Well, within the last couple of hours, the last two of us who hadn't come down with this hellacious stomach virus -- Nora and me -- succumbed. After having had the Devil stick a fishhook remover down my goozlepipe and pull my stomach out through my nostrils, naturally I have to ... blog about it (Julie to me once: "Do you have no unblogged thoughts?") In honor of the continuing gastrointestinal crisis here at Camp Crunchy, I'd like to encourage you all to read Reason editor Nick Gillespie's terrific, profane rant about what he calls our series of NPSMs. You'll have to go to the site to see what he means. If you don't mind cussin', it's a fine piece of rhetoric.
Incidentally, the other day I was part of a conversation in which people were talking about the Blagojevich mess, and I overheard an elderly veteran say, "What we need in this country is a coup. Just bring the military in and straighten things out."
I asked him if he really meant that, and if he understood what he was saying.
"Hell yeah," he said. "Look at 'em." He meant Congress and Wall Street.
I think we'll be hearing a lot more of this in the years to come.
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I am one of those military veterans, 21 years, retired as a Ltc. Setting aside all the chatter about a coup the basic question is: "what is the line that can't be crossed" at which time citizens must act to defend our Constitution? I took an oath 6 times to protect and defend the Constitution. As a military officer that believes I took a life-long vow, as a citizen who believes the nation established by our founders under our Constitution is the true United States, how long do we, as citizens, wait and hope and pray that the Washington elites will come to their senses and return to our founder's dream? What is that "line" that can't be crossed? I fear we are headed towards it at break-neck speed. Time will tell.
Advocating a coup is advocating the forcible overthrow of the government. That's not upholding the constitution, to put it mildly.
Immigrants would be denied citizenship on the basis of saying things like that, so excuse me if I choose not to excuse a veteran for saying it.
It would be like saying a police officer is allowed to make death threats. Saying he's had a few beers, or his wife's been nagging him, wouldn't get him off the hook. This is no different.
Oh man. The only thing more depressing than this post was reading Koblog's comment above.
Michael Stokes Palusen, respected conservative constitutional scholar, has suggested that perhaps the executive (and I suppose by extension, the Military) has a Constitutional duty to abrogate certain parts of the Constitution in order to avoid its complete destruction. I.e. the Constitution is not a 'suicide pact.' As Lincoln said, it is better to violate one law than to lose them all. The question that I am glad to not have to answer is of course, when have we crossed the line into existential threat. There are those who argue we already have. I am not yet convinced. But we are getting closer.
Well, why wouldn't idiots think that they have to "destroy the Constitution in order to save it" when even their supposed leading lights have said as much in the National Review? Thomas Sowell actually wrote, "When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup."
I find it disgusting that conservatives think they can claim to be true patriots even when they suggest that democracy doesn't work, Americans are decadent idiots and our nation is a failed experiment. As a veteran myself and the husband of a currently serving Naval officer, I also believe that the oath I took is a lifelong oath to protect this nation against all enemies "foreign and domestic." Advocating a coup means you just made the list.
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