After some of the lies infowars was putting out during the Bundy standoff.. absolutely no credibility. However after some of the dumb stuff DHS has put out in the past about Vets and surplus shops is is possible they are being exceptionally dumb again.
Personally I think the government is dumb enough to do stupid stuff to alienate the population and the infowars ilk is unprincipled and greedy enough to do stuff and lie deliberately to alienate the public from the government enough, just to increase website hits.
If you support the Constitution, this is going to be a hard time for some folks.. not knowing who to trust or who to believe.
Recently another site I post on ran a little YouTube Video that encouraged veterans to keep their Oath .. and in this video, supporting Bundy, Rally to Bundy's cause.
I posted the following answer,
But let's talk about the Oath part.. and Mehgan's plea for a minute. I'm a vet, I took the Oath, I strongly believe in preserving, protecting and defending the US Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic , so Help me God.
Now the Question is , what exactly does the Constitution say on the matter? , Or on any matter.. That Oath also includes , well the military one does, and she is speaking to Veterans depending on if you are Officer or Enlisted
"I, _____, 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." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).
"I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ 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; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God." (DA Form 71, 1 August 1959, for officers.)
You can get yourself into a bit of a Pickle.. you Swear to follow lawful Orders and You Swear to abide by the Constitution.. and when those two obligations of Honor are in Conflict, You have to make a Stand.. and when you make that Stand, You get to defend that Stand in a Military Court (or some Court of appropriate jurisdiction ) and well and truly pledge your Life, your Fortune, and your Sacred Honor to your interpretation of the matter at hand , and if you interpretation is correct.. you suffer no penalty and get to be a true Hero. ... BUT Your interpretation has got to be spot on legally correct and defensible by SCOTUS rulings and Case Law, Legal Precedents and Superior to the arguments the prosecution of the "rightness" and "legalness" of the Order or Action you defied and didn't follow or took a Stand against. You got to know your stuff ( civilian term, military term starts with the same letter) .
Exhortations to Keep Your Oath are a dime a dozen, but no matter how common or easy the plea may be , it is to a serious matter of Honor, and Law. That Oath is Required by the Constitution, It ( and the other versions of the Oath for civilian offices of Trust) is the only Legally required Oath of Allegiance to anything demanded of Americans, and then only when in a Position of Public Trust. You have to be Right when you invoke that Obligation to take a Stand when the alternative is a violation of Law or the other parts of that Oath like following lawful Orders. Not just close, or well intended. but dead nuts on, chapter and verse, with SCOTUS Rulings on your flanks and walking point. So, for any Plea to follow your Oath ( very different than following your bliss) to be worth more than a light breeze on a spring day, it has to be specific and backed by very correct legally sound arguments and documentation, because if you are going to do anything actually meaningful that goes against the officially sanctioned course of action, you will need those arguments in court to show you were, in fact, meeting you Obligation of Honor and not just falling for some off the wall, back pocket personal opinion, of somebody that never read an applicable Supreme Court Ruling on the matter at hand in their life.
Small quibbling detail, I know, but it seemed worth mentioning.
So I guess my question here is .. Meghan's Plea? is it a call to Honor, or an exhortation to mutiny or treason? It is obviously well intended.. but if her understanding of the situation and the applicable laws and the Constitution is incorrect or incomplete, and I think they are, and the Article 4 Property Clause and SCOTUS Rulings based on that Article section and clause would seem to support my opinion, IM( non binding)HO , that it could be more the latter than the former. But that decision is a matter for a formal court to decide, if anybody was to act solely on the merits of Meghan's impassioned plea, without a more complete understanding of what the Constitution says on this matter.
"it all seems so unfair, and I wish upon a star that the Constitution means what I think it should".. is not a legal or compelling argument IMHO.
And I add , for this forum .. This obligation to get the facts, double check every claim being made and not settle for unsupported undocumented claims, IMHO, in some small way, even for those who have never taken the Oath but claim to support or rely on the Constitution for the legitimacy of their position BEFORE they take a public position, still applies , perhaps not as a matter of Honor, but certainly as a matter of personal credibility.
When it come to exhorting others who have taken the Oath to take action, and while the responsibility remains with the Oath taker, if you are wrong, you could be asking somebody to commit Treason or Mutiny. The Oath is not a Joke. If you hold it Sacred, you have Obligations to be very correct when you act on the Commitment. And you are stuck with what the Courts, especially the Supreme Court, says the Constitution says. Like it or not, agree with it or not." ( end of cut and paste )
There is a lot of stuff the Government does that I can find no Constitutional authority to do, in fact quite the opposite, stuff the Constitutional and a long line of SCOTUS rulings says isn't authorized. But there is also a lot of stuff the Government does that I don't particularly like that is Constitutional. Like I said, I took the Oath and consider it binding. I am not going to rely on the Constitution for stuff I like or that declares the Government wrong that I don't like.. and then when the government does something I don't like that the Constitution says is Constitutional turn my back on my Oath to Support the Constitution.
Not saying the day won't come when things get so corrupt that I have to turn my back on the Constitution completely and abandon it's authority completely even if it remains the basis for many things I do like. But that is not now and it is not yet.
If folks are thinking of abandoning the Government, or defying the Government on the basis of the Constitution they have to be dead nuts right about what they believe the Constitution says. Just because government officials have foresworn their Oaths and have broken the law and casually flip back and forth citing the Constitution one minute and Necessity ( necessity is always the plea of tyrants) the next does not give anybody who does take their Oath seriously the right to do the same thing.
The Declaration of Independence absolutely says we have a right to abandon the Constitution.
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government"
The Constitution is the list of Rights our Founding fathers agreed to give up to the Government to form an Effective Government, and they abandoned the Articles of Confederation to "institute new Government.
But that is not now and that is not yet IMHO. we should definitely use our God Given Rights and Liberties to call out the government on any overreach, especially when their plea is necessity. If you have an Oath to defend the Constitution it demands you stand against any Government malfeasance or overreach, But it also demands you be very correct about what the Constitution says first.
Infowars and their ilk IMHO are deliberately and with malice aforethought and for their own venial purposes trying to divide the People and the Country and have no credibility. Breitbart and Glenn Beck discovered just how much Cliven Bundy and Infowars lied about the Law, the enforcement, the cattle , the land , the BLM the whole thing, and backed off and ended up admitting the Government was doing the correct thing within the limits of their authority, and that Bundy was a welfare queen rancher and ripping off the Public as much as any tax cheat or welfare fraudster.
Hard times for a person of conscience and a supporter of the Constitution, personal commitment to due diligence in finding out the facts with nobody to trust makes doing the Honorable thing difficult. Not the time for a sunshine patriot.
Just keep in mind those that hate the government in a kneejerk or opportunistic way for their own personal gain have as much to gain by creating distrust and dividing the nation as the dishonorable people in Government have for dividing us with mistrust to consolidate power.
Personally I think the government is dumb enough to do stupid stuff to alienate the population and the infowars ilk is unprincipled and greedy enough to do stuff and lie deliberately to alienate the public from the government enough, just to increase website hits.
If you support the Constitution, this is going to be a hard time for some folks.. not knowing who to trust or who to believe.
Recently another site I post on ran a little YouTube Video that encouraged veterans to keep their Oath .. and in this video, supporting Bundy, Rally to Bundy's cause.
I posted the following answer,
But let's talk about the Oath part.. and Mehgan's plea for a minute. I'm a vet, I took the Oath, I strongly believe in preserving, protecting and defending the US Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic , so Help me God.
Now the Question is , what exactly does the Constitution say on the matter? , Or on any matter.. That Oath also includes , well the military one does, and she is speaking to Veterans depending on if you are Officer or Enlisted
"I, _____, 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." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).
"I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ 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; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God." (DA Form 71, 1 August 1959, for officers.)
You can get yourself into a bit of a Pickle.. you Swear to follow lawful Orders and You Swear to abide by the Constitution.. and when those two obligations of Honor are in Conflict, You have to make a Stand.. and when you make that Stand, You get to defend that Stand in a Military Court (or some Court of appropriate jurisdiction ) and well and truly pledge your Life, your Fortune, and your Sacred Honor to your interpretation of the matter at hand , and if you interpretation is correct.. you suffer no penalty and get to be a true Hero. ... BUT Your interpretation has got to be spot on legally correct and defensible by SCOTUS rulings and Case Law, Legal Precedents and Superior to the arguments the prosecution of the "rightness" and "legalness" of the Order or Action you defied and didn't follow or took a Stand against. You got to know your stuff ( civilian term, military term starts with the same letter) .
Exhortations to Keep Your Oath are a dime a dozen, but no matter how common or easy the plea may be , it is to a serious matter of Honor, and Law. That Oath is Required by the Constitution, It ( and the other versions of the Oath for civilian offices of Trust) is the only Legally required Oath of Allegiance to anything demanded of Americans, and then only when in a Position of Public Trust. You have to be Right when you invoke that Obligation to take a Stand when the alternative is a violation of Law or the other parts of that Oath like following lawful Orders. Not just close, or well intended. but dead nuts on, chapter and verse, with SCOTUS Rulings on your flanks and walking point. So, for any Plea to follow your Oath ( very different than following your bliss) to be worth more than a light breeze on a spring day, it has to be specific and backed by very correct legally sound arguments and documentation, because if you are going to do anything actually meaningful that goes against the officially sanctioned course of action, you will need those arguments in court to show you were, in fact, meeting you Obligation of Honor and not just falling for some off the wall, back pocket personal opinion, of somebody that never read an applicable Supreme Court Ruling on the matter at hand in their life.
Small quibbling detail, I know, but it seemed worth mentioning.
So I guess my question here is .. Meghan's Plea? is it a call to Honor, or an exhortation to mutiny or treason? It is obviously well intended.. but if her understanding of the situation and the applicable laws and the Constitution is incorrect or incomplete, and I think they are, and the Article 4 Property Clause and SCOTUS Rulings based on that Article section and clause would seem to support my opinion, IM( non binding)HO , that it could be more the latter than the former. But that decision is a matter for a formal court to decide, if anybody was to act solely on the merits of Meghan's impassioned plea, without a more complete understanding of what the Constitution says on this matter.
"it all seems so unfair, and I wish upon a star that the Constitution means what I think it should".. is not a legal or compelling argument IMHO.
And I add , for this forum .. This obligation to get the facts, double check every claim being made and not settle for unsupported undocumented claims, IMHO, in some small way, even for those who have never taken the Oath but claim to support or rely on the Constitution for the legitimacy of their position BEFORE they take a public position, still applies , perhaps not as a matter of Honor, but certainly as a matter of personal credibility.
When it come to exhorting others who have taken the Oath to take action, and while the responsibility remains with the Oath taker, if you are wrong, you could be asking somebody to commit Treason or Mutiny. The Oath is not a Joke. If you hold it Sacred, you have Obligations to be very correct when you act on the Commitment. And you are stuck with what the Courts, especially the Supreme Court, says the Constitution says. Like it or not, agree with it or not." ( end of cut and paste )
There is a lot of stuff the Government does that I can find no Constitutional authority to do, in fact quite the opposite, stuff the Constitutional and a long line of SCOTUS rulings says isn't authorized. But there is also a lot of stuff the Government does that I don't particularly like that is Constitutional. Like I said, I took the Oath and consider it binding. I am not going to rely on the Constitution for stuff I like or that declares the Government wrong that I don't like.. and then when the government does something I don't like that the Constitution says is Constitutional turn my back on my Oath to Support the Constitution.
Not saying the day won't come when things get so corrupt that I have to turn my back on the Constitution completely and abandon it's authority completely even if it remains the basis for many things I do like. But that is not now and it is not yet.
If folks are thinking of abandoning the Government, or defying the Government on the basis of the Constitution they have to be dead nuts right about what they believe the Constitution says. Just because government officials have foresworn their Oaths and have broken the law and casually flip back and forth citing the Constitution one minute and Necessity ( necessity is always the plea of tyrants) the next does not give anybody who does take their Oath seriously the right to do the same thing.
The Declaration of Independence absolutely says we have a right to abandon the Constitution.
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government"
The Constitution is the list of Rights our Founding fathers agreed to give up to the Government to form an Effective Government, and they abandoned the Articles of Confederation to "institute new Government.
But that is not now and that is not yet IMHO. we should definitely use our God Given Rights and Liberties to call out the government on any overreach, especially when their plea is necessity. If you have an Oath to defend the Constitution it demands you stand against any Government malfeasance or overreach, But it also demands you be very correct about what the Constitution says first.
Infowars and their ilk IMHO are deliberately and with malice aforethought and for their own venial purposes trying to divide the People and the Country and have no credibility. Breitbart and Glenn Beck discovered just how much Cliven Bundy and Infowars lied about the Law, the enforcement, the cattle , the land , the BLM the whole thing, and backed off and ended up admitting the Government was doing the correct thing within the limits of their authority, and that Bundy was a welfare queen rancher and ripping off the Public as much as any tax cheat or welfare fraudster.
Hard times for a person of conscience and a supporter of the Constitution, personal commitment to due diligence in finding out the facts with nobody to trust makes doing the Honorable thing difficult. Not the time for a sunshine patriot.
Just keep in mind those that hate the government in a kneejerk or opportunistic way for their own personal gain have as much to gain by creating distrust and dividing the nation as the dishonorable people in Government have for dividing us with mistrust to consolidate power.
