all. Truth is, Congress has commissioned the EPA to do a vast new study of the whole process, which the EPA acknowledges is urgently needed. But in Pennsylvania, it's like some weird remake of Dr. Strangelove, where the leering mad scientist rubs his hands together saying, "First vee use zis process evreevaire, then vee test eet's environmental effects!"
In New York State, which has responsibly adopted a moratorium, people say to Pennsylvanians, "You guys are guinea pigs." As a free American citizen, I do NOT consent to be a guinea pig, and violating private landowners' sacred property rights to make me one satisfies any definition of tyranny I know. In our U.S. Constitution, the Second Amendment guarantees our right to fight tyranny by means of armed militias. While I think any people who use guns to defend their property against forced pooling are legally justified—and far better Americans than most of our politicians—I don't like a citizen militia's chances against a government that has predator drones, chemical weapons, and nuclear bombs. And even if Constitutionally justified, you'll be taken by your misguided peers as some deranged wingnut. In modern times, the peaceful civil disobedience so brilliantly practiced by Gandhi and Martin Luther King—two worldwide heroes, the latter now honored by a national holiday—is our only weapon of choice.
If forced pooling or eminent domain becomes a reality, hundreds of thousands of honest, taxpaying citizens who've never committed a crime need to be prepared to go to jail, to shame our legislators into seeing who really holds the moral high ground. We need peace militias now—and I publicly offer myself as the first volunteer.
Patrick Walker, Factoryville (570)xxxxxxxx petportraitscody@yahoo.com