5 ms·

Federal government, state government. Over here they're separate.

• Ensorceled 11y ago
  How is the Pentagon able to call the National Guard up for active duty as they did in 2003[1] and other occasions if they are separate from the Federal armed forces? [1] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/10/ng-o04.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/10/ng-o04.html
  • notacoward 11y ago
    They are separate in the sense that they are raised, trained, funded, etc. by the state government. The fact that operational control is ceded to the federal government in times of war doesn't change that. The US military can't call up a unit that doesn't exist, or that no longer responds to its orders due to a constitutional crisis. The Second Amendment implication is that the federal government may not prevent the formation of a separate state militia. What happens after that is irrelevant to this discussion.
• ende 11y ago
  So is the Canadian Federal and Provincial governments.
  • notacoward 11y ago
    Not to the same degree. In Canada the default is federal primacy, with specific powers delegated to the provinces - "merely local or private" in the constitution, 16 specific subject areas in the Constitution Act of 1867, federally-appointed lieutenant governors' powers of disallowance and reservation. In the US state primacy is the default, with specific powers delegated the other way by our own constitution. The in-practice truth is much messier than that, of course, but this difference in basic philosophy and constitutional phrasing puts the two on opposite sides of an important line.