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'Oath Keepers pledges to prevent dictatorship in United States', Las Vegas ReviewJournal.com

Doug Huffman

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http://www.lvrj.com/news/oath-keepers-pledges-to-prevent-dictatorship-in-united-states-64690232.html

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.

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, http://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.
 

JosephMingle

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Instructing my young officers on the nature and extent of their oath is fundamental. Consonant with that training, I provide them fundamental instruction on the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and The Bill of Rights. It's a subject not properly covered in Professional Military Education.

It's sad that there is even the thought that we need something like this.
 

JosephMingle

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mark edward marchiafava wrote:
Cops and military, the two basic groups who've CREATED this Orwellian police state are now the same two groups who are COMPLAINING about it.

Are you really so ill informed as to believe the military and the police have caused our Nation to be in the state it is?! If you are thenyou are a major contributor to the problem and incapable of helping resolve it.

Wow!
 
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JosephMingle wrote:
mark edward marchiafava wrote:
Cops and military, the two basic groups who've CREATED this Orwellian police state are now the same two groups who are COMPLAINING about it.

Are you really so ill informed as to believe the military and the police have caused our Nation to be in the state it is?! If you are thenyou are a major contributor to the problem and incapable of helping resolve it.

Wow!
"Ill informed?" LOL, not hardly............quite the contrary. It is due to that very reason I know the military and the PO-leece are not on our side.
If you want to see someone who has truly contributed to the problem, allow me to direct you to the nearest mirror.
 

Alexcabbie

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If "The Day" comes, I know of at least two local LEOs and a State Trooper who will be on our side. And they know even more I am sure. These guys have good bona-fides, they are not "spies". I met them through friends for whom the LEOs as teenagers babysat their kids.

We were talking about this stuff and one of them said: "we might come close, but the voters will never allow it, I hope."

Me too.
 
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"The Day" IS coming, soon, to a city near you. Yes, there WILL be a handful of "them" on our side. Agreed on that point. Back in the early 90's, at a local militia meeting, we actually had a Baton Rouge city cop attend, IN UNIFORM, no less.

MY point is, if these SAME ones we're talking about would have truly stood up DECADES ago, things wouldn't be as they are today.

The voters? LOL, just too funny. If you want someone to hang for this, look no further.
 

Alexcabbie

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Decades ago these cops were not even born. You sound like you are on the edge of your chair eagerly awaiting a revolt. I for one am NOT. Baton Rouge is one thing. I would have to participate in re-taking ALEXANDRIA VIRGINIA and Deeds NOVA HQ (Which was Obama HQ) is right across the street. Have you any idea how much blood and how much of it innocent would be involved in such a thing???

No sane person wants such a thing. Our FIRST duty is to register, vote, and let our voice be heard. And you cannot sit on your butt and type stuff on a computer to do that, you actually have to stand in line in the cold and rain. AND if you cannot spare to stnd in the weather while waiting to vote, what makes you think you will be an effective soldier when the time comes to live and sleep in it?? Huh?
 
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Decades ago, their predecessors WERE born, and did nothing to reverse this trend. The great majority of today's crop is no different, cut from the same cloth.

Matter of fact, I AM eagerly awaiting what Jefferson and others very accurately predicted would come to pass. If you are not, well, you're just one more part of the overall problem. If you truly think revolutions are bloodless, you're not cut out for this and certainly would have stood on the sidelines at Concord and Lexington.

True, sane people wouldn't want this, but at some point, you really have no other options. Oh, yea, register, vote and make our voice be heard. Now THAT's a novel idea. And just how many MORE decades should we continue THAT approach? What's that, Albert Einstein? Doing the same thing, over and over, expecting different results is what? Insanity, you say? Tell that to Alexcabbie, he obviously doesn't know that.
If you actually knew just who you're chatting with, you'd already know what I HAVE done, and it's been a lot more than standing in line to select socialist/fascist candidate # 1 or socialist/fascist candidate #2. Have you ever been captured by an "unmarked" swat team, held for 34 days and nights for daring to offend politicians and wives of state judges? I didn't think so.
If you get right down to it, you're not part of the solution, but part of the problem.
 

KansasMustang

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mark edward marchiafava wrote:
Cops and military, the two basic groups who've CREATED this Orwellian police state are now the same two groups who are COMPLAINING about it.
Pardon me Mark Edward, but I for one take particular umberage to this remark. I know of not one in the military that has participated in any sort of "Posse Commitatis" actions nor would they ever. I, along with my fellow veterans, shed blood on foreign soils so you could have your Constitutional rights, which if you and many DO NOT know that when a soldier raises his hand and swears the oath are given up to that soldier. The only rights we then have are Article 31 UCMJ. The right to a lawyer and the right to not incriminate ourselves. If you want to take the "holier than thou, I'm already a victim snivel act well than have at it. But I for one will not allow a dictatorship to form in my beloved country. NOT ON MY WATCH tyvm.
Keep your powder dry!
edited for typo only
 
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Let's put a stop to this decades-old nonsense right now:
Neither your nor any of your counterparts have shed blood in foreign lands to protect ANY of my constitutionally guaranteed rights. Quite the contrary. By invading/occupying foreign lands, ya'll have only endangered the very lives of Amerikans here in the "Homeland." Get off that soapbox right now.

Posse Commitatis? LOL, how would you describe the events of Waco and Ruby Ridge? Do you expect us to believe these were FOREIGN mercenaries brought in solely for this one incident?

If anyone is so foolish as to knowingly give up their rights to join today's military, well, that's their problem, don't blame anyone else for your lack of presence of mind.

Dictatorship? LOL, the rule of law died years ago.....................look around and wake your arse up.
 

Alexcabbie

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Holeee crap. "If I knew who I were talking to"??

You Louisiana guys are good fighters. But my Gawd, Mark. You are - words fail me - NUTS. And you are really nuts if you think that anybody who wants to work as hard as possible to stave off violence is "part of the problem". Who AM I talking to? Earl Turner?? (Yes, I have read the Turner Diaries and if a general revolt ensued, keeping the neofascists from taking over would be a big sub-problem. Remember what happened in Afghanistan after they kicked the Soviets out and the Taliban took over?? ) I am not sure I would want to live in a place where your kind was in control of things. Why don't you say what you believe?

Me, I believe the Constitution is the Law, and that it has been ignored too long. If I have to go to arms it will not be to overthrow the legitimate government but rather to re-instate it.I am not about to risk my life in order to replace one gang of brutal tyrants with another. I suppose you and your gang will be coming for me, eh? Frankly, Mark, I don't think you are all that much better than "President" Obama. But I could be wrong. After all, I don't know "who I am talking to". Sheeeeiiiiiiittttt.
 
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Again, you have no idea who/what I am. Nuts? LOL, again, you have no idea just how wrong you are.
Study history. More than once, force was the ONLY option to defeat evil. Even a cursory reading of the bible teaches that. NOT wanting to use force is often the worst thing one can do.
Trying to teach anyone to quit hoping a better form of government will replace the current one is absurd and a waste of my time. The BEST thing you could hope for is for people like me to take over, as I'd be the LAST person to even think about violating you.
Forget about restoring the Republic, it's toast. Instead, allow each state to go it's own way. Anything other than a voluntary association is wrong.
Brutal tyrants? Absolutely not. No tyrants of any kind or color.
 

KansasMustang

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mark edward marchiafava wrote:
Let's put a stop to this decades-old nonsense right now:
Neither your nor any of your counterparts have shed blood in foreign lands to protect ANY of my constitutionally guaranteed rights. Quite the contrary. By invading/occupying foreign lands, ya'll have only endangered the very lives of Amerikans here in the "Homeland." Get off that soapbox right now.

Posse Commitatis? LOL, how would you describe the events of Waco and Ruby Ridge? Do you expect us to believe these were FOREIGN mercenaries brought in solely for this one incident?

If anyone is so foolish as to knowingly give up their rights to join today's military, well, that's their problem, don't blame anyone else for your lack of presence of mind.

Dictatorship? LOL, the rule of law died years ago.....................look around and wake your arse up.
I guess my Father and Grandfather didn't shed blood for you in WW2 either. You're about off the deep end my friend. But I never said it wouldn't come to,,, you said I thought it. Endangered? I think not, fighting people who declared war on us before we declared war on them? eg. Pearl Harbor, 9/11, yeah, thanks buuuudy. Those weren't soldiers in the military equipment at Waco, National Guard equipment that the Feds commandeered.
 
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This younger generation really needs to teach itself how wars start and the role government plays in it.
The fact you consider someone more learned than yourself to be "off the deep end" clearly indicates your own lack of knowledge. If you would read more, open your mind, you'd find what I am professing isn't any different than what's being discussed by quite a few other persons nationwide with impeccable credentials.
Just don't understand why persons such as you refuse to learn. Guess it's stubborn pride, too hard to admit what you've been taught is the truth really isn't true after all.
 

KansasMustang

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More learned? Stubborn pride? Younger generation? Whom do you think you're talking to? I'm FAR from a younger generation sir. And as far as learned, I think you're a bit far from the truth. How do wars start oh wise one? sheesh, self appointed, self rightous Have you EVER been in combat? Do you know the smell of death? Give me a break. You have NO idea what I've done or for that matter who I am or what I know. NO soldier wants war, but when it comes none are quicker to ride to the sound of the guns. I understand your message, I think. But if and when, God help us, hopefully it never comes to the point of, dare I say it armed insurrection, and you know that's what they'll call it. I hope I don't find you cringing and crying under a tree somewhere.
Okay, I'm through battling with words with you now. After 25 years of active duty I'm quite sure I could find a better foxhole buddy.:banghead:
 
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Based on your own words, I am talking to someone who's spent most of their life helping to build/maintain an imperial war force, bent on world domination and illegal/immoral wars. In other words, you are the enemy.
The concept of a truly free nation scares/offends people just like you, including you.
It's not freedom you seek, but a police state, as long as it meets with your criteria.
 
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