| the-pi-guy said: I don't know what the actual consequences of this will be.
I've found the arguments I've seen on why this is actually good, to be extremely problematic. A top comment on r/conservative I saw was basically "the president shouldn't be punished for doing his job". Counterpoint, if you hire a janitor to clean a building, and he cleans it with some toxic formula that makes the building uninhabitable, he should not get a free pass on that because "he was just doing his job". I am a firm believer that no job should hold immunity. Anyone can do wrong in their job and anyone should be held accountable for it. In a response to Sotomayor saying that the president could kill their political opponents, I saw a number of other comments elsewhere that suggested that "not every order would have to be followed". Which is insane to me, you really have to think that through. These people effectively are okay with this ruling on the basis that they have faith that it won't be abused. |
"The president shouldn't be punished for doing his job" is the exact same argument that is made for granting police officers qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is supposed to protect police from prosecution in case they absolutely had to shoot a dangerous suspect, or from lawsuits over wrongful deaths and other collateral damage. Instead, it's become a license for officers to not get prosecuted for shooting innocent people and other abuses like civil asset forfeiture.
Interestingly, a lot of the more conscientious members of Trump's administration did work to sabotage his worst impulses, most famously with Mark Esper refusing to carry out Trump's orders to order active military to fire on DC protesters with live ammunition. Republicans were calling for Esper and Mark Milley to be thrown in prison for refusing to obey the president's orders.
Recruits in all branches of the military are taught that it is their duty to refuse to obey any clearly unlawful order. The problem is, they also have to be prepared to prove to a court-martial panel that the order they were given was unlawful. If they can't prove it was unlawful to the satisfaction of the military judges, their careers are trash and they can even get a discharge that basically makes them a felon in civilian life, plus the stigma of having a Dishonorable or Bad Conduct Discharge on their DD-214s, which will instantly cause any job applications they fill out to be dropped in the trash/recycle bin of a hiring manager's computer. Their enlistment oaths also say that they will obey the orders of the President of the United States and of the officers appointed over them, nothing about "unlawful." Their first duty is to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, which is done in place of swearing allegiance to the King/Queen in the UK. But again, whether their actions defended the constitution would be determined by a court-martial or a civilian judge.
Last edited by SanAndreasX - 5 days ago
