[Jason Vines]

Stirring words from Greek soldiers in defiance of their government (h/t @PeteEyre):

Quote

We are civilians in uniform. We will not accept being turned into free tools of fear that some are trying to implant in society like a scarecrow. we will not accept being turned into a force of repression and terror. We will not oppose the people with whom we share the same fears, needs, and desires, the same common future, the same dangers and the same hopes. We refuse to take the streets, under the name of any state of emergency, against our brothers and sisters. As young people in uniform we express our solidarity with a fighting people and we state that we won't turn ourselves into pawns of a police state and of state repression.


We will never fight our own people.

Some American soldiers and police have started a group, Oath Keepers, which has made a similar vow. Of course, many Americans consider them dangerous; after all, they pledge to disobey unconstitutional orders to disarm, imprison, or combat American citizens without due process. Oh crikey, that's scary! (At least, it is to elites whose dreams for America would entail forcing dissenting citizens to cooperate, Constitution be damned.)

But I applaud the Oath Keepers, the Greek soldiers who wrote the letter to which I link above, and all other armed agents of the world's governments who would refuse to act as oppressors rather than defenders of the people. I do question why the Oath Keepers didn't emerge sooner; how many people seemed to have, as an Oath Keeper describes in a Mother Jones article, "relied on Bush's character and didn't pay attention," I don't know. And if the Oath Keepers' fidelity to constitutional principles mysteriously vanishes upon the election of the next Republican president, that would be disappointing. Come what may, though, the words now of the Oath Keepers and their like-minded compatriots across the globe deserve appreciation, not scorn, and should stand before history as emblematic of the proper attitude a soldier or policeman in a free society has toward his government and his people.