Keeping Your Oath: NOT Just Following Orders

NOTE: The below article was originally published in the April, 2008 issue of S.W.A.T. Magazine, but is republished here with S.W.A.T.'s generous permission. Because I wrote this article back in January, 2008, I didn't know who would win the nominations for either party, much less who would be president, so I used the hypothetical of Hillary Clinton as President (I think it safe to say she was the average S.W.A.T. reader's worst nightmare back then). When you read it, just replace Hitlery with Obama, Holder, and Rahm Emanuel (who you can picture wearing the Chairman Mao signature pant- suit, if you like). You can see that I was thinking a great deal about the meaning of our oath back then, well over a year ago, while I worked as a volunteer for the Ron Paul campaign in Nevada. That's about the time I first got the idea to start Oath Keepers. - Stewart Rhodes

Just Following Orders

By Stewart Rhodes

S.W.A.T Magazine, April 2008

"if a police state comes to America, it will ultimately be by your hands. That is a harsh reality, but you had better come to terms with it now, and resolve to not let it happen on your watch."

In a recent letter to this magazine, J.R. Uhl, Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret

.) observed that “[t]he Constitution and our Bill of Rights are gravely endangered today, and this community [of military, veterans, and law enforcement] is where they will be saved, if they are to be saved at all!” The Colonel is absolutely right.

“It” (a full-blown totalitarian police state) cannot happen here if the majority of police and soldiers obey their oaths to defend the Constitution and refuse to enforce the unconstitutional edicts of the "Leader."

Imagine that Herr Hitlery is sworn in as president in 2009. After a conveniently timed “domestic terrorism” incident (just a coincidence, of course) or yet another Prozac

induced mass shooting, she promptly crams a United Nations mandated, Great Britain style, total ban on the private possession of firearms through a compliant, Democratically controlled Congress. Dressed in her favorite Chairman Mao signature pantsuit, Hitlery signs the ban into law with the obligatory choir of sell-out police chiefs as backdrop (just like the good ol days when Bill Clinton used the oval office).

But Hitlery, having a much larger pair, goes further, proclaiming a nationa

l emergency and declaring the entire militia movement (and anyone else Morris Dees labels “extremists”) to be “enemy combatants.” Using precedents established by Bush, Hitlery declares that such citizens are subject to secret military detention without indictment or jury trial, “enhanced” interrogation techniques, and trial before a military tribunal hand-picked by the dominatrix-in-chief herself. Hitlery then orders police, National Guard troops and active military to go house-to-house to disarm the American people and “black-bag” those on a list of “known terrorists,” with orders to shoot all resisters.

Would You "Just Follow Orders"?

Would you do it? Would you just follow orders to shoot your fellow Americans? Without you and your brothers in arms to enforce her decrees, Hitlery would be powerless to do any

thing but fume and throw things at Bill. It is you who really holds the final veto, and if a police state comes to America, it will ultimately be by your hands. That is a harsh reality, but you had better come to terms with it now, and resolve to not let it happen on your watch.

A Story About Resolve

Speaking of resolve, I have a story. After the Army, I attended College and took a class on the Holocaust, where we read Browning’s Ordinary Men, concerning German

Ordnungspolizei (Order Police) Reserve Unit 101. Those reserve policemen were not Nazi fanatics, but, out of obedience to authority and peer pressure, they still obeyed orders to shoot entire Jewish families, usually old men, women and children.

German Ordnungspolizei (Order Police) Just Following Orders.

The professor, a proud socialist, told the class that no rational person could possibly say with certainty that he would not do the same. I strongly disagreed, saying I was absolutely certain I would not obey orders to shoot women and children - I would instead shoot the officer giving me that order, right through the head.

The shocked professor declared that I had the same sort of resolute certainty as the Nazis, and such certainty was dangerous. A delicate metro-sexual male student, apparently seeking approval, proclaimed that he could not say he would refuse to follow the orders.

I turned to him in disbelief, asking, “you can’t say for sure you would not shoot old women and little kids?” His answer: “I’d rather be a live coward, than a dead hero.” I kid you not. And the rest of the class sat silent, none taking my side. At that moment, I understood wha

t H. L. Mencken meant when he said “every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.” Only in the sheltered ivory towers of academia is such craven cowardice considered a virtue, and resolve considered a vice.

More Obedient German Police, Just Following Orders - to Shoot Women and Children. Do NOT Let This Happen Here.

I later lambasted their absurdity and cowardice in an editorial in the college paper, pointing out that if anyone had suggested to the 18 and 19 year old boys on board the troop transports the night before the landings at Tarawa, Iwo Jima, or Normandy that they could not possibly know if they would follow through the next day, the boys would have looked at them like they had two heads. Of course they knew what they were going to do – just what they had trained to do. And the vast majority did just that. My father in law was among them. At 16, he lied about his age to join the Marines on December 10, 1941 (just three days after Pearl Harbor), to fight the Imperial Japanese Army – and he did just that, at Iwo.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

John Adams: Enlistment date - December 10, 1941. Now that's what you call stepping up!

And here was this socialist professor proclaiming that anyone who has such resolve is ipso-facto like a Nazi! It was the professor and his cowardly students, ironically, who are exactly the kind of people a totalitarian regime loves to have carry out its orders - people so without conviction, so concerned with their own safety, so empty of honor that they will do anything commanded of them just to live their miserable lives a while longer.

A Snapshot of Resolve: The Marines Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. Who Do YOU Identify With?

Who do you identify with? The spineless waste of oxygen that would shoot little kids to save his own miserable hide, or those young men who knowingly waded into hell to defend liberty?

Just as you have honed your mental trigger in advance and trained yourself to respond effectively against physical threats, you must prepare yourself in advance to take a stand against unconstitutional (and thus illegal), or immoral orders and so-called laws. You must play a “what if” game with those questions as well, decide how you will react, and visualize yourself doing it – just like you do when preparing for future combat. Just as I know beyond a doubt that I would lay down my life in defense of my wife and children, I know I would gladly give what is left of my life to ensure that they live in a free country, and no doubt you feel the same about your kids.

To secure that liberty, and to ensure that your sons grow to be "sons of liberty" who stand tall, speak the truth, and keep their oaths, you must be a son of liberty who stands tall and keeps his oath, even if by doing so you risk your job, your pension, your liberty, or your life.

- Stewart Rhodes, S.W.A.T. Magazine, April, 2008.

Postscript: According to Wikipedia, the German police forces "were brought together on a national basis for the first time in German history by an act of the German Interior Ministry in the summer of 1936. The act decreed that the regular German police forces were to be absorbed into the SS, which would then incorporate all local, state, and national level law enforcement agencies." Take heed, because history does indeed repeat itself. Guard with jealous suspicion your local autonomy and your state sovereignty. Do NOT allow your local and state police forces to be federalized and absorbed by the national government. Make that a very firm line in the sand.

www.oathkeepers.org

NOTE: The publisher and the editor of S.W.A.T. Magazine are true patriots and fully support the Oath Keepers mission. They also happen to put out one heck of a fine publication. Check it out and consider subscribing. You may forward or repost this article for non-profit purposes so long as you give credit to the author and to S.W.A.T. Magazine and include a link to www.oathkeepers.org

CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC 101: YOUR RIGHTS DON’T COME FROM GOVERNMENT

Copyrighted Material. Reprinted by permission of S.W.A.T. Magazine.

NOTE: This article was first published in S.W.A.T. Magazine, where Stewart writes a monthly column called Enemy at the Gate which is dedicated to the Bill of Rights - and that means all of it. Both the publisher and editor of S.W.A.T. are committed patriots who fully back what Oath Keepers is doing. (and no, S.W.A.T. Magazine is not just for police. Its readership also includes military and non-military average folks). They have given their consent to Stewart republishing this article online. This article presents some foundational principles we should always keep in mind. Feel free to pass it on to others for non-profit uses, but give credit to S.W.A.T. Magazine and include the Oath Keeper web address.

The First Fundamental Principle of Constitutional Interpretation: Your Rights Don't Come From Government

By

Stewart Rhodes

Ben Franklin reportedly remarked that the Constitution formed “a Republic … if you can keep it.” Well, you can’t keep it if you don’t know what it is.

So, what is it? As George Mason said, “no free government, nor the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” What are the fundamental principles of our Republic? Should we look first to Supreme Court decisions for such guidance? Hardly. As Jefferson said:

They [the judges] are … in fact the corps of sappers and miners, steadily working to undermine the independent rights of the States and to consolidate all power in the hands of that government in which they have so important a freehold estate.

And that was when the ideas of the Enlightenment still reigned supreme, long before the infestation of Marxism among legal elites. No, the Court has long ago gone astray. Let us begin with our Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — 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, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness ….

There, at the heart of our Republic, are not just the concepts of equality and consent of the people, but also natural rights. The Declaration of Independence is fundamentally a natural law document and the “long train of abuses” that made revolt necessary were not only deprivations of representation (as we were taught in school), but also of natural rights, such as life, liberty, and property, and the abuse of all of the ancient, hard won procedural protections of those rights, such as habeas corpus and jury trial in a civilian court, rather than a court of admiralty. They finally shot back when the government attempted to strip them of the means of resisting the already ongoing abuse of their other natural rights.

Rights come first, and then government is created to protect them, not the other way round. This is something modern political and legal elites want us to forget. They don’t believe in inalienable, natural rights that are ours by virtue of ‘nature and nature’s God.” Instead, they share the view of Karl Marx, that such “rights” are merely artificial political/legal constructs, that man is just an infinitely malleable animal (to be shaped by social engineers), with no inherit rights whatsoever, and your only “rights” are whatever society wants to “give” you. Black’s law dictionary defines this as “positive law” – man made law - as opposed to natural law. Thus, Janet Reno once told a group of federal law enforcement officers “You are part of a government that has given its people more freedom … than any other government in the history of the world”(emphasis added).

Under this view, which flips the Declaration on its head, on what grounds can you ever rebel? Since your rights are “gifts” from government, and merely whatever the government courts say, with no higher power or law, it is never legitimate for a people to rebel, no matter how ridiculous the government’s “interpretation” of its own powers or how arbitrary and murderous it becomes once its servants in black robes “make it legal” by interpreting your so-called rights out of existence. Without natural rights there is no right to revolt, which is precisely why these elites think it totally illegitimate for you to have effective means of resistance.

Remember that all of the Crown’s actions were upheld by the English courts as legal and “constitutional.” However, for the Founding generation, that was not the end of the argument because they knew their rights were not just whatever the government robed lawyers said.

In harmony with that timeless, self evident truth, the Bill of Rights does not grant any rights. It is really more a bill of protections of rights. The First Amendment does not say “the people are hereby granted a right to free speech, freedom of the press, free practice of religion, and assembly.” Instead, it says “Congress shall make no law respecting … [those rights].” It is a prohibition on Congress, to protect pre-existing natural rights.

The same is true of the Second Amendment. It does not say “the people are hereby granted the right to bear arms.” No. It says “… the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” It is a prohibition on government action, meant to protect a pre-existing right.

Likewise, the Fourth Amendment does not grant us a right to be secure in our persons, houses, papers and effects from unreasonable searches and seizures. It declares that our right to that security “shall not be violated” and then it sets forth procedural requirements to protect that preexisting right. Nor does the Fifth Amendment grant us a right to life, liberty, or property. It merely prohibits the government from depriving us of those pre-existing rights without due process of law, and spells out specific procedural protections for those natural rights. The same holds true for jury trial.

Thus, whenever you hear a judge, politician, lawyer, or talking head in the media speak of what rights you do or don’t have under the Constitution, you are hearing at best an ignorant statement, and at worst, a lie. And whenever you find yourself running to look in the Bill of Rights to see whether you have a right to do something, you are making a fundamental error. Your rights are inherently yours by nature and by nature’s God.

With that fundamental principle as our background, I will next delve more directly into constitutional interpretation, showing how the Bill of Rights mandates how we must interpret what the people consented to as the means “to secure these rights.”

Stewart Rhodes

Founder of Oath Keepers and S.W.A.T. Magazine columnist

www.oath-keepers.blogspot.com

If you enjoyed this article and would like to read other S.W.A.T. Magazine Enemy at the Gate columns by Stewart Rhodes, you can purchase back issues of S.W.A.T. online, here in electronic format (PDF downloads) or as printed back issues here. You can also subscribe here.

Oath Keepers On The Air

The Oath Keepers Declaration of Orders We WILL Not Obey has caused a fire-storm of interest in this effort. (click the highlighted text above to read the full declaration with detailed explanation). The major online news site, World Net Daily, now has a special feature article on Oath Keepers.


And Stewart Rhodes, founder and spokesman of Oath Keepers, has been invited to appear as a guest on several radio shows. He was on Devvy Kid: today March 17th 6pm pacific. And he will be on the G. Gordon Liddy Show, Wed March 18th 7:30 am pacific, 10:30 am eastern:

Go here to listen live online

We are in discussion with a few other shows on possible appearance dates.

Oath Keepers to be on G. Gordon Liddy Show

They all want to hear about what we Oath Keepers (and that means you too!) are up to. We are tremendously grateful to them for stepping up and helping us spread the Oath Keepers message.

Tune in, call in, and spread the word!

And we have another very exciting development in the works that we will probably announce tomorrow (Wed).

Together, we WILL win the battle for the hearts and minds of our troops!

Oath Keepers
"Not on Our Watch!"

Stewart Rhodes, Founder of Oath Keepers, on Radio Today

Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, will be on the "Liberty Pole" internet radio show today, March 11, 2009 at 5:30 pm pacific time. Go to this link to listen:

http://www.plainsradio.com/chat1.html

Host is Ken Dunbar, out of Arkansas. Stewart will be on the show for a half hour to discuss Oath Keepers.

Show may be archived, but that is not certain.