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Monday, August 04, 2008

Real Enemies

This is Steven Petrick Posting:

Hollywood likes to make a lot of movies about U.S. soldiers acting against the U.S. government to impose a dictatorship. There are a lot of films in that genre.

I have no doubt that there are a few individuals in the U.S. Military that might entertain such notions.

I also have no doubt that as long as the members of the U.S. Military are generally drawn from intelligent and educated people the chances of this are vanishingly small (and not because Hollywood is so frequently warning us of all the evil men in the U.S. Military).

Partly I think this because U.S. Military men do not swear unquestioning obedience to the President, or to Congress, or even to the increasingly powerful Supreme Court.

Even member of the U.S. Military, whether Active, Guard, or Reserve, and whether Air Force, Army, or Marines, begins his service by taking an oath. That oath states:

"I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and 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. So help me God."

(The National Guard also swears fealty to their individual states)

Note that the oath requires the service member to obey the orders of the President and the officers appoints over him or her "according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice". This requires the service member to obey LAWFUL orders. Quite literally, the President could order American Soldiers to seize Congress, and they would be lawfully bound to disobey what constitutes an illegal order. Because the oath is to "support and defend the Constitution", and overturning Congress by force of arms would be a violation of that oath.

If anyone ever tries to change the oath to one of allegiance to a single person or group of persons, like oaths of personal loyalty to Congress (much less a sitting President) that would be a point of worry.

But the real threats to the Constitution are the schools failing to teach what the Constitution is (frightening that some people are commissioned or enlisted who grew up here and have never, ever, read the Constitution themselves). And an increasing attitude amongst some that oaths should be broken whenever it is convenient to do so. [Like a sitting President giving false testimony under oath, or sitting Congressmen enacting legislation that is in violation of the Constitution they also swore to protect and defend), or a Supreme Court (which also swore to protect and defend the Constitution) that wants to rule on Constitutional issues based on foreign law.]