Friday, December 17, 2021

'...To Obey LAWFUL Orders....'

That's part of the oath taken by most LEO's in the United States.  Note the emphasis I gave to "lawful"?

There's a reason for that.

...There's a reason why people in law enforcement are required to place their honor on the line for the citizens they serve. No other occupation is allowed to detain, sometimes with restraints, another person solely based on their word that it's justified. A cop can pull over a car, administer a sobriety test, handcuff the driver, and arrest him if he's found to be impaired. No citizen who has not sworn the oath can do such a thing.

We grant the police the awesome powers of the state. In exchange, they promise to not abuse those powers. They promise to serve the public, as prescribed in the Constitution. That promise takes precedence over orders. So long as their leadership directs their activities consistent with the Constitution, there's no problem. But when leadership directs them to do something counter to the Constitution -- like ordering them to violate someone's civil liberties -- such orders are unlawful. An officer's oath, whether he be a police officer or an FBI agent, is a promise to assess the constitutionality of all orders before blindly obeying them.

And yet we've seen widespread infractions of that promise across the range of law enforcement. Churchgoers have been cited or even arrested for failing to comply with closure orders.Worship is a basic human right guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. There is no pandemic exception in the Constitution. Federal and local officials have no authority to order such closures. Orders for police to enforce the closures were unlawful. Yet, far too many cops simply followed their orders. . .

. . . Compliance with an officer's oath can involve personal risk. To refuse an order from one's superior carries the risk of seriously damaging -- or even ending -- an officer's career. But the thing is, they've already promised us that they would make that sacrifice....  --Thinker, quoted at AOSHQ
Fortunately--so far--no one we know has been unlawfully detained by an LEO here in SE Wisconsin.  We don't expect that to happen, either.  But there are clearly no guarantees these days.

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