Whack Job Watch

Mother Jones's Justine Sharrock has a must-read piece called "Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason." They are a small movement of current and former military and law enforcement who believe that the federal government under President Obama will soon declare martial law, and that they will be ready with their stockpiled weapons to defend the constitution. Here is a list of orders that have pledged not to obey, among them:

5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty and declares the national government to be in violation of the compact by which that state entered the Union.

In response to the obscene growth of federal power and to the absurdly totalitarian claimed powers of the Executive, upwards of 20 states are considering, have considered, or have passed courageous resolutions affirming states rights and sovereignty.

Those resolutions follow in the honored and revered footsteps of Jefferson and Madison in their Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, and likewise seek to enforce the Constitution by affirming the very same principles of our Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights that we Oath Keepers recognize and affirm.

Chief among those principles is that ours is a dual sovereignty system, with the people of each state retaining all powers not granted to the national government they created, and thus the people of each state reserved to themselves the right to judge when the national government they created has voided the compact between the states by asserting powers never granted.

Upon the declaration by a state that such a breach has occurred, we will not obey
orders to force that state to submit to the national government.

Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, would find this handy when he tries to secede.

The rest of the 10 orders are actually not unreasonable and indicative of a high level of patriotism, including disobeying orders to engage in warrantless searches of American citizens or to declare any American citizen an enemy combatant. These appear to have found their basis in the actions of the Bush administration.

But there are others, such as the rejection of any order to assist any foreign troops on American soil to "keep the peace" or "maintain control," which are clearly born in racism and xenophobia (the movement believes that Obama is a foreign-born non-citizen and the illegitimate president of this country).

A sample of their resolve:

After a combative Hardball interview in October—host Chris Matthews asked Rhodes whether Oath Keepers had the "firepower to stand up against the federal government"—the group says it gained 2,000 members in three days.

Ballsy, huh? Or perhaps just a little over the line? It's clear that they are saying and doing things to provoke the administration from taking them on, only lending creedence to their claims. Obama would be wise to keep tabs on this domestic terrorist group, and perhaps to help those on active duty in the military see how twisted their logic is. They're being run by a former Ron Paul activist, for God's sake!