Officers pledge their allegiance to the Constitution and not to any political official. They can disregard and disobey illegal orders. Enlisted members can also disregard and disobey illegal orders from officers and even from POTUS. The problem is when in the course of their duty to disobey and disregard illegal orders they are still burned by leadership.
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If you take the effort to post or extract and repost part, a portion or the entire text, you are in fact, making a statement and thereby useing inference making a comment.
Believe what you may. I post information. I posted the excerpt of the Constitution due to someone claiming that it stated something about a “standing army” - it does not. There is no inference nor opinion in that - it is strictly factual.
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Sorry for the confusion. I agree that there is nothing in the constitution second amendment about a standing army. Not sure there is anything anywhere about a standing army that is tied to the constitution.
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Happy birthday!
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As one who was assigned to an Air Force unit responsible for acquiring weapons systems last century, I can say that they two year limitation on funding is still has an impact on how the military spends money today,. Last century, we used to complain about it not being efficient when weapons systems took much more than two years to develop, manufacture, test and field.
The current people in those positions would much rather be dealing with those frustrations than the current frustrations caused by Congress not doing its job in passing real appropriation bills, but resorting to Continuing Resolutions (CRs) to fund the government. The CRs just continue funding as in the previous year and practically halt development of new improved weapons systems.
One could argue that the 2 year limitation on funding only applies to the Army and not the Navy, but that is practically irrelevant, since Congress has always funded them the same. One could argue that the Air Force and now the Space Force don’t have the two year funding limitation, but Congress has always acted as though it applied to the Air Force and has so far assume the same for the Space Force.
I’ll take bets that Congress will never give up “the power of the purse”. Any takers?
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The issue is a STANDING army. Which the Air Force is part of. The funding is only to be during times of DECLARED war to finance the war. Not for any other purpose in context of the Constitution. We should have militia members trained to operate jets in case there is a war. I would imagine the appropriations for that would be made available separate from any war time costs. And as for them giving up the power of the purse? That’s one of the problems. They have UNLIMITED funds due to the way the system works.
FYI…
“The Federal Government, with the cooperation of the Federal Reserve, has the inherent power to create money–almost any amount of it.”
~ The National Debt, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, p. 8
ALMOST? Why only ALMOST? What keeps them from creating ALL they want? You? Me? Your dog? A full moon?
"…Keynes argues that inflation is a ‘method of taxation’ which the government uses to ‘secure the command over real resources, resources just as real as those obtained by [ordinary] taxation’. ‘What is raised by printing notes, ’ he writes, is just as much taken from the public as is a beer duty or an income tax.’ "
- 1980 Annual Report, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, pg 10
“All the paper money issued today is Federal Reserve notes. The real backing for the nation’s money is faith in the strength, soundness and stability of the American economy.”
~ The Hats the Federal Reserve Wears, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, pg 4
Faith is what backs our monetary system. YOUR faith. Do you still have faith?
“When plunder has become a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
~ Frederic Bastiat in “The Law”
“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation,
governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.”
~ 1980 Annual Report, Federal Reserve
Bank of Richmond, pg 6
Isn’t confiscation of the wealth of the citizens a nice way of saying STEALING?
Federal Reserve Notes are not federal, represent no monetary reserves and no longer conform to the definition of notes. Failing to state who, will pay what, when or to whom - they ceased to be legal tender notes, (offers of money) over 50 years ago. They are in fact instruments of legalized THEFT.
“Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.” ~ John Locke (1690)
If the money you earn has no value and you are forced through fiat paper legislation to take it for your labor, are you not having your property (labor) destroyed and are you not being reduced to nothing but slavery? Is not the state at war with the people?
5th Plank Communist Manifesto: Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
The Federal Reserve System, created by the Federal Reserve Act of Congress in 1913, is indeed such a “national bank” and it politically manipulates interest rates and holds a monopoly on legal counterfeiting in the United States. This is exactly what Marx had in mind and completely fulfills this plank, another major socialist objective. Yet, most Americans naively believe the U.S. of A. is far from a Marxist or socialist nation.
“The writers of the constitution knew exactly what they were doing when they wrote in Article I Section 10 paragraph 1 'No state shall… make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. ’ People able to barter with gold and silver coin control government and are free. Loss of the right to trade in gold and silver coin enslaves people to the creators of psychological ‘money.’”:
-Merrill Jenkins, Sr.,
Money - The Greatest Hoax on Earth
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The two year funding shows a reluctance to their existence? So explain to me HOW they would EXIST if the funding would only be for two years. DURING A WAR no less. I guess no one really pays much attention to the complete explanation in context.
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Yes, I think it is pretty clear that Article I, Section 8, Clause 12 was intended to make it harder for the government to create a permanent standing army by limiting the ability of Congress to appropriate money for a period no longer than two years for the use of raising and supporting an army. By forcing congress to vote every two years to appropriate more money it should force them to at least consider if the conditions that lead to the raising and supporting of an army in the first place still exist. If they decide the army is still necessary then they can continue to fund it for another two years. Which they have been increasingly doing for the past couple centuries.
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I think that it’s pretty clear reading the Constitution in the correct context and looking at the Federalist papers and other debates that THERE HAD TO BE A WAR DECLARED. And now days, it doesn’t really matter. Because THEY have total control over the scam “money” supply and can do what they want.
“A regrettably large share of our legal experiences operate not in the shadow of the Constitution and its constraints, but rather in the shadow of explicitly unconstitutional rules, actions, and orders. In the time it takes for improper Executive Orders to be reined in, for illicit administrative decisions to be corrected, and for misinterpretations of constitutional power to be overturned, so much of society’s activity is framed by what we might call the not-Constitution — all those acts of government that are deemed illegal only after they have caused enduring harm. A most troubling aspect of government power is its insistence on pushing past constitutional constraints and operating in a blurry legal wilderness of its own creation while forcing Americans to prove that those power grabs lack legitimacy.” ~ J.B. Shurk
https://courageouslion380.substack.com/p/constitution
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Continuing the discussion from Another does the 2A apply to Militias or the People thread:
Was finally able to locate the topic I was looking for yesterday. There are many valid points already discussed here. And since the topic I started yesterday was shut down due to violations of forum rules from certain participants I was hoping to get back to a more intelligent and civil conversation here.
Potential Forum violating comments in the quote removed by me.
This is a common argument I hear from the anti self defense crowd. Pardon my ignorance but I just don’t understand it?
2A: A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Where in this amendment does it establish a well regulated militia? There are other places in the Constitution that delegate the responsibility of equipping and regulating the militia to Congress. If the 2A was meant to establish a militia you think it would be much more clearly worded. Something along the lines of - A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the States to establish and maintain a militia, shall not be infringed.
Instead the prefatory clause about the militia is followed by the active/operative clause that clearly (to me at least) affirms that the right to keep and bear arms belongs to the people. This makes sense as when you read the papers from the founders at the time of the 2A writings it is clear they are basing it on English common law that at that time allowed English citizens to arm themselves for self defense. The founding fathers also clearly feared the threat of a standing army ruled by a tyrannical government. Thus the prefatory clause about the importance of having a militia to stand as a balance against that tyranny. But that militia was always intended to be drawn from a populace that was allowed to be armed and allowed to carry their arms without infringement.
I am fully open to hearing other civil arguments that might prove my interpretation to be inaccurate.
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In the liberal tradition, the Bill of Rights protects people. The 2nd Amendment doesn’t say “the right of the militia to keep and bear arms,” it says it’s the right of the people. It is a very strange thing to argue that a major section of the Bill of Rights is meant to preserve a right for government agents (an activated militia) from the people, when the rest of the Amendments are meant to reserve rights for the people from the government.
Also, the “militia” is comprised of normal citizens, in contrast to “regulars” or “professional” military personnel (in 18th century language). So even in a non-liberal* reading that interprets the 2nd Amendment as establishing militias, those would still be common citizens.
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Seems like everyone continues to get hung up on the word militia. It’s not complicated. It is history and therefore can easily be researched. Militia as defined by the history as every able-bodied man.
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But in my opinion the definition of militia is clearly irrelevant as the 2A states the right is given to the people not to the militia members. So fortunately people who aren’t able bodied have the right to keep and bear arms as well.
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The folks who need an equalizer the most!
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My understanding of “well regulated”, at the time this was written, means well supplied and well trained. It does NOT mean citizens are subjected to gov’t oversight/control, as believed by pretty much every anti-2A nut. As you point out, it’s a right of the people and it shall not be infringed. The inclusion of “shall not be infringed” contradicts the anti-2A crowd’s modern day interpretation of “well regulated”. I’ve always argued that because the words “well regulated” are included, if the gov’t has any role at all, it should be to make sure I have plenty of ammo and access ranges and training facilities. The gov’t shouldn’t be focused on what types of firearms I’m “allowed” to possess. They should be making sure I have enough ammo in these tough times and maybe pay for a couple trips each year to Gunsite. I had to pay off my own student loans decades ago, so maybe Brandon can pay for my firearms training and give me a few pallets of ammo.
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Just noticed this in the other 2A thread that got shut down-
“This topic will automatically open in 200 years.”
Looking forward to bringing this discussion back over there in the year 2223 with you all:)
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Supplies did have a lot to do with it. Remember that people who showed up for militia service were expected to bring their own firearms, ammunition, and rations. There was no standing supply chain for the militia.
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