Tantamount to! If they are NOT PERMITTED to act upon their understanding of the constitution, then they cannot defend it, for they can see no threat to it.
My point is that the military must defer to the judgement of the civilian branches when there is a dispute on a constitutional matter.
This means that no matter how egregious the violation of constitutional requirements by the Civilian branches, the military must not interfere. So if the Executive branch starts pushing civilians into re-education camps, and if neither the Judicial or Legislative branches deign to object, the military is supposed to sit on their hands and proclaim "This is all perfectly acceptable because our superiors told us so! "
I have news for you. There are huge swaths of the Military who have repudiated this notion. This is even now an idea sweeping across the nation.
For it to be otherwise would be to put the military's judgement above that of the civilian branches of government, thereby destroying the fundamental principle of civilian control.
God forbid that should the idiot civilian authorities break constitutional law, they should lose control! Seriously, you think Civilian control is more important than defending our Liberty?
If a military officer believes he is being ordered by the civilian authority to committ an unconstitutional act, than his duty is is resign in protest and take his case to the people.
Yes, if Obama decides to Nuke Austin, it is the officers duty to walk out of the room and report him to the first reporter he sees. THAT will fix it! :)
Not on a disputed question that has already been decided by the civilian branches of government, as in this case.
You would have an argument had it gone to trial. It didn't. The civilian authorities fell down on the job.
Refusing to follow lawful orders until being given what an officer thinks constitutes, in his judgment, satisfactory proof does constitute an act of contraveneing the judgement of both Congress and the electoral college, who have already found Obama to be proven legitimate to their satisfaction.
This argument presumes they weighed the issue. They did not. The slept for a bit, and when they awoke, we had someone sitting in the head chair.
Because it goes against the Constitution, which gives the power of vetting the president-elect to the electoral college and Congress alone.
They didn't do it.
For the military to demand proof to its satisfaction would constitute a usurpation of power not granted to it.
No, it would oblige them to deal with an extra constitutional crises which should not have been handed to them because everyone else did their jobs properly.
As Jefferson put it:
"To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means…. It is incumbent on those only who accept of greatest charges, to risk themselves on great occasion, when the safety of the nation, or some of its very high interests are at stake."
And Abraham Lincoln:
To state the question more directly: are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the Government itself to go to pieces, lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken if the government should be overthrown, when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it?
That's exactly right. We are not Chile. We are not Turkey. We are not Fascist Spain. The people, acting through the electoral college and their elected representatives in Congress are fully sovereign. The military is the servant of these institutions of the people, and it has no business questionting their judgements.
That they chose Barack is not being questioned. That He was qualified in the first place is. The public doesn't get to violate the Constitution just because they WANT TO.
The military has no business contrvening the will of the poeple, even if they decide to elect someone like Dennis the Menace to the presidency.
As long as such selection does not constitute a violation of the Document they swore to uphold. The military must respect the election of an idiot. (Every Democrat President in History) But it must be an ELIGIBLE Idiot!
The founders set up a system of checks an balances within the civilian government designed to prevent something like that from happening. The military IS NOT part of this system. The only recourse miltiary officers would have in such an (extremely unlikely) scenario is refuse to carry out the unconstitutional orders and resign in protest.