Comments on: Military Members, the Constitution, and Lawful Orders

By: RUHOOD

RUHOOD — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:28:57 +0000

Simple, is it in your heart, will you sleep.

By: Afghanistan: Failed War from a False Empire – WNYTruthers.org

Afghanistan: Failed War from a False Empire – WNYTruthers.org — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:50:15 +0000

[...] are the supreme duty that escapes most military careerists. The fear of Courts Martial proceedings 10 U.S.C. § 502 and 5 U.S.C. § 3331 keep the system shouting [...]

By: Afghanistan: Failed War from a False Empire | | TaJnB | TheAverageJoeNewsBloggTaJnB | TheAverageJoeNewsBlogg

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:38:19 +0000

[...] are the supreme duty that escapes most military careerists. The fear of Courts Martial proceedings 10 U.S.C. § 502 and 5 U.S.C. § 3331 keep the system shouting [...]

By: Afghanistan – Failed War from a False Empire :

Afghanistan – Failed War from a False Empire : — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 14:40:29 +0000

[...] are the supreme duty that escapes most military careerists. The fear of Courts Martial proceedings 10 U.S.C. § 502 and 5 U.S.C. § 3331 keep the system [...]

By: Afghanistan: Failed War from a False Empire » JFiNTeL.com

Afghanistan: Failed War from a False Empire » JFiNTeL.com — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 14:03:42 +0000

[...] are the supreme duty that escapes most military careerists. The fear of Courts Martial proceedings 10 U.S.C. § 502 and 5 U.S.C. § 3331 keep the system shouting [...]

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:24:04 +0000

This was really interesting, thanks for posting. I think more fundamentally, how does anyone reconcile conflicting requirements? Either you justify one position or the other (or a compromise), or you have to decide the higher rule. Which is more important, my duty to uphold my interpretation of the constitution, or my duty to follow orders which were issued by someone that didn’t think they violated the constitution? I don’t know, but similar quandaries come up in ethical situations for attorneys, religious requirements running up against legal/ethical duties, etc.

I like to be realistic, so one possible benchmark might be harm minimization. Amongst equally binding and mutually exclusive alternatives, how much harm does one action do to your responsibility versus the other? To be explicit, how much would obeying harm the constitution and its authority/etc, and how much would disobeying the order harm my duty to obey the officer? The calculation I suspect many in the military, and others in other similar situations, make revolves around the likelihood of being caught, and the constitution isn’t self-enforcing, whereas officers are.

Interesting thought experiment though. I’ll bet there are dozens of logically defensible ways to make the decision out there.

By: Quincy

Quincy — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 02:23:13 +0000

Here is an anarcho-capitalist’s argument that military members are failing in their oath because they aren’t refusing to obey unlawful orders: http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger61.html