Subversive Patriotism: A Constitution Day Reminder

In Washington earlier this month, one person ’s words in the New York Timeswere were deemed a threat to national security by those at whom they were aimed.An anonymous Trump administration official was labeled “a seditious traitor who must be identified and prosecuted for illegal conduct” for exercising his or her 1st Amendment rights by publishing an op-ed in the September 5 edition of the New York Times. Vice President Pencestated that the op-ed writer’s actions inside the Administration—trying to limit what the writer believes is the damage President Trump is doing daily to the United States—is “an assault on our democracy”—a notion unhinged from any semblance of reality. Like everyone else working in the Trump administration, the author of the op-ed took the same oath I did when I served in the federal government, the text of which is federal law:  5. U.S.C. § 3331. Here ’s the text:I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United  States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.The oath makes no reference to pledging fealty to whoever happens to be President. It is a pledge of loyalty to our form of government, not an individual. Th...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs