to clarify an earlier post:
Most cops, of various types, are good guys -- just as most military folk are. My close cousin is a Sheriff in Chicago, and working to go for the Federal Marshals. I'm from a long line of military myself, with 6 years in the USMC for me, and I'd pit my time in harm's way up against any of the guys in short-sleeved white shirts any day. I've been at the forward operating base, and I've pulled triggers, and I've swung a baton.
So, the idea that "
i don't get it" is nonsense. Most cops are damn good guys, doing hard work for too little pay. Yes, this applies to the TSA, generally.
But my earlier post regarded that fascist element that exists in many of the security forces today -- it attracts those fuckers like flies, and we all know it.
So, some analogies are in order: if your unit has a punk cop going around giving the rest of you a bad name, well -- who gets the bad name? the unit. If your squad has a slacker or a spy, the whole unit is fucked. If your steak has a worm in it, how much of it do you toss out? Yes, there are some damn good people working in the police and TSA. But when they put up with fascist fucks, then they become part of the problem.
The good news is that groups like
the Oathkeepers are growing fast. These are the good guys, that I'm happy to call friends, and will always be welcome in our home when things go south. If you're
a friend of ours, then none of these declarations are a problem. Post them around your workplace, and find out who is friend and who is foe.
When it comes to the TSA and Police, the Oathkeepers are
the good guys. 1. We will NOT obey any order to disarm the American people.
2. We will NOT obey any order to conduct warrantless searches of the American people, their homes, vehicles, papers, or effects -- such as warrantless house-to house searches for weapons or persons.
3. We will NOT obey any order to detain American citizens as "unlawful enemy combatants" or to subject them to trial by military tribunal.
4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a "state of emergency" on a state, or to enter with force into a state, without the express consent and invitation of that state's legislature and governor.
5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty and declares the national government to be in violation of the compact by which that state entered the Union.
6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.
7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.
8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to "keep the peace" or to "maintain control" during any emergency, or under any other pretext. We will consider such use of foreign troops against our people to be an invasion and an act of war.
9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies, under any emergency pretext whatsoever.
10. We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.
west_
As for the 10 pledges themselves, I have a few quibbles:
Re #2: Warrantless searches of vehicles are pretty routine now since the "exigent circumstances" ruling from the Supreme Court. Still, I guess this isn't technically an "ordered" search since they usually occur spontaneously as part of a traffic stop. What is typically an ordered, warantless search is DUI checkpoints. I object strongly to these, but I was the only cop I knew who saw a problem with it. One cop objecting instead of a whole movement within a department just means the checkpoint gets staffed with other people and the dissenter gets shitcanned. He doesn't really have any legal recourse if he refused a lawful order. Until this movement reaches critical mass, I think situations like this one can actually hurt the movement by causing Oathkeepers to get weeded out through disciplinary actions.
Re #4: What about the 14th Amendment? Sometimes a governor violates his citizens' constitutional rights as Americans. When the Arkansas National Guard blocked black kids from entering Little Rock High School, was it wrong for the 101st Airborne to step in?
Re #7: It's okay if they're not citizens? I've been saying the most likely use for FEMA camps is either to shelter displaced disaster victims or to detain suspected illegal immigrants. How do you know if somebody's a citizen or not, since many states allow non-citizens to get driver's licenses?
Re #8: So...thinking about the time after Hurricane Andrew when a gang stopped a National Guard patrol in Miami and stole their weapons...imagine if our military had been weaker and the gangs had gotten to be a much bigger problem, and the US--with Florida's approval--had accepted assistance from the UN (with the visiting personnel being under American command), this would have been a problem? We send forces out to keep peace in other countries all the time. Does swearing not to aid foreign peacekeeping troops on American soil also prevent an Oathkeeper from participating in peacekeeping missions in other countries, or is there a double standard on this one?
Re #9: I am completely in agreement with the spirit of this one, as it was written in response to FEMA preventing supplies from getting to Katrina victims. (At least that's the impression I got.) But taken strictly by the letter, as oaths generally are, this could be interpreted as meaning you can't seize contraband or deprive a person being arrested of his weapon, vehicle, cell phone, etc. Maybe the "out" on this one is in the phrase "the American people" instead of "any American person." It makes it sound like they only mean for it to apply to orders against the masses...and maybe contraband isn't considered "property." I think this one ought to be re-worded to express its very noble purpose more precisely.
Re #10: I'd be curious to hear how many of the Oathkeepers at these tea parties had a problem with the behavior of NYPD at the 2004 Republican National Convention. I spoke up about that one in a letter to the editors at Calibre Press and basically got a "Why do you hate America" response.