National Guard: Defend Constitution or Obey Orders?

The town of Coeur d'Alene, ID is a beautiful place. I moved my family here nearly three and a half years ago from Ft Lauderdale, Fla and have loved my time here. It is absolutely beautiful here on the lake at the base of the Rocky Mountains. The people are as nice as can be, many of them right out of Mayberry with the way they would do anything for their neighbor.

But something troubling happened last week. My pastor was out shopping with his wife and like any normal husband at the mall with his wife, the constant trips to the dressing room and incessant questions about how this or that looks began to wear on him so he took a little walk outside Macy's into the mall. It just so happens that the first storefront outside Macy's is a National Guard recruitment office and since a few of us had recently had discussions about the unconstitutional confiscation of guns in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, my pastor walked into the recruiting office to ask a simple question of the lone recruiter, "If you were ordered to go door to door to confiscate guns, what would you do?"

You would expect some sort of discussion, perhaps some sort of appeasement, but there was none. He simply responded, "I would follow orders." Now, what would follow was a heated reply, a call to security, a trip to the local newspaper, and a letter to our Governor, Butch Otter. But no matter what happens with this situation, there is a larger question here. Are our National guardsmen, our policemen, our federal agents, our soldiers, our politicians, being taught and told to be good order takers or to be defenders of that which they take an oath to defend, even when it goes against a command? I am afraid that we are at the point that a "good soldier" (or guardsman or officer or agent) is now one who listens to physical authority and not necessarily THE authority, which is the constitution.

I suggest we ask those in such positions, if they are in their positions to take orders for their own sake or for the sake of the people and the constitution. Let's not go down the road of so many tyrannies of the past where we, in hindsight, point to the decision of soldiers, police, and politicians to obey those in higher position than they to the demise of their own law of the land, the constitution, and the people whose rights they are supposed to protect.