Lind won’t let him even bring up the Constitutional grounds. Lakin’s appeal would have to be over the breach of his due process and Sixth Amendment rights.
This is why "guilty" pleas matter. To preserve that issue for appeal, Lakin would have to enter a "not-guilty" plea. He didn't.
Lakin changed his plea because he finally listened to some competent legal advice. That issue was NEVER going to be a winner on appeal, so the best course of action is to mitigate the damage already done. Generally speaking, guilty pleas come with lighter sentences (even absent plea agreements), if for no other reason that you haven't pissed off the jury panel by wasting their time with an asinine defense.
“Lind won’t let him even bring up the Constitutional grounds.”
__
If you’re talking about the eligibility question, that’s right. As has been pointed out to you many times, the law says that Lakin’s orders were lawful completely independent of the eligibility of the President. Since that’s the case, nothing concerning his eligibility is relevant to the determination of Lakin’s guilt or innocence.
He can accept that and plead guilty, or he can reject it and plead not guilty. His choice. But the law on this subject seems very clear — I have yet to hear a knowledgeable military lawyer express a contrary view.
Butterdezillion- You’ve done yeomans work uncovering the corruption in Hawaii, and you are a patriot if ever there were. To the person who mocked you as “just some housewife with a blog,” he is a blind fool. What courage you have! What love of country.
God bless you. Never lose heart. There are patriots in this country still, who will never submit to the brainwashing of the Progressives. Right is right, wrong is wrong, and the truth simply is.
Now then- let’s set a few things straight, shall we?
Does anyone think that Colonel Lakin is “deserting” out of cowardice? Reading some of these comments, one might think this to be the case; in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. An honorable man is laying the one card he has in his power to lay, in an effort to uphold the oath he swore to our Constitution. Yes, victory in this arena was always a longshot; nay, a suicide maneuver that had no hope of success…
Or did it? Maybe an even better question: Has it already succeeded, possibly?
Depends on what you think the Colonel’s hopes were.
Nathan Bedford is a freeper who authored one of the most profound posts I’ve ever read on this forum, and my words here won’t be able to do him justice. In much more eloquent fashion, he made the case that when society offers no means for remedying a conflict, men will fill the vacuum in there own ways. Once upon a time, Civil War broke out over the issue of slavery, as no other methods could satisfactorily solve the Gordion Knot of the day. When backed up against a wall, a people will not simply evaporate and disappear. Some might bend to their knees and lick the boot of their new master; others will charge out of that corner with swinging fists. (This is not to side with the South, please note- my only point is that when all other venues are exhausted, a person will & must do something.)
So what then were the Colonel’s hopes, in undertaking this seemingly unwinnable fight?
I can conjure in my mind the image of a Tibetan monk lighting himself on fire. Perhaps this is the best way to view the Lakin’s decision and dilemma. Surely nobody expected the judge to allow the subpoena of O’s birth certificate (though I continue to wish for this desperately, to see the charlatan unmasked!). But just as a person looks at that image of a man who has lit himself on fire and asks “what could possibly have motivated someone to take such drastic, irrevocable measures,” so too does the American who reads a headline about this honorable soldier’s impending sentence at Leavenworth.
“Why did he do it?” the citizen will ask.
Colonel Lakin never expected to “get away with it.” Colonel Lakin is using his unique position, his honorable career of service to this country, and is hoping people will ask that simple, beautiful question, that harbinger of truth on the very cusp of escaping its chains: “WHY?”
And then? The average American starts thinking, my FRiends. He starts to ask other curious questions, like “Isn’t the President this man’s Commander in Chief? Why hasn’t the Commander in Chief stepped in to resolve all this?” Perhaps he asks these questions of his coworkers at a watercooler. Perhaps this question begins to circulate more in, say, primary season of 2012?
Dangerous questions indeed, for a democracy whose President has taken care to hide every trace of his past.
We are certainly living in interesting times, are we not? A woman at her keyboard, some lowly “housewife with a blog” in fact, has done more to ferret out the truth of this shadow President, this Usurper, than the combined forces of our vaunted media. And the frustration she feels after seeing the sacrifice of a man who’s dedicated his life to the military! At the prospect of seeing him in chains, instead of the man who has caused the crisis?
I understood your comments, Butterdezillion, and I’ll go ahead and tell you how I feel: I part ways with anyone who has taken an oath to defend our beloved Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, and has failed to do so out of cowardice. I love our fighting military men and women and this country; they are selfless heroes whose sacrifices allow us to debate the noble ideas of our Creator’s unalienable rights. They are not the true subject of your frustration, nor of mine. The creators of this new Gordion Knot are legion, truly- in both national parties, in Hawaii, and who in Washington could not be aware of O’s eligibility issues? It is astounding, it is a national Elephant in the Room.
And so while some look at Colonel Lakin and call him a fool, I call this man a patriot. Who among us would have the courage to cast away everything for his country, his Constitution? Don’t give me your tripe about “you can’t do that in the military.” There are exceptions to every rule, most notably being that it was certainly against British law to take up arms against the redcoats.
This country was forged in a crucible of brilliant men, impossible circumstances, and the most daunting of odds. Never, ever, ever give up. The truth is the truth, and all it wants is to get out.
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams