Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes on The Rise of Authoritarianism and How US Law Enforcement Can Take a Stand for Freedom.
Sunday, November 21, 2010 – with Anthony Wile
The Daily Bell is pleased to present an exclusive interview with E. Stewart Rhodes (left).
Introduction: E. Stewart Rhodes is the founder and President of the growing, national non-profit organization Oath Keepers. The group supports members (current and former U.S. military and law enforcement) in efforts to uphold the Constitution of the United States should they be ordered to violate it. The Oath Keepers’ motto is “Not On Our Watch!” Both sides of his family have a long tradition of military service. Nearly all of his uncles on both sides of the family served in the Army or Marine Corps during WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, and his father served as a Marine. After the Army, Stewart graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where his honor thesis focused on the political theory of James Madison. After college he worked on Rep. Ron Paul’s (R, TX) DC staff. Stewart graduated from Yale Law School in 2004, where his paper, “Solving the Puzzle of Enemy Combatant Status” won Yale’s Judge William E. Miller Prize for best paper on the Bill of Rights.
Daily Bell: Give us something about your background. Where did you grow up and go to school?
Stewart Rhodes: I grew up partly in California, where my mother’s side of the family were migrant farm workers, and partly in Nevada. After my service in the Army I worked as a professional sculptor and firearms instructor in Las Vegas, and I attended UNLV. I then worked for Congressman Ron Paul and then attended Yale Law School.
Daily Bell: You served as a U.S. Army paratrooper until disabled in a rough terrain parachuting accident during a night jump. What happened to you? Why did you join the US army?
Stewart Rhodes: I joined the Army right out of high school because I felt it was my civic duty to serve my country. My family has a long history of military service, and I followed in those footsteps. I served as an airborne reconnaissance scout until my accident. We were doing the same kind of parachuting that smoke jumpers do, which means jumping into tall trees intentionally while wearing a Kevlar suit and steel helmet, and then rappelling down on a rope. Smoke jumpers practice that so they can go where the fires are, right into deep forest. We airborne scouts did it so we could parachute into areas where the enemy would not expect paratroopers to land. It all went famously during daylight, and we did several successful jumps, but when we tried it at night … not so much. 
It was hard to hit the treetops in the dark, and several of us landed on the sides of the trees. My chute tore loose from the branches before I could rappel down and I fell about seventy feet. I ended up with a fused spine and a couple of steel rods in my back. Still, I have no regrets. Army Airborne made me the man I am today (to paraphrase a line from Starship Troopers). All kidding aside, my experiences in the Army did shape my mindset. Frankly, my parachuting accident was the second time I came close to dying while in service, and by all rights I shouldn’t still be here, so for me this is bonus time – which makes it difficult for my enemies to intimidate me.
Daily Bell: When did you join Rep. Ron Paul’s DC staff?
Stewart Rhodes: Right after I graduated college in 1998. I wanted to work in DC for a year before attending law school, but I wanted to work for an honorable man, who took his oath to the Constitution seriously. Congressman Paul was the obvious choice. He is beyond a doubt the most honorable man in Washington DC. I consider it a great stroke of good fortune and an honor to have been able to work for him even for just a year.
Daily Bell: You won a prize for the paper “Solving the Puzzle of Enemy Combatant Status” at Yale. What was that about?
Stewart Rhodes: My 2004 paper (available at: http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2010/11/09/solving-the-puzzle-of-enemy-combatant-status-stewart-rhodes/) addressed the dangerous and unconstitutional Bush Administration claims that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, can have anyone, even American citizens, black bagged and held in military detention and then, if he so chooses, tried by a military tribunal (made up of his hand-picked officers) and executed. Such a practice is a direct violation not just of the right to Grand Jury indictment and jury trial under our Bill of Rights, but also violates the Article III Treason Clause, which very clearly mandates what must be done with Americans accused of making war against their own nation or of aiding the enemy in wartime – they must be tried for treason, in an Article III court, before a jury of their peers, and there must be two witnesses to the overt act or confession in open court before the accused can be convicted and executed. The Bush Administration claimed that the powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief trumped the Bill of Rights, and his lawyers willfully sidestepped the Treason Clause.
Until Bush, only two other presidents in our history, Lincoln and FDR, claimed such a power. My paper compared the executive orders and actions of Lincoln, FDR, and Bush, to show how similar they were. Lincoln detained over 13,000 Northern civilians in military brigs, and had over 4,000 of those tried by military tribunals that answered only to him. Some of those tried by tribunal were then executed. Thankfully, the Supreme Court stuffed the “martial law genie” back into the bottle by ruling Lincoln’s actions unconstitutional in Ex Parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 (1866). In that case, the Lincoln Administration lawyers had this to say of the Bill of Rights:
These, in truth, are all peace provisions of the Constitution and, like all other conventional and legislative laws and enactments, are silent amidst arms, and when the safety of the people becomes the supreme law. By the Constitution, as originally adopted, no limitations were put upon the war-making and war-conducting powers of Congress and the President.
The Milligan Court rejected that argument in the strongest of terms, stating that “[n]o doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of [the Constitution's] provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.” But then FDR opened the martial law bottle back up when he made similar claims of absolute power. Not only did FDR detain over 100,000 Japanese-American citizens in military detention camps by Executive Order with no due process whatsoever, he also claimed the power to try citizens before his hand-picked military tribunal, and he did just that with one German saboteur who claimed to be a citizen. Unfortunately, the New Deal Supreme Court ruled that military trial of a citizen “constitutional” in Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942).
It is that Quirin precedent from 1942 that laid around “like a loaded gun” until it was picked up by the Bush Administration and used to construct the modern “enemy combatant” doctrine, which the Supreme Court substantially upheld in the 2004 Hamdi v. Rumsfeld case, ruling that”[t]here is no bar to this Nation’s holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant.” According to the majority on the Court, the mere labeling of a person as an “enemy combatant” removes the shield of the Bill of Rights and replaces it with a new judge-created system of minimal administrative process to “challenge” that designation. Scalia’s dissent in Hamdi is particularly instructive on how dangerous and unconstitutional this practice is, and I recommend that readers of the Daily Bell take the time to read it (http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-6696.ZD.html).
Unfortunately, Obama has done nothing to refute, renounce, or disavow such claimed powers. To the contrary, Obama has merely continued Bush’s reasoning, and now claims the power to assassinate any American citizen he thinks is an unlawful combatant in the war on terrorism, and he further claims that his citizens hit list is secret and that not even a court can review who is on it, and by what “secret” criteria he constructs his list.
The modern resurrection of these dangerous doctrines, which apply the international laws of war to the American people and treat them the same as foreign enemies on foreign battlefields, is one of the principle reasons I founded Oath Keepers.
Click Here to read the entire interview at The Daily Bell
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November 22nd, 2010 at 6:34 pm
[quote=Stewart Rhodes]The reaction to Oath Keepers by the media is a sad testament of the lack of understanding of the simple legal obligation to refuse unlawful orders, and a testament to how ignorant Americans are of recent human history. It is also a sad reflection of the cynical cycle of American politics where each of the two major parties, when out of power, suddenly rediscovers the Constitution, but when back in power, they forget all about it and label anyone who simply quotes the Founding Fathers as “terrorists” or “traitors.” Both sides do it. When the left was out of power during the Bush years, they loved my writings criticizing Bush, and Republicans branded me as a traitor because I dared to question what their man was doing. But now that the left controls the White House, with their guy doing precisely the same kinds of things Bush did, it is leftists who now call me a traitor and a dangerous subversive, while Republicans are more open to hearing my message. I haven’t changed. My message hasn’t changed. What has changed is their perspective. The left, during Obama’s Administration, are acting with as much blind hubris and willful justification of the most outlandish claims of executive power as the neocons did during the Bush years.[/quote]
Historically, after the Federalist and Whigs political parties receded from power, the Democratic-Republican Party split into the dual party system we have today. We are long overdue in breaking the political mold of the dual party system that the elitist exploit. Is it not ironic that the same conditions, strict adherence to the Constitution, states’ rights, individual liberties, the corruptions of a national bank, the prominence and corruption of wealthy, moneyed interests, rampant taxes and wealth redistribution, are the same issues that the patriot movement are rallying around today? As the leadership of the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively, have lost site of their roots, maybe it is time for the Democratic-Republican Party to be re-forged?
I understand that these ideals are way outside of the scope, mission, and bylaws that Oath Keepers is founded upon. However, the mission of Constitutional education and outreach are critical to not only holding the line in the perilous times, but is also vastly important in buying time for the citizen electorate to seek to hold politicians accountable to We the People and the enumerations of the Constitution.
As always, thank you for your faithful service to your Oath to the Constitution.
For the Republic!
November 23rd, 2010 at 7:05 am
If we consider all of the inane things that the US has done in response to 9/11, we have to conclude that it was the most successful guerrilla raid in history. A dozen guys persuaded us to destroy what had constituted the United States of America.
walt
November 23rd, 2010 at 7:20 am
I have always believed the so called “Patriot Act” to be an unconstitutional abridgement of our rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. Yet, if you raise that question of the very essence of the “Act”, and it’s legality, you get labled as a “terrorist supporter” or at worst, “A Terrorist” and eligible for a Carribbean Vacation…
What must we do to reclaim our Republic? Must we resort to the ‘final alternative’ of the 2nd Amendment?
JP Kirkpatrick
USAF Retired
Former LEO
November 23rd, 2010 at 7:26 am
Lets all keep pushing as hard as we can!
November 23rd, 2010 at 7:44 am
Keep the Republicans feet to the fire and don’t turn your back on the Democrats. We have a slight edge on turning our government back to “The American Way”, but only a slight one. Be ever ready to resort to the “final alternative” of the 2nd Amendment especially with Obama and Clinton attempting to turn us over to the UN.
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:32 am
THANK YOU For continued e-Mails/ I have been busy relocating for the Winter to St. Pete, Florida. November has been very busy for me. Thank you (Fereral Law) that authorizes the legal transportation of fire arms when moving to another State. I was pulled up, in the parking lot of the Countryside Country Club, as I had arrived at my intended vist there. I was immediatly assulted by one officer Hughes from the Clearwater Police and hand-cuffed. My car was illegally seized and the contents strewed out over the Country Club parking lot. I had in my car, several war tokens and a 22 Colt pistol that my son had used when he was on The National Squad for the Pentathlon when he was in High School. The proposed reason for this stop was that my number plate was obscured by the Devil Rays number plate shield… I have had the car thirteen years and had attended the very first ever base ball game at the new indoor field in St. Pete, Florida. Incerdently, I am seventy-three years old and, as a young man, had served on the very first Mission led by Ramsey Clark in D.C.
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:49 am
Well done, Stew.
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:58 am
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Outstanding job, Stewart!
Well done…
Eddie
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:41 am
Super job Stewart on bringing new light and understanding to many who did not really understand what Oath Keepers is about. A man or woman is only as good as his or her word. When yo give your word by a Vow/Oath, you must keep your word at any and all costs to self. There is no shame or disgrace for one who keeps their word/oath, but there is rightful shame, disgrace and dishonour for anyone who does not keep their word/oath they have sworn to.
I know the SPLC does not have the understanding of this Word/Oath thing, maybe due to their lack of understanding of what it takes to be a honourable man or woman planted in Good Soil coming from Good Stock. Myself, I am proud to be a Oath Keeper Member, but even if I wasn’t a Member of Oath Keepers, I would still be Proud that I am an Oath Keeper, a Man of my Word. ,, God Bless, Jimmie King
November 23rd, 2010 at 10:06 am
The essence of Oath Keepers and our mission has been well represented by Stewart Rhodes. Once again, Stewart you have conveyed this organizations intent and the reason why we are members and work so hard to Reach, Teach and Inspire others about our Constitution and the Oaths to same that we swore. You have done this RTI not only for the American public but to the World public too.
Many people in the U.S.A. realize that there is a dangerous quickening happening in our country that must be stopped. Now the citizens of other countries are starting to awaken. The powers that are arrayed against us all wish to form a One World Order, but like so many other would be rulers throughout history have done, they have underestimated mans inherent sense of Liberty and Independence. You never cease to make me proud and grateful that I found and joined Oath Keepers.
Thank you sir, for your undying devotion to our United States Constitution.