At a certain point, you have to punt. No more downs, no more time-outs, no more slogging through with your standard passing game. The foot hits the ball and things begin to change.
[pullquote]President Obama is a domestic enemy of the Constitution[/pullquote]Obama is now attempting to dismantle the military, and that is the last guarantor of our freedom while he ignores the Constitution and institutes a smiling, jive-talking dictatorship on the home front. The fact that he was elected and has been aided by a large number of bad actors does not change the reality that he is becoming a dictator–that America is becoming a dictatorship. He has pressed buttons for Reset, Surrender, Bankrupt, Debase, and Destabilize, and now is mashing the Self-Destruct button. With the economy in the toilet and our rights around our ankles, we cannot afford an inability to respond quickly and forcefully to any number of ill-defined threats.
This man is a domestic enemy of the Constitution, and if like me, you have sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution, now is a very good time to decide what that means for you. I feel that it would be immoral to condition my opinion on the outcome of an election, and therefore immoral to vary my assessment based on the proximity of an election. Either this is tyranny or it isn’t, and I say that it is. I have not only a right but a duty to speak up now, not later, and any notion of “holding off” contingent upon the results of an election would amount to a threat issued against the electorate–do it my way or there’s going to be trouble. I am a conservative, not a Marxist, and not an anarchist–I do not issue threats about elections. I’m satisfied that the threat presented by the Obama administration’s lawless policies is clear and present regardless of any election, that the cause is just, and now the task is to explain that position, to gain support, and to explore the options available to citizens.
What?
We are under siege by a saturation offense. If you feel overwhelmed by the constant stream of distressing news coming from Washington, D.C., you understand perfectly the problem. You are supposed to be overwhelmed. The offenses and the abuses come faster than we can assimilate, and we are kept off-balance by a hurricane of violations any one of which in isolation would be easy to analyze.
We hardly can believe our eyes at the whirling abuses of office, of authority, of the citizenry and the Constitution, of our rights and our institutions, our traditions, our very currency and the value of citizenship itself. Before we can complete a dumbfounded “What the F–“, we are forced to assess another similar outrage.
The President goes to the Pentagon to describe how he will dismantle our defenses in the same week that he declares the entire country a sanctuary for illegals, illegally “recess” appoints a labor patsy to head an agency which is not legally funded, declares that he will share our missile defense secrets (specifications of the SM-III, mind you) with the Russians, offered to nationalize housing once and for all (hastily walked back), lets Iran push us out of the Gulf, and on and on it goes.
This fool has no idea what he is talking about when he talks about strategic needs. He is very clear, however, about what he wants. How is that?
Obama said the United States, as it looks beyond the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will “continue to get rid of outdated Cold War-era systems” to invest in “the capabilities we need for the future,” like intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
This domestic enemy is the cold war in person. His numerous and accelerating trespasses against the Constitution are the culmination of the Soviet aim. His very presence is all the proof we need that the Cold War is not over, and it is not going well for us. America is being intentionally and forcefully reduced to disarmament, bondage and poverty by a lawless cabal of Marxists.
Say What?
If you have sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, but have no idea what a domestic enemy of the Constitution would look like, you are derelict in your first duty.
This President is a Marxist. See his February speech to the US Chamber of Commerce, or his December speech in Osawatomie (Nebraska?) for details. His diagnosis of the causes of problems we face (if he is being honest) and his ideas for how to fix them (if he is being honest) are deeply rooted in, and inseparable from, a whole thicket of Marxist assumptions. If he is not being honest, then that makes his Marxism rather more obvious. Unlike leftists with their habitual cries of “Fascist”, I am not calling him a Marxist because I do not like him–I call him a Marxist based on listening to what the man has to say, and watching what the man actually does. It’s not good.
Having established that he is a Marxist, I do not credit his various schemes with anything like pro-American effort. America is by definition a nation which respects property rights and legal equality, not redistribution and defined outcomes. It is not an accident of history that we fought the Cold War, but a triumph of morals just to decide to fight. Marxism, despite what soft-headed (at best) university types say, is antithetical to this nation. We cannot endure as a half-Marxist entity, and we are bound by duty not to become a Marxist prison.
Having established that whether through accident or design, the Obama Presidency is a threat to the Constitution, we have no option within our honor but to oppose him. I have written before about what I call “Ethical Resistance“, which is the set of responses available to American citizens which should be undertaken to restore our government to its proper Constitutional function. I have no patience with the snake-handling literalism of Ron Paul, nor with the alarmist “FEMA Camp” fever swamp of some of the Oath-Keepers. The whole point is to become actively engaged in resisting our slide into tyranny BEFORE armed action should become a proper topic of discussion.
“I, AB, 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 on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
Those of us who have sworn this oath would do well to reflect upon how much of this oath is DIRECTLY concerned with the Constitution (which I have helpfully underlined), and how much is merely connected by an “and”. Please note, it is not “or”. All of the duties you may be assigned or feel appropriate in rising to the responsibility of your position description are in addition to, not in lieu of, not instead of, not in spite of your duty to the Constitution.
You have always had a duty to know what a domestic enemy of the Constitution is. Now is a handy time to learn. Educate yourself, and do not rely too much upon legal definitions. In the face of a real threat, the legal definition of a domestic enemy will somehow never be satisfied. That’s how it works.
To sum up, I feel that there is no longer a question as to whether Obama is (and several other folks, but we will narrow our scope) a domestic enemy of the Constitution. The question is what we are to do about it.
Do What?
I do not now support violence nor the provocative brandishing of arms. Can’t think of when I would. I do not support military officers refusing orders to deploy–those orders have nothing to do with the constitutionality issue, and at any rate, have been examined through several layers of ethical filters above most officers’ heads. So do your job, support your country, support your men, and if you are subject to the UCMJ, leave the open politics and the defaming of our domestic enemy to those of us who are not subject. We got your back.
If you are not subject to the UCMJ, but are employed by the Federal government, familiarize yourself with the Hatch act. Do not use your position to support any political point or party. Do not engage in partisan political activity on federal time, using federal equipment, or on federal grounds. There’s more, especially if you are some kind of big fish, but that’s it in a nutshell.
Life goes on, business goes on, and the federal government is not the enemy, although it harbors deep diseases. As a conservative, I support limited government, which means that I support government. Even Jefferson’s original draft and every other version of the Declaration of Independence spelled out throwing off an oppressive form of government in order to form a new one–not to be free of government. This is not anarchy, and not anti-government. This is the rescue of the government from those who feel no duty to the Constitution.
I will go to work tomorrow and the day after that, for there is real and important work to be done, and I will do it with a mind to the value to the country. Yet I will also keep an eye out for reviewing my own job performance and that of others in the light of the larger bulk of the oath we all swore. If you are employed directly by the federal government (not a contractor), there is more at stake than whatever the narrow confines of your job would indicate, and in fact it is a duty laid upon you in the United States Code, Section 5, which is where that oath is required.
What exactly this means for a given person is hard to say. But the duty is there, and ignorance is no excuse.
Where the beans get finely ground is in the duty to defend the Constitution against a domestic enemy, where that enemy may be in your chain of command (say, at the top). Ensure that (especially) if you are in a position to be questioned by reasonable people, that you conduct yourself in a reasonable fashion. There is much room for legitimate disagreement, and it will be easy to make mistakes of various sorts. Do not hazard more than you can afford, but consider that you already hazard everything through inaction.
Finally, ensure that you have some idea what a “domestic enemy of the Constitution” is. Our goal is not to create disorder, but to restore the government to its proper function. Only informed, purposeful action will accomplish that, and only if it becomes a consistent background against which unconstitutional acts stand out. The major problem now is that so few are clear as to what is required of them or of others, and this is not an accident. The left has been working for a long time to poison our culture, our education, and our ethics, and it has succeeded. Most people are simply ignorant, but will react as if they know what they should know.
Expect to be assailed and accused by the ignorant and by those who are threatened by a focus on the proper function of government. I would imagine that the real heavy lifting in this struggle will be to dislodge or educate those who through long experience and great comfort have become entrenched in a pocket of corruption that they themselves did not create. They will think their actions are justified, and will feel entitled to their excesses, but while they are part of the problem, that does not make them domestic enemies of the Constitution. So scale your responses.
What Matters
I am these days reminded of something I learned in an ethics class while in the NROTCU at UNM. I realized, through patient instruction, that a man who lays claim to bravery in risking his life for his country, but who will not risk his career for the same, is a coward and a liar.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence did not consult their betters, their elite ethicists, their legal word-smashers and manglers of dreams. They placed their trust in God and each other, and plunged ahead with the removal of a tyrannical system from their land.
And for the support of this declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor.
