The ground here was carefully chosen; it is sometimes in fact a legal requirement that soldiers etc. refuse to obey unlawful orders. It’s not only not treason or “sedition” to suggest it, it’s merely a restatement of black-letter law.
Even so, the standard for such a refusal is
high and requires interpretation by one’s conscience. A court martial had better agree, too, if you are to evade serious consequences.
I've seen some comments that even though there's a lot of hair-on-fire reaction thinking this is meant to encourage disobedience, the more likely target audience is civilians who may be encouraged to believe that Trump is issuing illegal orders.
ReplyDeleteYeah, and it’ll likely work since the President’s response was to yell and scream and wave his hands. He would have been better off to shrug and say, “Well of course they shouldn’t obey illegal orders.”
DeleteHowever, to do that he’d have had to be a different man.
I agree with your assessment but wonder about the practical impact. My observation over a number of Republican Presidents and candidates is the Democrat attitude in these situations is "heads we win, tails you lose." There will be no attempt at agreement. A strong response is called anything from insufficiently bipartisan to authoritarian while a milder response is treated as an admission of guilt. A response like the one you suggest is probably exactly what they want since it tees up a sailor to refuse to participate in a drone strike, as an example, with the refusal then presented as 'proof' the order was illegal and shouldn't have been obeyed.
Delete(On a broader note one can see something similar operating in numerous reports of the banter among GWB, Al Gore, Kamala, and Joe Biden at Dick Cheney's funeral. John Hinderaker at Powerline put it pretty well "Democrats smear their political opponents wantonly, not because they actually believe anything they say, but because their only object is to cling desperately to power, and lying to achieve and maintain power is one of their lesser sins.")
At least two of the Progressive-Democrats in that video have been challenged publicly, repeatedly, to name the illegal order and the statute or constitutional clause it violated.
ReplyDeleteThey have steadfastly refused to do so, even engaging in their Alinsky-esque attempts to change the subject.
If they intended merely to suggest that long-standing refusal of illegal orders was still the proper thing, they'd say so. Instead, they cower behind their posturing, deliberately creating the impression that there have been illegal orders given.
Beyond that, while Trump has suggested that the Six might be guilty of sedition, and he has said outright that seditious behavior is punishable by death, that's the extent of his shouting back. For the Six and their supporters in Party and in the press to insist that he's calling for the execution of the Six is just another of the Party politicians' and the press' lies. Or, it's them saying that the Six' behavior is seditious.
Eric Hines
Kind of a missed opportunity to say something like, "I'm glad the Democrats are reminding everyone not to follow illegal orders, like those to deny FEMA assistance to people with Trump signs in their yards," etc.
ReplyDelete- Tom
Maybe they are NOT asking for a civil war.
ReplyDeleteMaybe.