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L. Neil Smith's THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 269, May 2, 2004 Morons Marching
Dupes, Chumps, and Traitors
Exclusive to TLE I watch with some perverse amusement as the various media writhe over the Pat Tillman story. For the uninitiated, Mr. Tillman left a promising career in the National Football League to become an Army Ranger deployed in Afghanistan. He was killed in action within the last few days. The perversity of amusement comes as media would LOVE to cover this story in a huge way, spotlighting the millions of dollars that Tillman forsook to carry a rifle in a foreign land. And, in their defense, it is a legitimate story that deserves some ink. However, too much fawning over Tillman becomes an insult to the other hundreds of soldiers who were also killed in battle (or stupid training exercises, or "friendly fire", or bombs blowing their vehicles to smithereens, or suicide, or death as a result of mortal wounds, etc, etc.). I've already read and heard what a patriot Tillman was. I submit that Tillman was an ignorant, uneducated chump who died for nothing. But, he wasn't alone. All of the rest of the soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan are chumps, too. There is truth that has been missed entirely in the myriad stories and articles about the Bush wars. I've never seen the first article, nor even one sentence written about it. The subject is the unconstitutionality of the service of the soldier outside the borders of the United States of America. Let me lay the groundwork. In the Constitution, Article I, Section 8, only Congress is given the power to declare war. There is nothing in the Constitution that permits the Congress to pass a joint resolution, giving away their war powers. Once the Congress has made a formal Declaration of War, it then becomes the responsibility of the President to prosecute that war to the best of his ability, win or lose. Every House and Senate member, as well as the President and VP, swears an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Any action that defies or ignores the Constitution is an act of treason against that Constitution. Remember, the elected representative or executive doesn't swear to protect the Federal Government.......but the Constitution. We all know that we have not seen a formal Declaration of War since 1941, yet tens of thousands of military personnel have died in our undeclared wars around the globe. What of the oath of enlistment, or the oath of office (for officers) that every soldier takes? Here's what it says:
Notice that, above all, the oath swears to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. He swears true faith and allegiance to the Constitution, not the Commander in Chief. Only after that affirmation does the oath to obey orders of the president and superior officers appear in the body of the oath. A soldier who obeys an order that violates the Constitution commits treason against the Constitution. An officer who issues a direct order that violates the Constitution issues an unlawful order, and the order should be ignored. I submit to you that a soldier that understands the depth of his oath cannot lawfully and constitutionally follow the orders to deploy to an undeclared war anywhere in the world. Soldiers who truly understood their oath would refuse to obey orders to do so, even if it meant prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Can you imagine what would have happened if tens of thousands of our military personnel would have refused to obey orders to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan, using as their defense the oath they swore to support and defend the Constitution? Sadly, these young people have been brainwashed into false patriotism, a sense of misplaced revenge and rah-rah flagwaving, as gallons of testosterone spill over their uninformed minds....and they look for something to kill. The country that they love and fight to defend is made vastly weaker through their false fealty. The are serving the intentions of men and women in elected offices who commit traitorous acts against the Constitution every day that they are in office. Consequently, when you watch FOX News and see film of gung-ho soldiers telling us how proud they are to serve, you know that they know nothing of their oath, nor the Constitution to which they've sworn their allegiance. That's why they are chumps....credulous dupes who die or are maimed for nothing.
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Publication date: August 2001 from Mazel Freedom Press, Inc.; distributed by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc., PO Box 270143, Hartford, WI 53027. Order Hope from JPFO via this link. (Find more information and endorsements on that page as well!)
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