UPDATED 3/14/2016 (removed last paragraph)
I love the United States of America. I love it so much I took an oath to defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic, and even though I’m no longer in the military, I still take that oath to heart. Part of that oath includes my promise to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. Anyone who has served in the U.S. military or U.S. Congress has also taken this oath. Unfortunately, many people do not understand what this oath means, or even what the Constitution says. If they understood the Fourteenth Amendment they would know that it is illegal to “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” so long as they are U.S. citizens. If they understood the framework of this longstanding legal document, they would know that under the First Amendment it is unconstitutional to deny religious freedom in this country. If they understood the First Amendment they would know that it is also a violation of law to deny individuals and organizations the right to free speech or to deny them a redress of their grievances.
Yes, many of these Constitutional rights have been violated under the auspices of the War on Terror and Citizens United, and yes, even our very own President Barack Obama has sat on his hands and even contributed to the unconstitutionality of certain government policies, but in today’s political climate it is very clear that the Republican Party is much more in favor of curbing the Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens than any other active or popular political party in this country. It is a shame that the Republican Party will allow, and even push for, the continued defacing of our Constitution and erosion of representative democracy by their fellow party members. To allow for Ted Cruz, a government obstructionist, and Donald Trump, a racist bigot, to run for president on their party’s platform is to allow for the discrediting of the entire Republican Party, not to mention an embarrassment to our country. Ted Cruz is an obstructionist. He does everything in his power to prevent government from accomplishing the goals it sets out to do. He shuts down government and blames the other side for his actions. His policies have left thousands of government employees without work or pay during sequestration. He is anti-government in this regard, and anti-American in my eyes, as those are my fellow Americans (and family members) he is denying pay and work to when he shuts down government. How in the hell can the Republican Party support a candidate who’s style of leadership isn’t to lead, but to prevent leadership from occurring? Why would anyone vote for someone who doesn’t even want government to function? It’s mind boggling that someone who wants to shut down government and prevent it from serving the people it represents can even hold a government office. It just doesn’t make sense.
But then there’s the Donald. The racist, bigoted, misogynistic, anti-free speech, anti-freedom of religion, anti-American Donald Trump. This guy basically took his own feces and smeared it across the Constitution. Trump has sued a reporter for libel just because he has the money to do so and can, and not because of any real violations of journalistic ethics or duties. He’s called on the banning of the equal protection of the law for American Muslims - a clear violation of the 1st and 14th amendments of the United States of America which guarantees the freedom of religion and equal protection of the law to all U.S. citizens living in this country. He cannot even be sworn into office because he would be lying, and committing an act of perjury, by taking the oath of office. (I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.) If Trump were to be elected as president the people of the United States of America would have the authority to remove him from office immediately solely based on the fraudulent act of him taking the oath to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States, as he would be lying when taking this oath as he has already indicated there are parts of the Constitution he clearly intends to violate. Electing him into office as the Commander in Chief of U.S. Armed Forces would be an unconstitutional takeover of the U.S. military, and active members would have every legal right to defend themselves against such a takeover. Can we say mutiny?
And I’m not being over the top. Donald Trump is one of the greatest national security threats to this country I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. I’ve been to Iraq. I fought the mujahideen. My dad fought in Vietnam, and my grandpa fought against the Nazis in World War II, and still there is nothing more frightening to my sense of security than seeing Donald Trump rise in the polls. ISIS uses Trump’s ignorant rhetoric to recruit terrorists into its organization. Mexico is considering banning him from their country all together (as are a few other countries), and in turn has made our neighbors to the south militaristically more vigilant against a possible illegal takeover of the U.S. government by this sick bastard. The millions of Muslims, immigrants, women, and any other social group Trump has pissed off will be even more pissed if he’s elected. Can we say insurrection?
But seriously, I’m alarmed. How did this go so far? Why are people supporting these un-American Republican candidates? And why isn’t anyone else who has taken the oath to defend and uphold the Constitution stepped up to stop the insanity? What’s wrong with our military leaders? Are they scared of the Donald? What’s wrong with our representatives in Congress? Did they forget the oath they took? I sure as hell haven’t even if it was sixteen years ago. I made a promise to defend my country and uphold the Constitution, and a promise is a promise. Now that I'm a civilian there’s not much I can do to defend the country’s values and legal authority against these raging lunatics, but as a nation we can do much together. I’ve given up on the Republican Party to do their part to uphold the law, but that’s not to say I disregard all Republicans. My grandpa was a diehard Republican. I listened all my life to him as he discussed his conservative values with me, but I also listened to him tell his war stories about how he bombed the living shit out of the Nazis.
My family is of German descent, but that didn’t stop my grandpa from standing up for and defending the values of the United States of America when we went to war against Germany. It didn’t stop him from bombing those Nazi assholes into oblivion. And they were assholes. I was married to a Polish woman. I’ve been to Poland and I’ve observed where the death camps were. I’ve watched the documentaries and seen the footage of how the prisoners were treated in Nazi concentration camps. And guess what? The Nazis weren’t just enslaving and killing gypsies and Jews. They were rounding up white male Europeans who look just like I do, and they were putting them in concentration camps as well, somehow reminding me of the private prisons we see spread across the United States today. The Nazis gassed and worked their prisoners to death in labor camps (we don't do that here, I think), and they weren’t out to just get non-Aryans. They were out to kill anyone and everyone that got in their way - white, black, blue, red, or whoever - which in my mind is what makes Trump the perfect little Nazi. He is against anyone who is not like him. He spits out vitriol hatred toward anyone who looks or thinks differently than him. He wants to force Muslims to be registered in a national database and carry IDs stating their religion. He wants to prevent Muslims from entering the country all together, and he wants to round up immigrants and send them back to the violence and poverty of the places they were trying to escape. Trump is evil. Pure evil. But if we can’t say Nazi or fascist, can we at least say authoritarian?
But I love the United States of America. This is a beautiful country with beautiful people who have really beautiful minds. The hate speech we see coming from the right wing of our political system is not representative of the values of the vast majority of the people living in this country. It does not represent our ideals. The right's plans for the future are an obsolescence of our history, their ideals an erosion of our democratic system. I believe in the American dream, and am in fact living the American dream right now, and I believe millions of other Americans believe in this dream too. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed in it. Obama believes in it. Lincoln believed in it. JFK believed in it. Jimmy Carter believed in it. Betsy Ross believed in it. And so did many other great leaders of this wonderful country, but somehow deep in my gut I know Trump doesn’t believe in it. I know Cruz doesn’t believe in it. I can feel in my heart that the Republican Party doesn't believe in it. They don't care about dreams. They are out for revenge. They want to see blood, and they don't care who gets in their way. They are the Orwellian manifestation of Big Brother reaching through the matrix to keep our economy in a slow and dying deathgrip. They have their own dream, which is more like a nightmare of a demented disinformation operation than anything close to a dream, or our collective reality. Whatever it is they claim stake to, I'm sure it’s not what the majority would agree to as the American dream. I'm sure it’s not my dream. But no matter what that dream looks like, I still have to be on guard. I have to be ready for a possible unconstitutional takeover of the country I swore to defend, because it’s possible.
I love the United States of America. I love it so much I took an oath to defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic, and even though I’m no longer in the military, I still take that oath to heart. Part of that oath includes my promise to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. Anyone who has served in the U.S. military or U.S. Congress has also taken this oath. Unfortunately, many people do not understand what this oath means, or even what the Constitution says. If they understood the Fourteenth Amendment they would know that it is illegal to “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” so long as they are U.S. citizens. If they understood the framework of this longstanding legal document, they would know that under the First Amendment it is unconstitutional to deny religious freedom in this country. If they understood the First Amendment they would know that it is also a violation of law to deny individuals and organizations the right to free speech or to deny them a redress of their grievances.
Yes, many of these Constitutional rights have been violated under the auspices of the War on Terror and Citizens United, and yes, even our very own President Barack Obama has sat on his hands and even contributed to the unconstitutionality of certain government policies, but in today’s political climate it is very clear that the Republican Party is much more in favor of curbing the Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens than any other active or popular political party in this country. It is a shame that the Republican Party will allow, and even push for, the continued defacing of our Constitution and erosion of representative democracy by their fellow party members. To allow for Ted Cruz, a government obstructionist, and Donald Trump, a racist bigot, to run for president on their party’s platform is to allow for the discrediting of the entire Republican Party, not to mention an embarrassment to our country. Ted Cruz is an obstructionist. He does everything in his power to prevent government from accomplishing the goals it sets out to do. He shuts down government and blames the other side for his actions. His policies have left thousands of government employees without work or pay during sequestration. He is anti-government in this regard, and anti-American in my eyes, as those are my fellow Americans (and family members) he is denying pay and work to when he shuts down government. How in the hell can the Republican Party support a candidate who’s style of leadership isn’t to lead, but to prevent leadership from occurring? Why would anyone vote for someone who doesn’t even want government to function? It’s mind boggling that someone who wants to shut down government and prevent it from serving the people it represents can even hold a government office. It just doesn’t make sense.
But then there’s the Donald. The racist, bigoted, misogynistic, anti-free speech, anti-freedom of religion, anti-American Donald Trump. This guy basically took his own feces and smeared it across the Constitution. Trump has sued a reporter for libel just because he has the money to do so and can, and not because of any real violations of journalistic ethics or duties. He’s called on the banning of the equal protection of the law for American Muslims - a clear violation of the 1st and 14th amendments of the United States of America which guarantees the freedom of religion and equal protection of the law to all U.S. citizens living in this country. He cannot even be sworn into office because he would be lying, and committing an act of perjury, by taking the oath of office. (I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.) If Trump were to be elected as president the people of the United States of America would have the authority to remove him from office immediately solely based on the fraudulent act of him taking the oath to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States, as he would be lying when taking this oath as he has already indicated there are parts of the Constitution he clearly intends to violate. Electing him into office as the Commander in Chief of U.S. Armed Forces would be an unconstitutional takeover of the U.S. military, and active members would have every legal right to defend themselves against such a takeover. Can we say mutiny?
And I’m not being over the top. Donald Trump is one of the greatest national security threats to this country I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. I’ve been to Iraq. I fought the mujahideen. My dad fought in Vietnam, and my grandpa fought against the Nazis in World War II, and still there is nothing more frightening to my sense of security than seeing Donald Trump rise in the polls. ISIS uses Trump’s ignorant rhetoric to recruit terrorists into its organization. Mexico is considering banning him from their country all together (as are a few other countries), and in turn has made our neighbors to the south militaristically more vigilant against a possible illegal takeover of the U.S. government by this sick bastard. The millions of Muslims, immigrants, women, and any other social group Trump has pissed off will be even more pissed if he’s elected. Can we say insurrection?
But seriously, I’m alarmed. How did this go so far? Why are people supporting these un-American Republican candidates? And why isn’t anyone else who has taken the oath to defend and uphold the Constitution stepped up to stop the insanity? What’s wrong with our military leaders? Are they scared of the Donald? What’s wrong with our representatives in Congress? Did they forget the oath they took? I sure as hell haven’t even if it was sixteen years ago. I made a promise to defend my country and uphold the Constitution, and a promise is a promise. Now that I'm a civilian there’s not much I can do to defend the country’s values and legal authority against these raging lunatics, but as a nation we can do much together. I’ve given up on the Republican Party to do their part to uphold the law, but that’s not to say I disregard all Republicans. My grandpa was a diehard Republican. I listened all my life to him as he discussed his conservative values with me, but I also listened to him tell his war stories about how he bombed the living shit out of the Nazis.
My family is of German descent, but that didn’t stop my grandpa from standing up for and defending the values of the United States of America when we went to war against Germany. It didn’t stop him from bombing those Nazi assholes into oblivion. And they were assholes. I was married to a Polish woman. I’ve been to Poland and I’ve observed where the death camps were. I’ve watched the documentaries and seen the footage of how the prisoners were treated in Nazi concentration camps. And guess what? The Nazis weren’t just enslaving and killing gypsies and Jews. They were rounding up white male Europeans who look just like I do, and they were putting them in concentration camps as well, somehow reminding me of the private prisons we see spread across the United States today. The Nazis gassed and worked their prisoners to death in labor camps (we don't do that here, I think), and they weren’t out to just get non-Aryans. They were out to kill anyone and everyone that got in their way - white, black, blue, red, or whoever - which in my mind is what makes Trump the perfect little Nazi. He is against anyone who is not like him. He spits out vitriol hatred toward anyone who looks or thinks differently than him. He wants to force Muslims to be registered in a national database and carry IDs stating their religion. He wants to prevent Muslims from entering the country all together, and he wants to round up immigrants and send them back to the violence and poverty of the places they were trying to escape. Trump is evil. Pure evil. But if we can’t say Nazi or fascist, can we at least say authoritarian?
But I love the United States of America. This is a beautiful country with beautiful people who have really beautiful minds. The hate speech we see coming from the right wing of our political system is not representative of the values of the vast majority of the people living in this country. It does not represent our ideals. The right's plans for the future are an obsolescence of our history, their ideals an erosion of our democratic system. I believe in the American dream, and am in fact living the American dream right now, and I believe millions of other Americans believe in this dream too. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed in it. Obama believes in it. Lincoln believed in it. JFK believed in it. Jimmy Carter believed in it. Betsy Ross believed in it. And so did many other great leaders of this wonderful country, but somehow deep in my gut I know Trump doesn’t believe in it. I know Cruz doesn’t believe in it. I can feel in my heart that the Republican Party doesn't believe in it. They don't care about dreams. They are out for revenge. They want to see blood, and they don't care who gets in their way. They are the Orwellian manifestation of Big Brother reaching through the matrix to keep our economy in a slow and dying deathgrip. They have their own dream, which is more like a nightmare of a demented disinformation operation than anything close to a dream, or our collective reality. Whatever it is they claim stake to, I'm sure it’s not what the majority would agree to as the American dream. I'm sure it’s not my dream. But no matter what that dream looks like, I still have to be on guard. I have to be ready for a possible unconstitutional takeover of the country I swore to defend, because it’s possible.