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Friday Fun Thread for July 10, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Honestly, increased state capacity has essentially rendered the harm the Third Amendment is intended to protect against obsolete. The government simply has no need to outsource the room and board of its soldiers to unwilling random civilians. Maintaining a large standing army is no longer the type of expense that can bankrupt a modern country, and ensuring soldiers are adequately fed is not a substantial drain on resources. Policing and adjudicating the conflicts quartering of soldiers would inevitably cause would almost certainly swamp any potential savings. Especially when the army can just commandeer a public building or block rent a few hotels, or literally just build a new base to their exact specifications anywhere on the millions of acres of federal land.

The most plausible modern application if the Third Amendment I can think of would be in a context like last year's emergency national guard deployments, where a large body of soldiers are suddenly brought into a locality to assist with riot suppression and there are no adequate facilities available to house them all. But again, it's a lot easier/cost effective to just rent out local hotels and set up cots in random federal buildings or even an empty field somewhere than billeting them in private homes. Even if it was cost-effective, the army probably doesn't want its occupying force distributed randomly throughout the (presumably hostile) civilian population, where it's difficult to quickly mobilize and individual soldiers are exposed to retaliation. It wants them in a nice and secure compound from which they can project power.