Like so many of you, I can hardly imagine what will be the outrage du jour. Most of what passes for outrage today is vastly out of proportion to what should cause a person to be frothing at the mouth over a particular issue. I thought I had seen it all. The outrage over government funding cuts to rein in waste, fraud, and abuse. The outrage by those who insisted on keeping the government closed while they whined that they were not getting their way on healthcare negotiations. And who can forget the outrage over the construction of a ballroom to replace the East Wing of the White House. Outrage in Washington, DC, and across the fruited plains has become a cottage industry. Unfortunately, there are a few things left to be outraged over until yesterday.
I served in the military for three decades. And as a commander of soldiers, I became thoroughly familiar with the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). From my first days as an officer, I learned what was lawful and unlawful in the military. And I was not alone in that. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines all get a healthy dose of UCMJ instruction along with the Law of Land Warfare and the Armed Forces Code of Conduct. This week, we learned that some members of Congress who served in the armed forces or the intelligence community must have missed those classes.
Members of Congress—all Democrats—appeared in what amounts to a political propaganda video viewed over 6.8 million times on X. It claims there are current threats to the Constitution from within the country that should provoke service members to disobey any order they believe is unlawful.
Senators Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ), along with Representatives Chris Deluzio (D-PA), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), and Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), are encouraging military members to “refuse illegal orders” that violate the Constitution. They omit what specific “illegal” orders service men and women are to disobey in this case. Still, given the current soup of national outrage Democrats are serving up, it is obvious.
Democrats hate that active-duty service members or National Guard soldiers are performing border security or protecting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers from violent and murderous rioters interfering with the arrest of criminal illegal aliens. In addition to that outrage, Democrats are in high dudgeon over the use of the military to intercept and destroy drug cartel members as they attempt to smuggle life-threatening drugs across the Caribbean into America, poison that kills countless citizens.
In a sense, what these self-righteous political provocateurs are engaged in is supremely condescending to most young service members. The troops know what is and isn’t a lawful order. Why? They have a brain. Soldiers understand that a direct order becomes unlawful if executing it would violate laws at the Federal, State, or UCMJ level. Period. They do not need to be gratuitously coached on their right to refuse an illegal order. They know that. So why are these manipulative gasbag politicians reminding service members of something they fully know? The answer is clear. They are fomenting military chaos.
Simply put, these members of Congress are engaged in inciting resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority. Apparently, it is not enough to encourage civilian violence against ICE and CBP. Now, Democrat members of Congress, no less, are suggesting that service members resist lawful orders. Mind you, they do not say a word in their video about what unlawful orders service members are receiving. They prefer to be abstract about it. But what is not in the least abstract is the effort by these hooligans to create a narrative that specific illegal orders are being given. They merely want the audience—including young and impressionable service members—to “fill in the blank.” Most won’t. But some might.
A National Guard soldier called up to protect a federal building or police from violent ANTIFA thugs might decide that the thugs are right and therefore fail to report to duty. A young sailor in the Caribbean may elect to “jump ship” because he has been convinced that criminal cartel members should have a day in court as opposed to a missile through the keel of their drug-laden high-speed boat. And when those few misguided service members take that harmful advice from congressional miscreants, they will face severe legal consequences.
What these congressional busybodies have done in creating a deliberately dangerous false narrative designed to entice service members to break the law—that is, disobey lawful orders—is a despicable act of incitement and provocation.
This will not stop until Congress takes a firm stance against such behavior. In the meantime, if you’re looking for genuine outrage, here it is.
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