“I am calling on average Americans everywhere to peacefully exercise your First Amendment rights en masse every day until this administration is removed and our democratic republic is restored,” US Air Force major Jason Watson said in a  public speech, delivered in uniform, before standing on the steps of the US Capitol with a sign reading “IMPEACH CONVICT REMOVE.”

Many Americans enthusiastically agree with the positions Watson  expressed. Many other Americans vehemently disagree.

Neither the agreement nor the disagreement matter to whether what he did was good, bad, right, or wrong.

Here’s what does matter:

Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice forbids US military officers to use “contemptuous words against the President.”

US Department of Defense Directive 1344.10 — issued under Congress’s constitutional authority to regulate the conduct, discipline, and uniform wear of the armed forces and nearly 20 years old in its current form — forbids active duty military personnel to wear their uniforms, or make speeches, at political events.

No one forced Major Watson to accept an Air Force Commission.

That choice — and the choice to be bound by the UCMJ and by DOD directives — was Major Watson’s and Major Watson’s alone.

So was the choice to violate the rules he chose, of his own free will, to be bound by.

While I’m on record as noticing that the Constitution doesn’t seem to matter much to those who rule us when those rulers find its strictures inconvenient, one of its features does make a good deal of sense for nearly any social or political system.

That feature is requiring that civilians control the armed forces rather than vice versa.

In any given week, you’re likely to come across multiple news stories concerning actual or attempted coups d’etat in various countries around the world.

A coup happens when the military (or some other branch of the “security state”) deposes civilian leadership and installs new leadership of its choice.

That’s almost always followed by violence as the new rulers act to suppress public unrest and pursue unpopular policies.

We’ve probably had at least one coup here in the US: In 1963, president John F. Kennedy was assassinated, almost certainly with the involvement of the CIA and other regime elements, and almost certainly for the express purpose of letting those elements get back to escalating an overt war in Vietnam and covert wars in Latin America.

The rest of that decade saw more political assassinations, social tumult that included literal “cities on fire,” law enforcement officers murdering civil rights activists and National Guard troops murdering college students with impunity, nearly 60,000 US and millions of Vietnamese deaths … the list goes on and on, and significant features of the coup-installed regime persist to this very day.

Forbidding military personnel to engage in politics, especially while in uniform, may only be a bare minimum standard when it comes to  preventing coups, but it IS such a bare minimum standard.

If you’re in the military, but would rather be involved in politics, hang the uniform up, not on.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

When the Continental Congress adopted its “Declaration of Independence,” officially published on July 4, 1776, there were reasons — reasons laid out in detail in that very same declaration.

King George III, the founders of “the United States of America” said, obstructed immigration.

He kept standing armies in times of peace.

He sent out “swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”

He restricted foreign trade.

He imposed taxes without their consent.

And so on, and so forth.

And by golly, when a government became destructive of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as the King of England had, the people had a right to “alter or abolish it.”

Fast-forward 250 years. The current US government obstructs immigration, keeps standing armies in times of peace, employs more, and more meddlesome, bureaucrats than George III might have ever dreamed possible, restricts foreign trade, and imposes an average tax burden about 16 times as large as that the American colonists moaned about.

The colonists declared independence from Britain.

Today’s America is built a very different proposition, best summarized by Benito Mussolini in the early 20th century to define his philosophy, fascism: “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

Today’s America is built on dependence, not independence.

The average American is born in a government-regulated hospital, issued a government birth certificate, assigned a government identification number, shipped off as early as possible to government-regulated schools, graciously allowed by government to work in government-regulated businesses (if his or her government papers are found to be in order), retires on a government pension, and is eventually buried or cremated in accordance with government regulations.

And, of course, every Fourth of July, he or she dutifully waves a piece of cloth representing that government, cries tears of gratitude for the brave government employees who defend his or her “freedom,” and perhaps — if, and only if, the government allows it — enjoys some fireworks.

I used to find the differences between the Declaration and modern reality horrifying enough to title my Independence Day columns “Mourn on the Fourth of July.”

That horror, however, has faded to boredom over time.  America today feels a lot like the pictures of those gray old Soviet housing blocs — brutalist in architecture and only semi-functional in  construction — and I’ve reached a new stage: “Meh on the Fourth of July.”

Enjoy your holiday weekend, fellow serfs.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On June 2, the US Postal Service proposed a new rule in the Federal Register on standards for handling of mail ballots, with public comment open through July 2. That rule was issued pursuant to an executive order by US president Donald Trump.

While the proposal unambiguously claims that “states would retain full control over who would (or would not) be able to vote by mail in federal elections,” US Postmaster General David Steiner told Congress that in actuality, the organization he runs would refuse to deliver ballots in states which don’t turn over voter data to the federal government.

While a federal judge has already nixed the scheme, it will probably end up working its way to the US Supreme Court.

Even if more courts, possibly including SCOTUS, act to prevent the US Snail from seizing control of elections, it seems to me that the message — “don’t mess with our votes” — isn’t really getting through to the US government.

Examples need to be made, and I think there’s a way to make one: A federal grand jury.

While the usual perception of grand juries is that they indict only those whose indictments are sought by prosecutors — who, in the old saying, “could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich” — there’s nothing to PREVENT such a jury from handing down indictments against whomever, for whatever, they want.

What we need is a grand jury whose members are willing to get together, talk things over, and charge David Steiner and his underlings, per Title 18, Section § 371 of the US Code, with the federal crime of “conspiracy.”

What did Steiner and those who helped him craft and promulgate the rule conspire to do? They conspired to — and have publicly confessed to conspiring to — violate Title 18, Section §1703:

“Whoever, being a Postal Service officer or employee, unlawfully secretes, destroys, detains, delays, or opens any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”

I’ve got mixed opinions on voting itself (for one thing, I’m not sure it accomplishes much), and strong opinions on mail (the government should get entirely out of the matter and let the private sector handle it), but this particular matter is about rule of law.

Regardless of whether I like the laws, or how they’re made, or who gets to make them, I’m a big supporter of holding the government and its officials TO the laws they claim are so important for OUR “protection.”

This is such a clear-cut case of a government official openly announcing that he’s conspired with others to violate the laws he’s sworn to abide by and enforce that just suing for relief isn’t enough.

David Steiner really needs to spend some time — even if only a few hours between his arrest and a presidential pardon — locked in a small room, wearing an orange coverall, contemplating the gravity of his offenses. That would be good not just for his soul, but for our freedoms.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY