Civil War-again?

[Southerner]

For awhile I’ve been sensing we may be headed for civil war- in my own lifetime I’ve never seen this country so divided & vehemently so. It even works its way into a Mennonite forum.

How many years is "for awhile"? 10, 20, 30???

Probably around the time of the pandemic, & increasingly so since.

How will the coming civil war begin?

[temporal1]

How many years is "for awhile"? 10, 20, 30???

Probably around the time of the pandemic, & increasingly so since.

How will the coming civil war begin?

Well, Southerner, got any inside information?

[JimFoxvog]

How will the coming civil war begin?

If there is one, I expect it will start with illegal orders from the president, which some will obey and some won't.

[Judas Maccabeus]

There is a very thin line between a legal order and an illegal order.
People who refuse to deploy to Iraq, were court marshaled.
There is no ethical position without sacrifice. If you’re in the military, you’re told to not obey illegal orders, but then you’re not given the training to distinguish which one is and which one isn’t. that is done by the Jag officers and officers in general.
What we are doing in Venezuela is crossing the line. when the admiral retires, that’s a protest.
Unlike all of you, I actually was in the military, and I was in the position of being given illegal orders.

My friend, a former army major, suggests that commissioned officers are given far more training than NCOs, particularly field grade officers. They are the ones generally giving the orders.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Yes, a retired officer is still subject to the UCMJ, so in principle he can be recalled and charged.

But what would the actual charge be?

Encouraging troops to refuse illegal orders isn’t a crime. So which article would this fall under? What’s the specific offense supposed to be?

And if we game it out: would they really try to court-martial him? The risks are huge. A case like that would raise questions about retaliation, drag the legality of the underlying orders into the spotlight, and force JAGs and senior officers to pick between political pressure and the Constitution. It could easily backfire.

You presume it would be in the spotlight. The military is not subject to the same laws that civilians are, nor are they required to have civilian audiences or audiences at all.

No. But the ultimate avenue of appeal for a court-martial is the civilian Supreme Court.

What they said appears to be almost lifted word-for-word from the field manual. can't be arrested during the session: Art 1, Section 6, Clause 1

"They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place."

(For those who do not know, Treason has a specific definition in the Constitution, and this is far from that. )

[barnhart]

Reasons why I don't see another civil war like the first one.
1. No convenient geographic borders to the conflict. Nearly every state has sizable oppositional strongholds and even in regions that consistently vote as a block there is a significant opposition living there. For example Alabama recently elected a Democratic senator when the Republicans ran a distasteful candidate.
2. No stable issue to the dispute that reliably cuts across economics, social structures and religion. Issues may flare up but they either don't last (legal same sex marriage or school desegregation) or they have find opposition/sympathy in both sides (immigration, healthcare reform).
3. The standing military is too advanced to be threatened by a rival starting from the ground up. Unless the forces are split like a real Army vs. Navy conflict, whoever controls the brass will have such strategic advantage that the only resistance possible would be adhoc, guerilla style. In the Civil war the Confederacy was able to rapidly stand up a competitive force.
4. The current tensions are not to the pitch of the 1860's. There were shooting wars on the border for years leading up to it, a congressman beat a senator with a cane, on the Senate floor, so severely that he very nearly died.
5. Western expansion is no longer a factor. Land and resources waiting to be grabbed from the native Americans meant that either side could easily gain the advantage by if the new land was unequally distributed.

[Soloist]

There is a very thin line between a legal order and an illegal order.
People who refuse to deploy to Iraq, were court marshaled.
There is no ethical position without sacrifice. If you’re in the military, you’re told to not obey illegal orders, but then you’re not given the training to distinguish which one is and which one isn’t. that is done by the Jag officers and officers in general.
What we are doing in Venezuela is crossing the line. when the admiral retires, that’s a protest.
Unlike all of you, I actually was in the military, and I was in the position of being given illegal orders.

My friend, a former army major, suggests that commissioned officers are given far more training than NCOs, particularly field grade officers. They are the ones generally giving the orders.

sounds about right

No. But the ultimate avenue of appeal for a court-martial is the civilian Supreme Court.

That I don't know. I'd have to look that up. Certainly isn't taught to enlisted.

[JayP]

Actually the very topic of illegal orders to the military demonstrates the division being talked about. Note, I am not expressing my position on that topic per se, just observing.

On the one hand, since the military is not to execute illegal orders one can argue nothing is wrong with saying that.
On the other hand, having high ranking politicians say that implies the President either has or is about to issue illegal orders.

It is a bit like the old “When did you stop beating your wife?”

On the third hand, no Dems seemed worried about illegal orders when they forced the military to get the Covid shit.
Or, last I checked, only Congress has the power to declare war. I guess the dead in Vietnam, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq did not know just what is or is not illegal.


I find it funny and sad folks argue what the constitution says about this or that. A nation that cannot realize we have broken it already over something so clear cut as declarations of war, has little hope resolving more complex disputes

[JohnH]

Right. There's a very obvious implication that illegal orders have been given, and that soldiers have some kind of duty to disobey them. Regardless of my feelings about what the military is doing, that's a bad line to cross, because it represents a loss of civilian control of the military. We had a democratic election to decide who the House, Senate, and President would be - and the outcome of that election was what it was. The result was not that the current people proclaiming soldiers and officers should disobey "illegal orders" were the civilians put in charge of the military.

It's also true that Congress hasn't declared war in a long time and apparently Congress and the American people have simply accepted it's OK to have military action (including ones that leave a million dead) without that. But if Congress wanted to stop whatever the President is doing in Venezuela, they could at any time... they do have the power. They just don't exercise it.

Since this subforum is about history, a question I have is if there has been a time in the past when Congress seemed to just stand idly by and allow the President to do all kinds of things. Perhaps the other participants in this thread interested in history could comment further? I tend to feel history is far more instructive than current events and political news.

[Bootstrap]

Actually the very topic of illegal orders to the military demonstrates the division being talked about. Note, I am not expressing my position on that topic per se, just observing.

On the one hand, since the military is not to execute illegal orders one can argue nothing is wrong with saying that.
On the other hand, having high ranking politicians say that implies the President either has or is about to issue illegal orders.

Several courts have now said that some of these deployments are illegal. Congress and the courts are supposed to be the powers that balance the executive branch. I think it's pretty clear that these members of Congress also believe that he is issuing illegal orders or may be about to do so.

The Posse Comitatus Act says that federal active-duty military cannot conduct arrests, enforce criminal law, do crowd control, search property, investigate crimes, patrol streetss, guard detention sites, assist police in routine law enforcement, or serve arrest warrants on American soil. The National Guard is different, but even there, they are normally under state control, and only special circumstances allow the president to federalize them. I think we have heard public announcements that the military would be used for these purposes. That seems like a good reason to suspect that the military may receive the kind of orders we are being promised.

The Founders were deeply afraid of a president who could command a personal or politicized standing army. This fear shaped the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and our entire legal history. As George Mason said, “No nation ever lost its liberty but by the force of its standing army.”

Or, last I checked, only Congress has the power to declare war. I guess the dead in Vietnam, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq did not know just what is or is not illegal.

Violating the Constitution in one way does not justify violating the Constitution in another. Two wrongs do not make a right. I agree that we should not be fighting undeclared wars. But that does not make it more acceptable to do so on American soil. And American military have the opportunity to refuse illegal orders off the coast of Venezuela too.

I find it funny and sad folks argue what the constitution says about this or that. A nation that cannot realize we have broken it already over something so clear cut as declarations of war, has little hope resolving more complex disputes

For most of my life, conservatives consistently opposed military deployment at home. Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, Pat Buchanon, George Bush, Dick Cheney ... the Tea Party was alarmed when even non-military federal agencies got tactical gear.

And I agree with them.

So what changed?