The Oathkeepers

By Alan Caruba

I regard the next four months between now and the election to be the most dangerous that the nation has faced since the months before the outbreak of the Civil War. I am concerned that President Obama, who has already declared “a state of emergency” in a recent Executive Order, will attempt to assert dictatorial powers and require U.S. military and law enforcement authorities to enforce them

You don’t get to be a general by saying no to the Commander-in-Chief. Witness the way “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was thrown under the bus by the most gay-friendly president in history. Then there’s the idiotic push to power naval ships with biofuels. The Fort Hood murders required a lot of officers to ignore the obvious. Et cetera.

My normal response to conspiracy theories is to dismiss them until I can find sufficient cause to give them credence. That said—President Obama is unlike any previous president this nation has ever had.

He is what those of us on the Right call “a red diaper baby,” raised from birth and mentored to embrace communism. Including his mother and grandparents, all of his closest friends and advisors come from the extreme Left.

By word and by action, Obama’s disregard for the Constitution, its separation of powers, and Americans suffering greatly from his policies, suggests that he is not beyond making the greatest grab for power using a bogus “national emergency” or manufactured “crisis” to declare martial law.

He has, moreover, recently issued three Executive Orders that (1) declare that the U.S. is in a state of emergency, (2) empowers the federal government to seize anything and everything it wants to pursue martial law in the event of an attack, foreign or domestic, and (3) to control all the means of communication nationwide..

The biggest question facing Americans is whether the members of our military and our law enforcement authorities would obey him.  My bet is that they would not.

Millions of active duty and veterans swear an oath when they embark on active duty. The oath for non-commissioned officers differs slightly in that it includes accepting orders from the President and the officers serving over them.

For officers, the oath is “I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

The oath is for life! It does not end when you are discharged from active duty. Law enforcement officers take a comparable oath. As Gen. Douglas McArthur said when he spoke to the corps at West Point, the oath for all who take it is about “duty, honor, country.”

There is an organization called Oath Keepers composed of those who have served or currently serve in our military, in law enforcement, and as fire fighters. Here is their “Declaration of Orders We Will Not Obey.”

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 obsey 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 blockage 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 whatever.

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.

Samuel Adams of U.S. Revolutionary fame once said, "If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."

The oath keepers and other patriots are all that stand between “We the People” and a government verging on evil.

© Alan Caruba, 2012