Hey Folks,
I have joined this organization. I took the pledge. BTW: Here is an endorsement from Sheriff Mack, I encourage you to view the video, and pay attention to the last few lines. I'm ready to stand with them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLJgPuNAh60
Don
Ready to Revolt: Oath Keepers pledges to prevent dictatorship in United States
Las Vegas Review Journal via Drudge Report ^ | 10/192009 | ALAN MAIMON
Group asks police and military to lay down arms in response to orders deemed unlawful
Depending on your perspective, the Oath Keepers are either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia.
In the age of town halls, talk radio and tea parties, middle ground of opinion is hard to find.
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Launched in March by Las Vegan Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers bills itself as a nonpartisan group of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who vow to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.
More specifically, the group's members, which number in the thousands, pledge to disobey orders they deem unlawful, including directives to disarm the American people and to blockade American cities. By refusing the latter order, the Oath Keepers hope to prevent cities from becoming "giant concentration camps," a scenario the 44-year-old Rhodes says he can envision happening in the coming years.
It's a Cold War-era nightmare vision with a major twist: The occupying forces in this imagined future are American, not Soviet.
"The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer, said in an interview with the Review-Journal. "My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them.
"We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you."
That type of rhetoric has caught the attention of groups that track extremist activity in the United States.
In a July report titled "Return of the Militias," the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center singled out Oath Keepers as "a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival."
The Patriot movement, so named because its adherents believe the federal government has stepped on the constitutional ideals of the American Revolution, gained traction in the 1990s and has been closely linked to anti-government militia and white supremacist movements.
The movement is blamed for spawning Timothy McVeigh, who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.
"I'm not accusing Stewart Rhodes or any member of his group of being Timothy McVeigh or a future Timothy McVeigh," law center spokesman Mark Potok said. "But these kinds of conspiracy theories are what drive a small number of people to criminal violence. ... What's troubling about Oath Keepers is the idea that men and women armed and ordered to protect the public in this country are clearly being drawn into a world of false conspiracy theory."
Oath Keepers got some unwanted attention in April when an Oklahoma man loosely connected to the group was arrested for threatening violence at an anti-tax protest in Oklahoma City. Rhodes called the man "a nut" who had no real affiliation with his group.
Nonetheless, Potok's group now monitors Oath Keepers on its Web site blog "Hatewatch."
Oath Keepers is not preaching violence or government overthrow, Rhodes said. On the contrary, it is asking police and the military to lay down their arms in response to unlawful orders.
The group's Web site, www.oathkeepers.org, features videos and testimonials in which supporters compare President Barack Obama's America to Adolf Hitler's Germany. They also liken Obama to England's King George III during the American Revolution.
One member, in a videotaped speech at an event in Washington, D.C., calls Obama "the domestic enemy the Constitution is talking about."
According to the law center, militia groups are re-emerging in this country partly as a result of racial animosity toward Obama.
It's the "cross-pollinating" of extremist groups -- some racist, some not -- that is of concern, Potok said. As evidence that the danger is real, he points to several recent murders committed by men with anti-government or racist views.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reached a similar conclusion in a report earlier this year about the rise of right-wing extremism. The report said the nation's economic downturn and Obama's race are "unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment."
The homeland security report added that "disgruntled military veterans" might be vulnerable to recruitment by right-wing extremist groups.
That warning was enough to make Rhodes feel paranoid.
"They're accusing anybody who opposes Obama of being a racist or a potential terrorist," he said. "What they're saying is, 'We're coming after you.'"
The motto of Oath Keepers: "Not on our watch!"
The message Rhodes hears from the government: We're watching you.
Las Vegas police Lt. Kevin McMahill said his department's homeland security bureau isn't overly concerned with Oath Keepers at this point, even though Rhodes says several active-duty Las Vegas officers are members of the group.
"I wouldn't classify Oath Keepers as no threat at all, but I wouldn't classify them as a threat either," McMahill said. "There's always a chance an individual can step outside the boundaries of what an organization stands for and do something wrong."
Rhodes, a former firearms instructor, said he easily could have started Oath Keepers during the Bush administration, but his focus during those years was first on getting his law degree and then volunteering on the 2008 presidential campaign of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican in whose office Rhodes worked during the 1990s.
What Rhodes terms "the rise of executive privilege" during the post-9/11 years of the Bush presidency will in his opinion only accelerate with Obama in office. What's worse, he said, is that "gun-hating extremists" now control the White House.
Two things have happened since the Homeland Security Department and Southern Poverty Law Center released their reports on extremism: Membership of Oath Keepers has spiked dramatically. And Rhodes has had to do a lot of explaining.
"We're not a militia," he said. "And we're not part and parcel of the white supremacist movement. I loathe white supremacists."
Oath Keepers doesn't offer paramilitary training; nor does it have a military command structure. It instead has board members, which include directors in seven states and outreach coordinators to currently serving local and federal law enforcement and military personnel. The group's state director in Montana, who goes by the name Elias Alias, has said Montana and other states should consider seceding from the United States in protest of the federal government's conduct.
Leaders of the group will come together in Las Vegas starting Oct. 24 for the inaugural national conference of Oath Keepers.
Among the group's other leaders is Dave Freeman, an Army veteran and former Las Vegas police sergeant who spent more than 30 years with the Metropolitan Police Department.
For Freeman, Oath Keepers has become something of a family affair. He recruited his niece, a former police chief, to serve as state director for Oath Keepers in Massachusetts.
"When you believe in something, you have to do more than just pay it lip service," said Freeman, the group's Southern Nevada director and national peace officer liaison. "This is a crusade I believe in."
Another prominent Oath Keeper is former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack, who has long been an outspoken government critic.
The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Mack a "longtime militia hero" who helped weaken gun control laws.
An incident earlier this year in rural Iowa, not inside the Washington Beltway, motivated Rhodes to start Oath Keepers.
He questioned why the Iowa National Guard planned to use residents of a small town to participate in training on door-to-door searches for weapons.
The Guard said the training was to help soldiers who might be asked to carry out similar searches in Iraq or Afghanistan.
But for Rhodes, it looked like preparation for a future declaration of martial law. It reminded him of the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when police officers reportedly confiscated legally owned firearms. What the government called emergency response after the levees broke, Rhodes saw as the imposition of martial law.
If it hadn't been for April 19 of this year, Oath Keepers might not have gained the notoriety it now has.
On the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington Green, the Massachusetts battle that started the American Revolution in 1775, a group of Oath Keepers went to the battle site and reaffirmed their pledge to the Constitution.
The gathering was mentioned in the Southern Poverty Law Center report because April 19 is also the anniversary of the deadly end to the federal siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993; and of the retaliatory bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.
Rhodes and Potok have never talked, but if they did, they might find themselves speaking a different language.
"Let them say what they want to say, but April 19 has very much become a day for the extreme radical right," Potok said.
Rhodes couldn't disagree more.
"There are thousands of Americans who go to Lexington to watch re-enactments of people shooting at troops," Rhodes said. "But if you're a group of military and police there, they somehow find this offensive."
Rhodes said he hopes Oath Keepers members think about the lawfulness of day-to-day orders they receive.
For example, if a police officer feels he is being asked to do an illegal search of a home or vehicle, he should stand down.
Rhodes eventually wants to create a legal defense fund for Oath Keepers who are disciplined by their employers for defying orders they deem unlawful or immoral.
"The message to law enforcement is not to become a tool of oppression," he said.
Rhodes, a husband and father of five home-schooled children, said he gets hundreds of e-mails a day, mostly from people interested in knowing more about his group.
He also gets a lot of questions from "birthers" wanting to know if he thinks Obama is really an American citizen and from "truthers" asking whether he believes the attacks of 9/11 were an inside job. The group doesn't have an official position on either issue, he said.
Some of his responses to questions have turned would-be allies against him.
"I've been accused of being a traitor or a CIA operative because I'm not coming out and declaring that the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine is a biological weapon," he said.
Contact reporter Alan Maimon at amaimon @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0404.
WOW. Good to know that such a movement exists!
Let’s hope lots of others join them.
Wow...the “fuse” is really this close to being lit?
There was a youtube video of a former cop explaining this, not too long ago .. a year or less ...
I love it. Let’s keep the heat on our non-citizen pres__ent! Let him know that real Americans will not take his shenanigans lying down. In the words of Twisted Sister-”We’re not going to take it anymore!”
I think this will become huge. Obama is going to have to listen to them. The military and law enforcement is sworn to protect us. This could be what really kills Obamacare.
Between hearing about this and the anti-tax, second amendment tea party in WI, I'm feeling really good and will sleep with a smile on my face tonight.
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
The RJ is a pretty ‘honest’ paper, as far as papers go.
Or, you can go to the source
http://oath-keepers.blogspot.com/
If I was Obama, my biggest fear would be the emergence of an armed insurgency by freedom lovers.
Proud member of Oath Keepers
The 10 Order That will not be obeyed,
1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.
2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people
3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to military tribunal.
4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state.
5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.
6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.
7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.
8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control.”
9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.
10.We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.
Like the rest that have joined, I took an oath years ago to defend the constitution and have never recanted it.
Who will B. Hussein Obama turn to when local law enforcement and military personnel refuse to turn on American citizens?
None other than the United Nations “Peacekeeping” Forces.
I doubt that Chi-coms and North Koreans would blink an eye at gunning down freedom loving Americans.
Being on Drudge gives it positive points...thanks.
In a July report titled "Return of the Militias," the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center singled out Oath Keepers as "a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival."
The Patriot movement, so named because its adherents believe the federal government has stepped on the constitutional ideals of the American Revolution, gained traction in the 1990s and has been closely linked to anti-government militia and white supremacist movements.
Huh?
First extremist propaganda unit to go is the Southern Poverty Law Center.
What scares Obama is the fact that units who do revolt will do so with their weapons and equipment.
“Southern Poverty Law Center”
I could write their pamphlets in my pajamas in 20 minutes.
What do they do?
Do they have a staffed “center”?
Do they practice law”
Do they do anything to help poverty?
Do they have an opinion on the out of control fed?
the Southern Poverty Law Center
Honest lawyers versus worrisome retired Military and Cops.
Gee, I wonder who I'd go with?
I will not accept unconstitutional government. I know they may kill me, but I’ll make it as expensive for them as I can.
The SPLC doesn’t like me either.
God bless these officers & God have mercy on us.
SPLC is a wing of the communist party.
Make no mistake the SPLC is probably one of the
largest intelligence gathering organizations in
the country. Not to mention a liberal mouthpiece
much like the muslim CAIR.
They are DUE for an investigation all their own~!
The SPLC doesn’t like me either.
I have no doubt.
God bless ‘em! I’m glad to see that they are out there, & I just now joined their group on FaceBook.
The Feds did it before and they will try to do it again.
By 1863, the United States Army accepted black soldiers into segregated units. Many enlistees were formerly slaves from Florida and other southern states. The general orders issued to the 1st and 2nd South Carolina Colored Troops also revealed the overall Federal strategy for the state. “The main objects of your expedition are to carry the proclamation of freedom to the enslaved; to call all loyal men into the service of the United States; to occupy as much of the state of Florida as possible with forces under your command; and to weaken, harass, and annoy those who are in rebellion.”
November 14-22 1861 Expedition through Accomack and Northampton Counties Virginia REPORTS etc. No 1. Instructions to Brigadier General Henry H. Lockwood, U.S. Army [First letter] Baltimore, November 11, 1861 GENERAL: You will proceed with the forces under your command into the Counties of Accomac and Northampton, Virginia, and carry out the assurances given in the proclamation to be issued by me on the 13th instant. One of the objects in view, though not stated in the proclamation is to bring these counties back to their allegiance to the United States and reunite them to the Union on the footing of West Virginia. The first step in the accomplishment of this object is to disarm and disperse the military corps encamped within them. If these corps are in the service of the Confederates, they should be made prisoners and sent to this city. A conciliatory course should be pursued in regard to those who are not under arms and have not been in the pay of the Confederate Government. It will require great discretion and prudence in bringing about the desired result; but if the people of these counties but if the people of these counties can be induced to declare their independence of the Confederates, the strongest assurance may be given to them of an efficient protection by the Government.
Could that be why he wants his civilian army (probably made up of Acorn and SEIU personnel)?
He and the Ci-cago gang find upholding the Constitution revolting; it disgusts them because it would frustrate their totalitarian goals to achieve fascist bossism as a replacement for the Constitution.
God bless everyone involved. Get out and do some exercise, you need it, Your country will need you soon.
Isn’t it telling that the SPLC is worried about people who swear to uphold the Constitution?
"We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you."
Oath Keepers has it 180 degrees backwards. A revolution can only occur against a government's existing laws, in this case the Constitution. The people seek to prevent a revolution by defending, not overthrow the Constitution. BO and his fellow socialists in Congress are the revolutionaries.
They just need to amend that pesky Constitution. Get rid of the “mistakes” like the BOR etc. Give it the full Obama makeover.
Won’t be easy, though. Millions of us swore to defend the Constitution we have, and we’re armed, and we don’t forget an oath.
They just need to amend that pesky Constitution.
Why would they bother with that? It's not like it's actually been observed for the last few decades or anything.
First extremist propaganda unit to go is the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Tick, tock-------
It’s said that Admiral Yamamoto, architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, declared the impossibility of a land invasion of the United States by noting that “there will be a rifle behind every blade of grass” confronting any invader.
Some challenge the veracity of this quote, but history confirms Yamamoto’s reluctance to attack the “sleeping giant”.
IMHO, a rifle behind a blade of grass can be aimed in any direction. The sleeping giant is known to bitterly cling to guns and religion.
Now that this link is on Drudge, I have a feeling Oath Keepers will see an increase in size....
Why would they bother with that? [Amending the Cons.]It's not like it's actually been observed for the last few decades or anything.
Because if they stretch the real Constitution too far, they may ignite a forceful countermovement to defend the Constitution. Including by members of the military and LE.
OTOH, if they ram through some Marxist-oriented constitutional convention, then the military will simply have a "new" constitution to defend. One that say, enshrines income guarantees, free housing, free medical, redistribution of wealth, no 2nd Amd, etc.
Many or most in the military would gladly accept the "new" constitution. That is the coming gambit, a few years hence.
Estimated right now....50 million armed Americans. Find a bigger force!!!!
And as a someone with prior military experience, I can tell you that most soldiers in any organized Army or militia are only issued one firearm. How many of "we" 50 million have more than just one gun to turn to???
Well, I am not a member of Oath Keepers but I did take more than one oath. I intend to honor them.
I would like to offer this thought, cribbed from the Communists, and altered in spirit to suit this occasion: "From each according to his ability, TO each according to their need."
The government has been taken over ..let’s face reality. Obama has just started. Look at the insane people he has in power around him. I’m afraid there will be a revolution in this country . I’m ready .I assure you Obama will take total control of the media in a year’s time. FR will be no more. We will have to get our information through underground means.
Keeping the population armed is the only solution.
Many or most in the military would gladly accept the "new" constitution.
And there's whole bunch of 'em who won't. And a whole lot more former military who remember what it was we swore our Oath to.
I'm one of those.
I'll make 'em pay for every word and every yard.
“most soldiers in any organized Army or militia are only issued one firearm. How many of “we” 50 million have more than just one gun”
Very interesting point. Never thought of that, but yer right!
“””It’s said that Admiral Yamamoto, architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, declared the impossibility of a land invasion of the United States by noting that “there will be a rifle behind every blade of grass” confronting any invader.”””
Maybe the commies have learned from this quote. And now they have decided to become the enemy from within! Getting elected and destroying this country from within. No guns and not a shot fired from behind every blade of grass.
"...we’re armed, and we don’t forget an oath."
Amen
I was ready a vanity thread earlier on "what are your hobbies" and was surprised how many play with unconventional stuff...the cross bow enthusiasts make me think...perfect quiet, stealthy weapon in guerrilla warfare, especially if backed by your buddy with a tripod mounted .50 cal :)
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