Police have an IQ cap (the military doesn't). There is probably a reason for that, and I rather doubt it's because people who are more intelligent would get bored with police work. Think I'm making that up? ----------------------------------------- A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower courtâs decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test. âThis kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class,â Jordan said today from his Waterford home. âI maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.â http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95836&page=1#.TwD2H9RSQ-3 http://www.moviesoundclips.net/movies1/payb/force.wav
Neither side, here in America, is particularly insistent, yet. But throw in some real fear, of hunger maybe, and then it's all different. Ahh, lest I forget, the police and military are obtaining new technologies designed to "quiet" unarmed civilians. Rubber bullets (old school), flashbangs, water cannons, etc., but also some real interesting stuff, like sonic attacks. As to imagining what's "realistic", check our own history, and then check that of the world. It doesn't get more real than "actually happened, or "is happening". But, I will agree, not all troops would fire on their own people, that's also been observed.
Assuming they're still around could YOU be convinced to kill your own parents? About your own children?
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/9/2/104216.shtml National Guard Arrives in New Orleans with 'Shoot to Kill' Orders (Quotes from the article,there were no reports of Guardsmen refusing their orders that I know of) "Thousands of National Guardsmen with food, water and weapons streamed into this hurricane-ravaged city Friday to bring relief to the suffering multitudes and put down the looting and violence. "The cavalry is and will continue to arrive," said one general. " "Lt. Gen. Steven Blum of the National Guard said 7,000 National Guardsmen arriving in Louisiana on Friday would be dedicated to restoring order in New Orleans. He said half of them had just returned from assignments overseas and are "highly proficient in the use of lethal force." He pledged to "put down" the violence "in a quick and efficient manner." Gov. Kathleen Blanco called the looters "hoodlums" and issued a warning to lawbreakers: Hundreds of National Guardsmen hardened on the battlefield in Iraq have landed in New Orleans. "They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," she said. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."
No they won't refuse to do so, if they are good soldiers they will follow their orders and carry out their duty. An army cannot operate any other way and it will not tolerate soldiers contemplating and questioning orders from superior officers. I know you mean well but you are painfully naive, dwell in the theoretical realm, and have obviously never served in the military. Very simply, a lawful order is any order given to you by a superior officer that doesn't violate military regulation. In the real world, if a superior officer gives you an order it is, by definition, "lawful" and you follow it. When you enlist in the service one of the main parts of your oath addresses exactly that, "I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice." But maybe you're the whimsical kind who loves to dig into all the subtleties of the word "lawful" so you disobey one of those orders. In that case you can suffer extremely serious consequences. Article 90 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) makes it a crime for a military member to WILLFULLY disobey a superior commissioned officer. Article 91 makes it a crime to WILLFULLY disobey a superior Noncommissioned or Warrant Officer. Article 92 makes it a crime to disobey any lawful order (the disobedience does not have to be "willful" under this article). In fact, under Article 90, during times of war, a soldier who willfully disobeys a superior commissioned officer can be sentenced to death. I understand what you believe given your military associations. And by the laws of probability I doubt it would ever come down to your son or nephew being in a situation where they might have to fire on "friends" or "family". But soldiers during World War II were ordered to round up thousands of Japanese-Americans and herd them off to jail/concentration camps, and I suspect many of those American citizen prisoners were someone's friends or family. And, of course, the ultimate example of American soldiers following "lawful" orders was the Civil War where over 600,000 American friends and family were killed. If there was a revolt/uprising I can assure you that to many in positions of authority (both civilian and military) it would be viewed as Terrorism of the highest order, totally unpatriotic, and truly a direct threat to the American way of life. Obviously not to those doing the uprising, but certainly to those charged with the responsibility of maintaining Law and Order. In such a situation both the military and police would be called upon to use whatever force was necessary to quell the revolt, and you are kidding yourself if you think otherwise. In that scenario soldiers who disobeyed orders may well be charged with treason, disloyal to their country and the democratically elected government.
I'm not trying to argue that no soldiers would refuse. Only that (assuming they don't have to fire on actual family, or folks in their hometown) it's a more plausible occurrence than some might think. It's much harder to delegitimize family and loved ones, than strangers.