Posted on 03/22/2012 9:40:06 AM PDT by Fennie
A Marine sergeant who started a Facebook group that is openly critical of President Barack Obama and posted comments saying he will not follow the unlawful orders of the commander in chief is facing possible dismissal from the Corps.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I don’t think you can be charged for stating that you will refuse to follow unlawful orders.
There has to be a lot more than that.
This marine has cojones...and his only “crime” is openly expressing what the vast, vast, VAST majority of the Navy, Marines, Army, and Air Force thinks of the Cretin-in-Chief.
Obama is slime.
Period.
If this Marine follows through with his statement, he is in violation of his oath. Officers do not take the same oath. It’s good that he has his own opinion but there’s a time and place to voice it.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/22/marine-faces-dismissal-for-anti-obama-facebook-posts/#ixzz1prgIxfDw
His oath is to the Constitution, is it not?
—...and his only “crime” is openly expressing what the vast, vast, VAST majority of the Navy, Marines, Army, and Air Force thinks of the Cretin-in-Chief.—
Yep. and if anything happens to him, it would be very bad for morale.
I haven’t posted on Facebook in 8 months or more and I scrubbed my profile squeaky clean before I left. This is why. Long live internet anonymity.
Yep. I have an anonymous facebook account that I use for all that “naughty” stuff. My real profile is, frankly, boring.
As far as I am concerned, Facebook is an ‘electronic concentration camp’.
My military family loathes BHO.
Why?
I enjoy it.
“I, _____, 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; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”And here's the Officer's Oath:
“I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God.”An enlisted man swears to follow the order of his commander in chief according to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, after swearing to protect and defend the Constitution and bear true faith and allegiance to the same.
This requires an enlisted man to not follow any orders that would be unlawful or cause him to violate that oath.
An officer never swears to follow the orders of the CINC, but, that after swearing the same oath regarding the Constitution, that they will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which they are about to enter.
The issue with this Marine I believe is not what he has said, for he has simply said what his oath and the Uniform Code of Military Justice already require, that the orders be constitutional and lawful.
The problem they have with him is that he is being so public about it, has started his own Tea Party within the military, and they are concerned about good order and group cohesion as a result.
I likedhis group on Facebook and posted there, applauding his statements, pointing him to OathKeepers, and advising him to watch his six and his top knot.
I agree. In the back of his mind he knows what he is doing is not right but he is doing it anyway to stir up controversy. If the directives are he can not make political statements, then he should not do so. If he gets discharged that’s his bad he should have known better.
I am torn. First of all, I can’t imagine that he only wrote that he would not follow unlawful orders. I am sure there was other disparaging words about the President or the Marine Corps would not charge him. His boss is the Commander in Chief and it does not matter who it is and negative Facebook page should not be done. This would be happening if he set up a Facebook Page in 2004 dissing President Bush about the War in Iraq if he did not agree with it. This is about the Commander in Chief and the military folks who cannot bash them.
Nowhere in the Oath of Enlistment is there a requirement to follow unlawful orders. I think he worded cleverly. And may God bless him.
Can he be in uniform on Facebook? Is he speaking against Obama as a candidate, or against Obama as a CINC giving unlawful orders?
Does Obama get to decide what language is “contemptuous”? Is it contemptuous to note unlawfulness of orders?
My computer is really slow so I haven’t read the full article on this yet, but if this has anything to do with Obama and Panetta seeking xcombat authorization from the UN rather than the Constitutional, lawful requirement of being authorized by CONGRESS, then the issues he’s discussing are not contemptuous but dead earnest and absolutely in line with the officer’s oath he took.
Isn’t an armed service member stating that he or she would refuse to comply with an unlawful order in accordance with the military code of conduct? My understanding is that U.S. military law requires members not to comply with unlawful orders, and that’s why the defense “I was just following orders” is not allowed in war crime trials. I don’t know; just asking. Can someone educate me on the subject?
In my opinion, the object of 'social media' in general, and Facebook specifically is to get as many people as possible to voluntarily 'gather' together in the same 'place' and voluntarily reveal their innermost thoughts, as well as their personal information. It is structured so as to lull 'the masses' in to a sense of false security so that they will voluntarily reveal virtually everything about themselves, their families, their friends and their acquaintances.
The information gathered can be used at some time in the future by our totalitarian government to separate those who are guilty of 'double-plus-ungood' thought crimes from those who are 'only' guilty of 'regular' thought crimes.
Thought crime enforcement will be much easier with people literally turning themselves in.
..
...
And yes, maybe I DID just get a newer, more powerful tin-foil hat - so what?
According to the article, the name of the Facebook page was “Armed Forces Tea Party”.
bump to read later
Remember when they tried to add "Facebook Like" links to FR? I was nearly zotted at the time for trying to explain to them that FB "like" code is not a one-way bonus for FR traffic.
TPTB at FR dropped that experiment, apparently when they realized that merely loading a page with the "like" javascript gave facebook all sorts of insight into freeper activity and identities, even of lurkers.
It's one thing for TPTB@FB to know that your IP visits Drudge and MSNBC. It's another if they know that your IP address loaded the LIKE code (whether you press it or not) today on three threads which "RC one" posted on and refreshed a few times.
Such patterns are pretty easy to extract from the FB server logs and the archived FR pages on google or archive.org.
FR handles are only anonymous to those who don't know how to look.
God bless this Marine...and let me say it for him....
“obama is a miserable waste of flesh and oxygen”!
There!
I have a facebook account but have never posted anything and still its loaded with crap from my brother and his wife and friends, and my kid and his friends..
Can’t I just cancel my account and have it all go away?
“Yep. I have an anonymous facebook account that I use for all that “naughty” stuff. My real profile is, frankly, boring.”
I did similar by setting up an account for my dog. No one knows she’s a dog.
I was an enlisted Marine and an AF officer. The enlisted oath does not require the following of a clearly unlawful order from senior officers or from the president.
I was taught that as a part of the law of armed combat back in the early 70s.
By the way, the officer’s duties of the office also include that they will follow LAWFUL orders from more senior officers including the president. They are not out there on their own without the same restrictions.
My name is John Smith and I live at 777 Fake St. in Topeka Kansas and my phone number and email is xxxxxx..., first I'm going to tell you all how much I hate my boss and the company I work for, then I'll post a few sex pics of me holding an unregistered gun and some underage girl, then I'm going to tell you how I knocked over that liquor store that time and then...
People get themselves in trouble all the time on FB and Twitter. Even Celebs and Gov. officials do it. Some kind of mental break, where they don't realize that they are speaking to, potentially, everybody in the world.
I have had job interviewers react strangely when I told them I'm not on FB. They cock their head over like a dog, and squeak out...’really!?’ As if they can't believe it.
Nope. No FB for me. If I decide to go ‘public’, I will start my own ‘named’ blog. And I will be sure to keep in mind that everything is published under my actual name.
That creates a whole new dynamic as to what is said and what is discussed. A serious and powerful dynamic that not only do the FB’ers not understand, in many cases they have never even considered it.
I hate to be the one that has to tell you, but it is still there and will be forever more. The pepole with the right equipment abd knowhow can retrieve it anytime they wish. And they have probably hunderds of them at Quantico, VA.
I can’t access it. I’m not on FB. :)
Bad move, trashing the top of the Chain of Command, publicly, in electrons...
If this guy was a lib protesting a conservative, it wouldn’t be considered a problem.
Yes. You can deactivate it by going to “Account Settings” and then “Security”. It’s a link at the bottom of that page.
You might want to delete all your posts before doing it, so no one can see what your family has done or said.
:)
Semper Fi, sargent!! The Moron in chief should not be trusted. The Marine has BALLS to state what most Americans are thinking!!
Defense Department where is HIS RIGHT to FREE SPEECH????
I just did a Facebook member search for “frankly, boring” and nothing came up!
I’m on facebook. It connects me to a number of authors and artists, which provides wonderful entertainment.
However, I hardly post anything myself. And I NEVER post anything about work.
Well, it’s a good page. I just “liked” it. :) I wonder if the
Marxist in Chief is monitoring it. LOL!
Oh, I know. I’m not worried about that though. I’ve never posted anything that bad. I save all that for FR. If they want to hear that I hate communists, druggies, welfare addicts, liberals, muslims, etc, they can just ask or, better yet, they can dig up my file and figure it out.
Understood...that is a part of the UMCJ and the honorable discharge and fulfilling of their duty according to the oath taken.
You realize that if somebody really becomes interested in you, facebook would be able to extract a list of all facebook accounts accessed with the same IP address as your official account?
Yeah, but the elementary teacher who posted topless pictures of herself drinking beer in the Bahamas, well, that's the kind of stuff that will get you in trouble.
I agree with you. Never talk about your job, or your co-workers, or your boss, or your bridge club, or...well, anything you have to face again.
BTW. If you apply for a job, one of the first things they will do is check your FB. So, if you are cursing your boss or linked over to AA or NA or the KKK, or are drunk and topless on St. Patty's day, they will know it right away.
Me either. I never post anything that I do not care if the world knows.
Written and spelled like someone who never spent a day in uniform.
Right?
When you become a member of our armed forces on active duty there ARE some rights you waive. Freedom of Speech is one of them. I’m not an expert on Military Judicial Code and such, but there are very strict guidelines as to what active military personnel are allowed to say and do, and very strict rules regarding WHEN and HOW a person on active duty can express their rights. Anything that would give the impression that their speech could be taken as representative of the US Armed Forces as a group, or a particular branch of our armed forces as a group (in this instance the USMC). They can’t give the appearance that their political speech is supported or sanctioned by the government itself, or their particular branch of service. This is why those liberal protesters who show up IN UNIFORM at the “anti-war” protests in the past have actually gotten in trouble at times - not allowed to protest in uniform.
I think the fact that this brave, courageous, outspoken, Patriotic Marine unfortunately used military assets while exercising the rights he didn’t waive is the reason this is even a problem... Silly little mistakes that the “other side” can grab a hold of and shake until the whole effort is destroyed.
God bless this man for speaking out, may God protect him from any little oversights he could get in trouble for out of this.
For the rest of you military folks out there - remember you won’t be able to be there when the time comes to take a stand if you’ve gotten yourself kicked out by the time push comes to shove - just something to think about... I know there are many more members of the military that agree with everything this man has said, but decide the risk of speaking out and the consequences of such aren’t the best route to take - and so they quietly observe and when the time comes they’ll not get caught up in whatever the orders are and will be able to directly influence the way things go at that stage (I think it’s a matter of time with the Marxists in power).
This includes all elected and appointed officials at all levels of government, including state and local bodies of government. An officer theoretically can't criticize his local mayor if he lives off base.
He is another American hero .
It is very IMPORTANT that it implicitly includes not following unlawful orders. That was the Nuremberg Defense - I vass only following ordersss. It’s invalid. If a serviceman follows an unlawful order he is just as guilty (more!) than the one that gave him the order. The only possible defense is not knowing the order was illegal, and I’d bet dollars to donuts they’d say that ignorance of the UCMJ is no excuse.
He said US troops that burned queerans should not face charges in foreign courts and that he would not disarm american citizens exercising their constitutional right to bear arms.
Also, his enlistment is about up and they mostly want him to shut up and get out. If he continues to disobey he’ll get demoted to Lance Corporal and probably get a DD, though it doesn’t say so in the arcticle.
Exactly. Much like the soldiers refusing to deploy under Bush and/or criticizing his presidency. Put on the uniform and pour yourself a nice big cup of STFU, unless there's a darn good reason not to, but be ready to face the consequences - administratively or via the UCMJ.
No, not unless they force you to friend them or give them your password, and if they tried that with me I’d have to walk away. Going too far.
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