ing on average Americans everywhere to peacefully exercise your First Amendment rights en masse every day until this administration is removed and our democratic republic is restored," US Air Force major Jason Watson said in a public speech, delivered in uniform, before standing on the steps of the US Capitol with a sign reading "IMPEACH CONVICT REMOVE."
Many Americans enthusiastically agree with the positions Watson expressed. Many other Americans vehemently disagree.
Neither the agreement nor the disagreement matter to whether what he did was good, bad, right, or wrong.
Here's what does matter:
Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice forbids US military officers to use "contemptuous words against the President."
US Department of Defense Directive 1344.10 -- issued under Congress's constitutional authority to regulate the conduct, discipline, and uniform wear of the armed forces and nearly 20 years old in its current form -- forbids active duty military personnel to wear their uniforms, or make speeches, at political events.
No one forced Major Watson to accept an Air Force Commission.
That choice -- and the choice to be bound by the UCMJ and by DOD directives -- was Major Watson's and Major Watson's alone.
So was the choice to violate the rules he chose, of his own free will, to be bound by.
While I'm on record as noticing that the Constitution doesn't seem to matter much to those who rule us when those rulers find its strictures inconvenient, one of its features does make a good deal of sense for nearly any social or political system.
That feature is requiring that civilians control the armed forces rather than vice versa.
In any given week, you're likely to come across multiple news stories concerning actual or attempted coups d'etat in various countries around the world.
A coup happens when the military (or some other branch of the "security state") deposes civilian leadership and installs new leadership of its choice.
That's almost always followed by violence as the new rulers act to suppress public unrest and pursue unpopular policies.
We've probably had at least one coup here in the US: In 1963, president John F. Kennedy was assassinated, almost certainly with the involvement of the CIA and other regime elements, and almost certainly for the express purpose of letting those elements get back to escalating an overt war in Vietnam and covert wars in Latin America.
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