An Open Letter to those who “Stand with LTC Vindman”

On social media, I saw a few people post LTC Vindman’s picture along with the “I Stand” caption.  It gave me pause as I passed by without comment, but it has troubled me to the point I now feel compelled to respond with a warning Be Careful What You Ask For.

For those who dislike the President and believe he should be removed, that is okay.  It is one of the many rights you have as a citizen.  For those who are not citizens, you have the same right of opinion, and increasingly the Democratic party is arguing you should have the right to remove him as well.  The way to remove a President you don’t like is through the election process, not through a coup.

What has separated the U.S. military from so many other countries is the idea that our military is apolitical. 

Since our original rebellion, the oath administered to our soldiers has stated allegiance to the nation.  After the Civil War, the oath was changed to establish allegiance to the Constitution.  That oath, with some changes, remains in effect today.  The current oath of office was approved by the Congress in 1960 and has been in effect since 1962.  It reads…

I, [STATE YOUR NAME], having been appointed a [RANK] in the United States [BRANCH OF SERVICE], 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 office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God.

This is the oath LTC Vindman affirmed upon his commissioning.  You can judge for yourselves whether or not his action was in support of the Constitution or an act of political rebellion against a President he didn’t like.

If you, like so many of the opposition, believe he had the moral right and authority to rise up against the duly elected President over what is a political and policy difference then you are agreeing that any military member has the right to use his or her office to attempt to overthrow the President.  And make no mistake, LTC Vindman was clearly standing on his military platform when he testified at the Intelligence Committee.

We historically think of military coups as the violent overthrow of the leader, either elected or not, the replacement of one dictator for another.  Consider the rhetoric coming out from the Democratic party about President Trump.  How often do the party and the media depict him as a dictator?  But, is that true?

Has he sent the Congress home?  Has he not been constrained by the checks and balances we have historically had in place?  Can he spend money the Congress hasn’t authorized?  Clearly, the answer to these questions is no, so where do we come up with the idea he is a dictator? 

If he is a dictator then is it okay for the military to overthrow the government as other military leaders have done through history?  That is what you support when you Stand with LTC Vindman.  Think carefully about that.  I don’t think you will like the outcome.

Fractures Within the Party?

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This past month has brought into clarity a couple of points about the party of compassion and empathy.  The first is, for the most part, they are as racist as anyone they call out as a racist.  The second, they are starting to come apart at the seams as those millennial freshman representatives in the “Squad” demand their voices become that of the entire party, or they won’t pay their dues.

The DNC has, for at least this century, been the party of identity politics.  It is funny how that is playing out in this primary season when one by one the people of color, or the people who claim to be people of color are cast aside for the septuagenarians who are attempting to represent the socialist movement as they believe it should be represented. 

From my outsider position, it appears to be along the lines of how Lenin sold the Communist movement, or how Hugo Chavez helped the people as he nationalized all the industry of Venezuela to consolidate wealth and power for himself.  Promise the world – gain the power – then do what is necessary to maintain that power.  All the while finding ways to enrich yourself and your family.

At this past week’s Democratic Presidential Primary debate, I am told the most interesting moments came at the end when Elisabeth Warren confronted Bernie Sanders and accused him of calling her a liar on National Television.  Oh, the irony.  Of course, the political opinion folks at Fox News were all over that, and how it appears that as the media arm of the DNC (the commenters on CNN and MSNBC) seem to be working off the destroy Sanders memo, where if you can’t challenge a candidate on his policies you must destroy him as a racist/sexist/homophobe. 

I must admit to feeling a bit like Alice in Wonderland as I watch Fox pundits point out the foolishness of Warren’s attack and how Bernie was unlikely to have told Fauxahontus a woman couldn’t win the Presidency.  So, who should a reasonable person believe, the socialist Bernie, or neo-socialist Liz?  While I am sure Bernie has told a whopper or two and has probably not fully embraced the woke culture of today we have on the other side Elizabeth Warren who has been caught claiming to be a Cherokee (allegedly to get hired by Harvard Law School), submitted someone else’s receipts to a cookbook called Pow Wow Chow, claimed to have been fired as a teacher for being pregnant, claimed her son went to public school and claimed we would have universal healthcare without raising taxes on the middle class.

Meanwhile, back in Bernie Sanders' camp; Project Veritas has released a video of one of Sanders' field agents claiming if Bernie is robbed of his rightful place at the top of the ticket he and his fellow socialist minions will burn Milwaukee to the ground, bringing a whole new meaning to the term “heated debate.”

For the rest of the field, it is almost like they are there just to see who is coming off the top rope in this political cage match.  Remember these are the people who vilify Trump as being mean and dividing the nation.  Curiouser and curiouser.

An Opinion on Our Current Government

The Progressive Left is outraged over the man filling the office of President and his propensity to tweet out unfiltered and outrageous opinions.  The Conservative Right is outraged over the leadership of the House of Representatives and their agenda, apparently driven by a need to confront the President at every turn and advocate for the rights of minorities and illegal aliens over the rights of the majority (aka as the middle class).  The Progressive Left is also not too thrilled with the Senate, which keeps plodding along appointing federal judges at a rate that should trip the balance of ideology in the appellate court system before the next election.

All this outrage, but who actually sits down to figure out why these positions of power are filled by people who can’t seem to do the job in the way we would like them to?  The answer to that is no one does.  Everyone has an opinion, now usually based on political talking points, polling data, or sound bites provided by the propaganda networks, but no one really seems to understand that the government in place is in place because of choices the political parties presented to the voters and the voters (usually about 55% of those eligible to vote) picked the winners in accordance with the rules of the election.

For the last 2 ¾ years the Progressive Left has whined about how their queen bee won the popular vote and should be coronated President, but again that’s just sour grapes.  They rigged the primaries for her, they supported the campaign she wanted to run, their experts overwhelmingly mocked the opposition candidate and predicted with some 99% certainty she was already the people’s choice.  Unfortunately, all those experts refused to understand the popular vote is not the mechanism for electing the President.  On the bright side, none of the people complaining seem to understand how to actually amend the Constitution so we are probably safe for a while.

In the 2018 elections, they were able to convince enough local voters the President was flawed and needed to be removed, and they ran campaigns promising to impeach him.  Those local campaigns and promises won them a majority in the House.  Unfortunately, the evidence of “high crimes and misdemeanors” still seems to be lacking to a degree that would ensure any bills of impeachment would die a painful death in the Republican-controlled Senate.  Much like what the Republicans attempted with Bill Clinton in the 1990s.  That doesn’t stop the Representatives from getting the face time they desire to fan the flames of emotion over the outrages of the President.  It will be interesting to see if they are held accountable for their failure to keep their campaign promise to rid the nation of President Trump.  What we do see in their strategy is a shift from “Russia, Russia, Russia” to “Racist, Racist, Racist.”  Call me a skeptic but I don’t think that will play with the older people who actually turn out to vote. 

This will be especially true when you compare the Republican’s old white man to the field of old white men and women currently leading in the Democratic polls.  The problem for the DNC this go-around is trying to find someone who doesn’t have so much baggage in their radical promises to the activists that they can persuade the centrist middle class, whose voices aren’t heard in the primaries, they are not totally insane.  While we know President, Trump is a narcissist the percentages for reelection, despite what the propagandists and their polls would say, is in his favor.  The question for 2020 is do we stay with the insanity we know, or select some new insanity that offers even more decay of our economic system? 

In the last 100 years, there have only been a handful of Presidents who’ve not been successful in their reelection campaigns.  The unfortunate grouping includes George H. W. Bush (the economy tanked), Jimmy Carter (economic inflation, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and Iranian hostage situation), Gerald Ford (Nixon’s last VP), and Herbert Hoover (economy tanked in a big way).  As stock market analysts are fond of saying “past performance is no guarantee of future returns” so President Trump’s reelection is not a slam dunk but so far, I see little from the Democratic candidates to convince me they have anything better than a slim chance -- although there are two variables I can’t account for. 

First, if the Trump administration actually does upset the economy with his trade war with China then all bets are off.  This is the hope of those great intellectual thinkers and humanitarian commentators like Bill Maher.  You know him, he’s the guy who is celebrating the death of David Koch most likely from prostate cancer, something he’s battled for 20 years while hoping against hope for a collapse of the economy and the financial ruin of those whose jobs would be lost.

The second option for them is to nominate an African-American that would inspire the black community as Barrack Obama did in 2008 and 2012.  That would that tip the balance and bring out the black community in the numbers which made all the difference in those two elections. I don’t think either of the two most likely candidates now running would have that same appeal for the whole of the nation as Barrack brought in 2008.  I believe that is the thinking behind the quiet movement leading to the “let’s nominate Michelle Obama” speculation.

What all this back and forth has gained us is a government that is moving ever further away from the Republic our founders envisioned where the majority of control would be at the local level and the Federal Government would set the broader agenda for the nation.  Unfortunately for us, we keep electing the same tired voices to the Congress and now, because of identity politics, they are no longer able to compromise on solutions but are focused on destroying those who they disagree with.

Whether you care to admit it or not we have the government we deserve because we used our only tool to buy into whatever promises we liked the most.  For the coastal and urban crowd that was more government (i.e. more stuff using other people’s money), for the rural areas a promise about less government (i.e. less regulation and lower taxes).  Both of these promises are more accurately understood as campaign lies, but those were the choices presented in the 2016 and 2018 elections by the two major parties.  The fringe party may have drawn off a few votes, but really didn’t make much difference in the endgame. 

The lies of 2016 will be the same lies presented in the 2020 campaign and the question really boils down to how apathetic will the democratic base be?  If they turn out like they did for President Obama then the Democrats will win, but at this point, I don’t see anyone who will inspire the full spectrum of Democratic voters like Obama did in 2008.