Update on DC Protests from Oath Keepers
Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes and Marine Veteran David Hedrick Will Be at the 9-12 March on Washington. Join Us There!
A few days ago a supporter of Oath Keepers donated an airline ticket for Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes to attend the upcoming 9-12 March on Washington DC.
Today, that same supporter also donated a ticket to DC for Oath Keeper Marine veteran David Hedrick, the veteran who took Congressman Baird to task at a town hall meeting. Click below to watch that video:
As a result, Stewart Rhodes has invited David Hedrick to come to the 9-12 DC march as part of the Oath Keepers contingent, and to be a speaker at our dinner that same night, and David has accepted the invitation. We consider David’s action in calling out Congressman Baird on the violation of his oath to be an example of what needs to be done. Oaths should mean something, and when a public servant has violated his oath of office, he should be called on it.
And who better to chastise an oath breaker than an Oath Keeper?
Why You Should Join Us in DC on September 12
FROM STEWART: This march on Washington DC, on September 12, 2009, is shaping up to be an historic event. This march is not just about taxes, socialized medicine, bankster bailouts, or proposed infringement of our right to bear arms. This is a march about liberty, and about our growing resistance to the Leviathan on the Potomac that has grown far beyond the limits of the Constitution, thanks to sell-out oath breaking politicians of both major parties. More Americans than ever before are waking up to this great danger to our Bill of Rights and to the very survival of our Constitutional Republic, and we have seen that awareness manifested in Tea Parties across the nation.
Oath Keepers has been part of that Tea Party movement from the start, beginning with my speech to the Knoxville Tea Party on April 15, 2009, where 4,000 Americans – including current serving military, police, veterans, and patriotic citizens – stood together as one, raised their right hands, and swore an oath to defend the Constitution. It was a powerful experience.
Then, at the invitation of Committees of Safety, we conducted an oath ceremony on Lexington Green, on April 19, 2009, at our first official Oath Keepers gathering. That was a truly stirring experience, with active duty military, police, and veterans standing together on that sacred ground, on that sacred day, to renew our oaths.
Then, on July 4, 2009, Oath Keepers’ representatives spoke at over 30 Tea Party rallies across the nation, each reading aloud our declaration of orders we will not obey and conducting an oath ceremony where active duty and veterans could renew their oaths, and where citizens who had never sworn the oath could do so for the first time.
Well, now the Tea Party movement is marching on Washington DC in grand style and we Oath Keepers feel compelled to join them on September 12, to exercise our right to free speech, assembly, and association to put the oath breaking politicians on DC on notice that we are awake and vigilant, and this Republic will not go quietly into the night.
We have contacted the organizers of the march and rally to offer our services in conducting an oath ceremony and we are waiting to hear back from them. But regardless of whether we conduct such a ceremony as part of the official march and rally, we will certainly conduct an oath ceremony at our dinner later that night.
I urge you to join us there on the Mall in DC if it is at all possible for you to go. I know it is short notice, but now is the time to stand, and this march is the place to do it. We will have a sizeable Oath Keepers contingent there for the entire day, including several state directors and part of our national board of directors.
Unlike the June Gathering of Eagles rally which was unfortunately canceled, this one is a for-sure go, and we will be there. David Hedrick and I already have our tickets, as do many other Oath Keepers. Get yours today and join us there!
Oath Keepers Dinner after the Rally on Saturday, September 12
After the rally we will be hosting an Oath Keepers dinner. Guest speakers will be Marine veteran David Hedrick, and current serving LCDR David R. Gillie, USN. We will likely also have several other exciting guest speakers at the dinner, so stay tuned for updates. The time and location of the dinner is still in the works, but you can count on an eventful evening of fellowship with fellow Oath Keepers and other like minded Americans after the rally.
I invite you to join us on September 12, 2009, on the Mall in DC.
Guardians of the Republic, honor your oaths!
Join us!
Stand.
For the Republic,
Stewart Rhodes
Founder of Oath Keepers
posted by Concerned American | 12:33 AM
8 Comments:
Lexington Green is sacred ground? Consecrated by the deaths of soldiers, and blessed by an oath of military loyalty? Can we deliberately confuse the military with the religious a little more, please? Gott mit uns?
This is too Lincoln/Gettysburg for me. That manner of speaking does push American motivational buttons, but it also obscures clear thinking. Clear thinking like, how can Stewart speak "For the Republic," when he doesn't hold elected office?
The anarchistic list of lawful orders the Oath Keepers won't obey is a great start, but renewing their oath of military loyalty to the system which would issue such orders reveals deep confusion. The German equivalent would be to swear to support the Third Reich, as long as it doesn't persecute Jews. Do you think such an ambivalent mental stance would open the door to accept the milder policies of National Socialism? 'We swear to do everything the liberals demand, except blatant genocide'?
If these veterans were clearly on liberty's side, they would swear to stop paying taxes.
If you don't have the courage to post using your handle,name, call-sign, or whatever you use, it's really hard to take you as anything resembling seriously. I post comments using my handle of Digitarii becuase that's what I am known by. I would happily join these people in the march if I had the means and time. Right now, I have neither. I'm trying to gather OKs locally to do our own local rally.
You clearly don't understand that we are not renewing our Oath to the system, but to the ideal of defending the Constitution and the rights of the people that are guaranteed by the Constitution. When we take that oath, it is not to the branch of service, but to the Constitution.
Any order that is given that is illegal does not have to be obeyed, and the Oathkeepers stand to defy any group which would give said orders. There are many OK's currently serving, and I'm sure that the word is slowly spreading through the ranks.
You sound like someone who hasn't taken the oath or paid the blood tax to protect the rights we are promised by the Constitution. If I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me.
My gut instinct tells me that you are one of those trolls that drops your little rhetoric on our blogs. You probably post on alternet all the time. I've seen the kind of garbage that flows through there, and I don't see any reason to post there. I'm not interested in flamewars. I'm more interested in what may happen if we have to fight back.
We will not disarm.
You cannot convince us.
You cannot intimidate us.
You can try to kill us, if you think you can.
But remember, we'll shoot back.
And we are not going away.
Your move.
"If you don't have the courage to post using your handle,name, call-sign, or whatever you use, it's really hard to take you as anything resembling seriously."
The truth of a statement is independent of who speaks it. It is irrelevant to my points who I am, or what my personal history is.
"You clearly don't understand that we are not renewing our Oath to the system, but to the ideal of defending the Constitution and the rights of the people that are guaranteed by the Constitution. When we take that oath, it is not to the branch of service, but to the Constitution."
The ideals of the Constitution are the system. Politics is a watered-down form of slavery, and it is evil to the core. It cannot be reformed. With your oath you are promising to be really enlightened slave overseers and give the slaves lots of food and clothing and only beat then a little bit when they get really, really uppity. You feel good about this, because you are a person of goodwill, and you are acting in what your culture regards as the highest and best way. Nevertheless, you are mistaken. Your culture is in error. Any attempt to rule peaceful people by force is evil.
You believe you're on the side of liberty, facing the gun grabbers, but you're not. You're actually in the middle between the gun grabbers and liberty. If you turn around and look behind you, first you'll see Ron Paul, then Libertarians who vote, then libertarians who reject voting. Think about this. How can there exist people who want more liberty than you do?
How can there exist people who want more liberty than you do?
Have you served in the armed forces at all? Have you fought, bled, or killed to defend the freedom you have to speak freely. Have you buried someone that fought beside you for those beliefs? If the answer is no, then you already want more liberty than I do because you didn't pay any price for your freedom to speak freely. I paid my price for liberty, as did the soldier that served with me and died on the mission. We pay the price for your freedoms.
And my culture is the one in error? You have the right to say and believe what you want because of the Constitution and because of the men and women who have killed, bled, and died in the defense of the Constitution.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Would you do the same for me?
Probably not.
You want to enjoy the freedoms without paying for them.
There is a type of person in this world that can do the things that the average person can't bring themselves to do. That type of person is known as a soldier.
Digitarii, thank you for remaining civil and discussing this, even though I imagine you're furious.
"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Would you do the same for me?"
I support your freedom of speech. I also support the freedom of an illegal alien to be employed without anyone's approval, the freedom to reject taxes which fund 700 military bases in foreign lands, and the freedom of a soldier to quit his job without being jailed as a runaway slave. Would I pick up a rifle against mislead American veterans who want to impose a Baptist theocracy on me? I am disgusted at having to consider that scenario. Only bands of home-invading criminals like a Union or a Confederacy would put me in that position.
I agree that freedom isn't cost free, but mostly what the US military does is stir up trouble. None of Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan has the capability to launch an invasion fleet and put landing crafts on American shores. Why is money being taken from me at gunpoint to pay other Americans to occupy those countries and kill the locals? Bring the US troops home, then retire them.
Consider some of the things you have promised to support with your Oath: The Constitution has no limits on foreign policy. Retaking the Holy Land for Christ is perfectly constitutional, as long as Congress votes to go to war and to fund it. The Constitution has no limits on tax rates. At one time the highest tax rate was over 90%, and making everyone's rate 90% is perfectly constitutional as long as Congress votes for it. The Constitution has no limit on national debt. Ten times GDP, one hundred times GDP, the sky's the limit and it's all perfectly constitutional as long as Congress votes for it. The Constitution has no limits on monetary policy. Congress may coin money and regulate the value thereof, but it is perfectly constitutional for the dollar to have lost 95% of its value in the last 100 years, and it is perfectly constitutional if Congress votes to hyperinflate the dollar in the manner of the Weimar republic, Argentina, or Zimbabwe. You have sworn to support all these Socialist disasters, which historically often lead to genocides, as long as Congress votes for them. Is this really what you intended?
I don't disagree with any of your points, but I do want to offer a clarity that you may have missed. The problem in each of your arguments is not in the Constitution, but in the Congress. Most of the OathKeepers and Three Percenters want nothing more than the Congress to do their job as DEFINED in the constitution in article 1 section 8. I don't think we should have gone into Iraq and I think Congress jumped to a vote without rationally discussing the ramifications. All of our members of Congress are no longer representing the people or fulfilling the oath they took to defend the Constitution, and that's where the problem lies. The framers of the constitution never intended for the US to have a permanent standing army. They believed that each state should have a militia comprised of Citizens of that state that would provide their own weapons and defend the state. In world wars 1 and 2, we did not jump ito them immediately, we did not move in until we saw that our allies would need our help. We fought to defend to ideal of Freedom in those cases. Almost every other conflict that we have gotten into since then we had no place to get involved. Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Kuwait, etc. I haven't been able to find a convincing argument in the last 22 years that rang true to me why we were involved in any of those conflicts. Currently, Afghanistan and Iraq. Why? Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi, his entire family is Saudi. Who do we need to go after? Not Iraq, not Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia. But our politicians won't do it. Again, the problem is not in the Constitution or the OathKeepers or the Three Percenters. It's the damn Politicians.
Those of us that believe (and I know you're not one of them, and that's fine with me) in the Constitution have reached the end of our rope, this is our line in the sand. We will not give in. NOT. ONE. MORE. INCH.
The politicians that have brought us to the brink are not representing us any more. They are representing their own interests. From our representatives all the way up to the President himself. They all have to be called to task and made to answer for what they have done.
I think that we have to have Term Limits for all of the offices. 1 term for senators, 2 for representatives, 2 for the president. Let's keep rotating people in and out and keep fresh ideals in office.
I remember reading an idea on how to best accomplish this. All registered voters names are put into a pool. As a new term of office comes up, they draw a hundred names out of the pool. These people are offered an opportunity to take a test. If they pass the test, they have the option to apply for the position. Then the voters get to decide who will represent them based on who passed the test. Although anyone with a Law Degree or a PoliSci Degree would be automatically disqualified for the position.
It sounds like we have both examined the archaeological record and come to similar understandings about the claims of the legislative intent of the constitution, as recorded by the federalists. (I happen to think the anti-federalists had a much more accurate analysis.)
However, that legislative intent was never written into law as limitations on congress. The Constitution is a wide-open apology for power, with a bunch of "trust us" in the salesman's fast talk. You are trying to dictate what use may be made of you from the position of having already conceded that government is your master, and having been forcibly tied up in bed. This doesn't work very well.
But let's go back to basics. Can I assume that you claim legitimate government rests on the consent of the governed? I don't consent, and I will never consent to any agreement which is forced on me. Your move. Any Socialist collective monopoly state security apparatus you intend to subjugate me under is morally illegitimate.
"All registered voters names are put into a pool. [...]"
Replace "central planning" with "brain surgery" and I hope it will strike you how nuts this is.
This is the kind of thing that the internet should be shown for. We have two totally conflicting opinions, but because we agreed to remain civil, we were able to discuss it rationally and present our arguments. At best, we will have to agree to disagree. You have made your choice of how you will approach the situation and I have made mine. Oddly enough, I think we're ultimately on the same side, we just chose different ways to deal with the issue. I have chosen to follow the oath that I took when I enlisted in the army (Funny aside, so don't anyone take this seriously: What does USARMY stand for in reverse? Yes My Retarded Ass Signed Up), and you chose to follow your beliefs/conscience, whatever you choose to call it. We can agree to disagree.
It's all good.
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