An elected Councilman, Basil E. Dalack, in Florida has refused to take an oath of office. Not because he doesn't intend to fullfil his duties, but because:
``No citizen of the Unites [sic] States should be required to swear to support the government, which is the (Bush) administration,'' said Dalack, who served in the Army in Korea during the Korean War. ``Those kids in Iraq died only because of George Bush, and I will not swear to support a government with immoral and unlawful policies.''
The issue is much larger then a lack of agreement with going to war, and the right to express that. It is even beyond the issue of our current Administration and Congress, who have written executive orders and created legislation that attacks the Constitution. Under this government, there has been repeated attempts to dismantle our bill of rights. Taking an oath to support such a government would prevent a person from acting to remove that government where the majority of officials have violated their own oaths of office.
A person fulfilling an oath to support a government who is attacking the Constitution, breaks her oath to protect the Constitution. If she acts to remove such a government, she has broken her oath to support the government, but is protecting the Constitution. This creates an untenable situation.
Senator Robert Byrd said, and the bolded section has been quoted many times:
We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men. But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends.
If an official must swear to "support" a particular government, that person is swearing to a group of people, rather than to the principals that are set forth to govern all the people.
The right to remove a government predates even our Constitution. It is in the Declaration of Independence, the document by which the United States was actually born, which says:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security -- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. -- The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world
Here is a link with the rest of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution:
http://www.usconstitution.net/...
If we remove oath breakers from office, how can we also remove the laws they wrote, the appointments they made, and the policies they instituted? I pose this question because of the influence of politicians who take office to represent the interests of other than their general constituency. The impeachment process should involve some kind of automatic review of what changes they brought to government, or a way to challenge their influence directly.
What follows is an article on Mr. Dalack's position:
New Tequesta councilman balks at oath to support U.S. government
Associated Press
Posted April 11 2006, 9:44 AM EDT
TEQUESTA -- A newly elected village council member is suing the municipality to have the oath of office declared unconstitutional because it supports the federal government, something he says he does not do.
Basil E. Dalack, 76, an appellate lawyer, also wants the words ``and government'' removed from the section that reads, ``I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support, protect and defend the Constitution and government of the United States and of the state of Florida.'' The lawsuit was filed last week in federal court.
The oath violates the Constitution by placing a restraint on Dalack's right to free speech and denies him, without due process, occupancy of his elective office, the lawsuit states.
Dalack said if he reads the oath, he would be a blind supporter of the war in Iraq and of the Bush administration and he would have ``the blood of all those Iraqi and American kids on my hands.''
He is scheduled to be sworn in Thursday, but he has told Village Manager Michael Couzzo Jr. that he will not say the current version of the oath.
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/....
story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
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