WWW.OATHKEEPERS.ORG
MAY 15 UPDATE:
SOME BAD NEWS:
THE DC RALLY ON JUNE 13 (and 14) HAS BEEN CANCELED.
I just got off the phone with Navy Seal Capt. Larry Bailey (Ret.) of Gathering of Eagles, and he told me that Gathering of Eagles and ProTroopEvents.com, regretfully, have no choice but to cancel the rally scheduled for June 13 on the National Mall in Washington D.C.
Capt. Bailey said that the reason he had to cancel the rally is because the wealthy individuals who had promised considerable funding failed to come through with the necessary funds - in other words, they turned out to be "all hat, no cattle."
This was very frustrating for him because if he had not relied on their word, which he thought was good, he could have tried to raise the needed funds another way - he has done two other rallies on the Mall and it takes a minimum of $75,000.00 to do it right, with a big stage, sound system, and all that goes with it.
We here at Oath Keepers regret that we will not be able to attend that rally as part of our outreach to spread the Oath Keepers message, and this also means we Oath keepers will not be meeting on June 14 (we had planned on an additional meeting the next day).
We hope that not too many of you had already scheduled transportation and rooms. Please pass on this information to anyone you know who had planned on attending.
SOME GOOD NEWS:
Oath Keepers is getting invitations from all over the country to speak at July 4 Tea Parties, and to hold oath ceremonies like we held at the Knoxville Tea Party on April 15 and at Lexington on April 19.
We will post announcements about those Oath Keepers speeches and oath ceremonies at July 4 Tea Parties just as soon as they are 100% confirmed (and once we are absolutely positive they are going forward).
Stewart Rhodes
Posts
13 comments:
I love you guys! Don't listen to the nay-sayers. They are trying to dishearten you. Keep going strong, and never give up on America. From a grateful American mother of 6.
Stewart,
Obviously there will be hundreds of thousands of us that cannot be there. I suggest that we have a coordinated time where we can all reaffirm (or give our oath for the first time) simultaneously and nationwide.
My house can have 20 to 30 folks I'm sure would be honored to participate. Imagine a few thousand of these around the country!
Sam
Opus #6:
Thank you for your confidence in us; we will not let you down. I believe I was called to be a soldier/peace officer. Additionally, I believe you were called to be the mother of your precious six children. We pledge to you that we are: "Guardians of the Republic!" Rest assured that we will be faithful to our motto:
"NOT ON OUR WATCH"
God bless you and your precious children.
Sam,
Great idea, we are working on a solution. Stewart and I just had a discussion today on how we can improve our lines of communications to our members/supporters. I hope we can resolve these issues to your satisfaction.
We did a local radio interview today for a veterans organization, then Stewart dedicated the rest of his day to his family. I took the liberty of replying on his behalf, because of our conversation regarding our concerns.
While I applaud your intent I think you're missing a key point. The problem isn't that the military & police are given the wrong orders, it's the fact that these organizations exist that allow such orders to be issued in the first place. I make this point about police powers in, "Drug Prohibition: Law Enforcement Is The Problem" http://theinternationallibertarian.blogspot.com/2009/04/drug-prohibition-law-enforcement-is.html
The answer is not to take this oath, the answer is to resign from government service.
Some words of wisdom on the subject from the Founders:
"It is certain, that all parts of Europe which are enslaved, have been enslaved by armies; and it is absolutely impossible, that any nation which keeps them amongst themselves can long preserve their liberties; nor can any nation perfectly lose their liberties who are without such guests: And yet, though all men see this, and at times confess it, yet all have joined in their turns, to bring this heavy evil upon themselves and their country."
— Cato's Letters, No. 95: Further Reasonings against Standing Armies [September 22, 1722]
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"A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people."
--James Madison
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"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
-- Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts,
Floor debate over the Second Amendment [1789]
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"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."
Thomas Jefferson
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"If we admit this consolidated government, it will be because we like a great splendid one. Some way or other we must be a great and mighty empire; we must have an army, a navy, and a number of things: When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, Sir, was then the primary object…But now, Sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country to a powerful and mighty empire."
Patrick Henry
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"Avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty."
George Washington, Farewell Address [1796]
I just came upon some news of your organization, and I have to say that you man and women are a beacon of hope in an otherwise bleak outlook.
In a time when our elected leaders on both sides of the isle, seem to have forgotten what their oath of office means, it is very good to know that there are those of you that wear and have worn the proudest clothing any American can wear, remember what your oath means. You inspire a pride in me that, as an American, I have not felt in a long time.
Anonymous,
By taking the oath, you are not joining the military. You are pledging your allegiance to the Constitution.
Reasons why I will attend the Oathkeeprs Muster:
1. To support the courageous Active Duty servicemen and women and Peace Officers who will be there affirming their oath to support and defend the Constitution.
2. To offer confidence to the American citizenry at-large, that we who have taken our oath to support and defend their Constitutional Rights, will in no way - shape - or form betray that sacred trust.
3. To place on notice, a warning to any officer who might give unlawful orders to his or her subordinates that would violate the Constitutional Rights of the American citizenry, that their actions will not be tolerated; that such orders constitute treason and that prosecution under such charges will be relentlessly pursued.
4. To draw a clear line whereby the government understands its limits, and if it were to violate such, will have broken the supreme law of the land, the Constitution.
5. To let all leaders of government (federal, state, local), military, sheriff and police departments know that there will be no co-operation whatsoever with any illegal or unlawful orders.
6. To remind anyone who would use government force to strip our American citizens of their Constitutional Rights, that history will not be kind to them; that they will be forever branded for the bullies, cowards, and traitors that they are.
See you on the Mall ... so help us God!
Darren Wolfe said...
While I applaud your intent I think you're missing a key point. The problem isn't that the military & police are given the wrong orders, it's the fact that these organizations exist that allow such orders to be issued in the first place.
[snip - snip]
May 10, 2009 4:53 AM
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And I think you are missing a key point as well Darren.
Oath Keepers is Not a political organization. Period.
No Political Affiliation. Period. Full Stop.
The Constitution calls for a Constitutional Republic so lets start there shall we ?
Save the specifics for after we have made some progress on getting this train slowed back down.
This ship bailed out ... choose your metaphor.
Let us get the boot off of our neck before we start deciding on what the replacement politics should be .... what say ?
Darren, are you an anarchist, or did I misunderstand your comment? Peace through strength, man. Not weakness. That is the only effective weapon against human nature.
CaptGooch,
While, of course, I want the boot off our necks it seems like being on people's necks is the nature of such "boots". One can't say they are against the abuse but for something whose nature is abusive.
This was the Founder's reasoning. That's why they opposed the standing army.
Opus#6,
I am an anarchist. What your definition of the term is I don't know. To me it's about people voluntarily organizing & working together.
Agreed about peace through strength. The strength needs to be defensive though, a people's army organized mostly for a guerrilla war. World wide offensives, like the US's present policy, only create enemies & weaken us.
Below is a comment on my article "Oaths, War, and Liberty" posted at the Nolanchart:
Darren,
You misinterpret the Gathering of Eagles mission point 9. You infer that it refers solely to a victory in Iraq. It does not. The present conflict to which it refers is the war against Islamic supremicism in which Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and other actions are merely battles. Important and necessary battles, but battles all the same.
It is an aggressive war, but the aggression has been, until recently, entirely on the part of the Islamic fundamentalists and imperialists who have waged war on western civilization for almost 1,400 years. You probably never heard of the Battle of Tours, or the Battle of Vienna, or even of the Fall of Constantinople. You might not even know that the very first entity to strike American citizens after our successful revolution were the Islamic pirates of North Africa.
We had a period of peace, for the most part, after the defeat of the Barbary pirates because the advances in science and technology of the next period almost all took place in the west while the backward regimes of Islam became a backwater in the world.
The advent of oil wealth has caused a rebirth of the Islamic fundamentalist ideology and its inherent imperial ambitions. If you look at conflicts around the world you will find most occur in regions adjacent to Islamic countries. Almost all are fomented by Islamic radicalism.
This is not to say that every muslim is a radical or a terrorist. Most people in those countries would like nothing better than to live their lives, raise their families in peace and safety, and enjoy the fruits of human progress. Unfortunately they often do not get that chance. We are providing that opportunity in Afghanistan and in Iraq. It is not clean nor painless, but if they can hold onto the freedom we've fought to give them, they will be our allies in spreading freedom in the rest of the Islamic world.
Dan Maloney
NY State Coordinator
Gathering of Eagles
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My reply:
Dan,
I often thank people for their comments, not this time. You're too condescending. Let me reply in kind.
You've probably never heard of the Crusades nor of the European conquest of most of the Muslim world during the 19th century. You don't seem to know that the US supports Israel & many dictators in Muslim countries. (End retaliatory condescention.) To say that all the aggression lies with the other side is silly. The West has attacked & intervened in their part of the world as much as, if not more than, they have in ours.
The "period of peace, for the most part" that you refer to was actually the period of greatest Western imperialism.
Moving along to point 9. It doesn't say Iraq, nor did I take it to mean just Iraq. All the other places you mention are not "Important and necessary battles", they are imperial wars. The US is trying to maintain or extend its dominance. The sooner they end the better.
This is not to be mistaken for support for Islamic fundamentalism or blindness to the repressive nature of the regimes in that part of the world. They are bad, they're also not our problem. What most supporters of the war, yourself included, are blind to is the nature of the US govt & its goals. The govt here isn't trying to free anybody, they want to control them. The "democracy" practiced here that we also export is a sham. Elections have become a means of duping people into supporting the govt rather than a means of people controlling it. The Founders warned us:
"It is not because a part of the government is elective, that makes it less a despotism, if the persons so elected possess afterwards, as a parliament, unlimited powers. Election, in this case, becomes separated from representation, and the candidates are candidates for despotism."
--Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man
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"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for,..."
--Thomas Jefferson
To conclude this comment, the points you're making are exactly the ones the neocons made to justify their aggressive wars, well, after the WMD lies were exposed, that is. They don't stand up to scrutiny.
"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own... She well knows that, by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the color and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlets upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished luster the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit".
President John Quincy Adams
http://www.nolanchart.com/article6411.html
Darren Wolfe said...
CaptGooch,
While, of course, I want the boot off our necks it seems like being on people's necks is the nature of such "boots". One can't say they are against the abuse but for something whose nature is abusive.
This was the Founder's reasoning. That's why they opposed the standing army.
[snip] [snip]
May 17, 2009 6:14 PM
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Darren Wolfe,
You missed my point entirely.
You are arguing politics BUT Oath Keepers is not a political organization. Period. Full Stop.
Oath Keepers is not of any political persuasion. [Or we are of All political persuasions whatever.]
You are arguing that the mere fact of having any government is wrong and in that I personally agree with You BUT Oath Keepers is not about anarchy or minarchy or monarchy or Democracy or any other archy.
Our SOLE purpose is to Reach, Teach and Inspire oath takers.
Our "We are NOT List" is a whole list of items that I would have you read Before you respond.
This bandwidth is NOT here to debate the validity of any FORM of government.
This bandwidth is devoted to those who have sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies foreign or domestic, so help me (us) God. Period.
End of story.
{This is your only warning to stay ON Message or every off topic post will be deleted without comment. We are Not a debating society. IF you are not an oath taker or an Oath Keeper why are you here ? WE are Oath Keepers.}
Please,[I'm being respectful and Nice ....] Take your arguments about other topics elsewhere.
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