Important because: understanding OathKeeping matters to everyone even those who have not taken the Oath.
Why Denny Rehberg deserves to be “Conrad Burned” today
by Stewart Rhodes, Former Ron Paul Staffer and Founder of Oath Keepers
Today, on election day, Denny Rehberg deserves to go down in flames just like Conrad Burns did in 2006. Conrad Burns lost to Tester precisely because he lost the liberty vote in Montana. And Burns lost the liberty vote because he had abandoned the Constitution and violated his oath by voting for unconstitutional laws, such as the Patriot Act.
Even GOP propagandists like Ed Berry acknowledge that the liberty movement killed Conrad Burns’ political career, with 10,000 Montanan’s choosing to instead vote for the Libertarian candidate, which is a larger number of votes than the number by which Tester beat Burns. The Montana liberty movement simply refused to vote for an oath breaker – they withdrew their consent. And without them, Burns was burnt.
Today, the very same thing is likely to happen to Denny Rehberg – and he deserves it. He deserves to be “Conrad Burned.” Like Conrad Burns, Rehberg is an oath breaker who has abandoned the Constitution by repeatedly and willfully voting for some of the most dangerous and spectacularly unconstitutional laws to ever be passed in Congress during the short life of this Republic. Rehberg voted for both the Patriot Act, and for the NDAA, among many others.
The NDAA of 2012 (Sections 1021 and 1022) in particular is a deal breaker. It is intolerable. It is the single most dangerous law in American history and is the death knell of this Republic if it is not stopped. Anyone who would strip you of your right to jury trial, for which your forefathers bled and died, is a traitor and an enemy of this Republic. Anyone who would subject you and your children to arbitrary imprisonment, in a military brig, or to military trial, or to rendition to ANY foreign nation or ANY foreign entity, or who thinks the President has a legitimate power to just order you killed by a Predator drone if HE thinks you are a terrorist – anyone who supports that government supremacist view, is a traitor and a modern Tory. He is your enemy.
Rehberg and Tester both hold that view, and both voted for the NDAA. I don’t give a flying *&@#% if Rehberg is supposedly “not as bad as Tester.” He supports the destruction of the Bill of Rights in the name of fighting terrorism. Both of them are my enemy. Both are enemies of the American Revolution and all that came from it.
And Rehberg is not a man who just made a mistake, and is sorry. No, he is defiant in his defense of his oath breaking vote for the NDAA. After his speech at the Lincoln Dinner in Kalispell, I walked up to Rehberg and asked him to explain his vote for the NDAA, which authorizes military detention of Americans. He didn’t try to explain his vote, or try to tell me it didn’t do what I thought it did, or try to defend why he thinks that is OK. He just said “you just don’t support the troops. Shame on you!” Yeh, right Denny. That’s it. I’m a disabled Army Airborne veteran who nearly died twice while serving my country, and the founder of a national organization made up of current serving military and veterans, but I just don’t support the troops. He said that to me twice during our short conversation. It was no off the cuff remark. Obviously it was some talking point his staff had cooked up for him to use as a weapon against anyone who publicly challenged him over his vote for the NDAA. Typical neocon. If you dare oppose anything they do in the name of national security or war, they accuse you of not supporting the troops.
The man is an unrepentant oath breaker who has, so far, gotten away with it. And the reason he has gotten away with it has been the “lesser of two evils” con game. Being told that you have “no choice” but to vote for oath breaker A or oath breaker B is like being given a false choice between voting for Joseph Stalin or Adolph Hitler, with so-called conservatives urging you to vote for the fascist to keep the communist out of office. “Vote for Hitler or Stalin will win!” I won’t do it. No sir. I will fight them both, or either one.
My oath was not “I will support and defend the Republican Party.” Nor was it “I will support and defend the Constitution by voting for the lesser of two evil oath breakers who both violate it.” My oath was to defend the Constitution against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic, and of whatever party. I am an American first, not a Republican first. Political parties are like a cancer that is now killing the host. Republicans, with all too few exceptions, are loyal to party first, not country first, and certainly not the Constitution first, just as Democrats, with few exception, are loyal to their party first, before their country.
This Republic is on the verge of destruction precisely because Republicans have chosen the lesser of two evils (the lesser of two oath breakers) in each election, swallowing principle and pulling the lever for a demonstrated oath breaker each and every time just to try and keep a Democrat from winning. When you take a slightly reduced dose of poison, say 80% poison instead of 100%, you are still poisoning yourself, and you will still die. This Republic has been subjected to a reduced dose of poison over and over, for decades, and is now about to die. And yet, the GOP bigwigs offer us yet another dose of slightly reduced poison and the great majority of the Republican rank and file are all too happy to open wide and swallow it down. It’s time to take a stand, and say NO MORE!
I challenge anyone to explain why a vote for Rehberg is not a violation of your oath, now that it is clear he supports the application of the laws of war on Americans, and supports military detention and military trial rather than trial by jury, and now that it is clear that he is unrepentant and will continue to do so. You vote for an oath breaker, you become one. Either stand for all of the Constitution, all of the time, against anyone of any party, or stop pretending, renounce your oath, burn your pocket Constitution, and then just openly join the ranks of the oath breakers.
I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being, who at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America…. ~ Thomas Paine
Likewise here. Don’t make a whore of your soul by electing and empowering a stottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man who has already violated all that our forefathers fought to win and preserve, by violating our Bill of Rights. It is now very clear that the small window we had for a political solution at the national level has been slammed shut by the GOP leadership by forcing on us yet another oath breaker. Last time it was John McCain – who went on to author Section 1021 of the NDAA which is a declaration of war on the American people. Now it is Romney, who also supports it. As did Pual Ryan, Allan West, Rubio, and a bunch of other “Tea Party” freshmen, right along with Rehberg. The GOP has utterly failed to field true constitutionalists. It has turned its back on the Constitution and thrown away a chance to stop the destruction of our Republic. Now all we have left is nullification and resistance at the state level.
Here in Montana, we need to clean house and sweep our own porch clean by rooting out the oath breaking neoconservatives who are so deeply entrenched in power. Let’s start with Rehberg. Let’s root him out. But wouldn’t that mean that Tester wins again? Yes, it does. Just like back in 2007, when we rooted out Conrad Burns. After that defeat, the Montana GOP should have caught a clue. To guarantee a win this time around, all they had to do is field someone who didn’t vote for the same crap that Conrad Burns had voted for. Duh! As Ed Berry acknowledges, over on Polymontana, if the liberty movement votes for the GOP candidates, they have the election in the bag. Rehberg, Hill, etc. will win if all liberty movement people vote for them. But if the liberty movement doesn’t support them, then they will lose.
To win the Senate seat all the Montana GOP needed to do is run a candidate who had not voted for the Patriot Act and the NDAA, and who pledged to vote against such obvious and blatant violations of the Bill of Rights. Our votes were theirs if they just ran someone who wouldn’t make us throw up in the voting booth. They could have done it, and easily won, but once again, they blew it. Our votes were theirs to lose, and they lost them by yet again running a demonstrated oath breaker. And now they tell us that we need to set aside our revulsion for Rehberg, set aside our principles, and vote for Rehberg to stop Tester.
If you do that – if you set aside your constitutional and liberty principles and vote for a demonstrated constitutional violator, you will just be telling the Montana GOP leadership that they can do as they please, and that they don’t need to run true constitutionalists to win. And you will be telling the GOP faithful that they can continue to vote neocon and still win elections. That is the wrong message to send. The message should instead be that unless, and until, the Montana GOP faithful root out the neocons who are killing their party, they will lose. Election after election, they will lose, until they clean house and return to the Constitution.
Rather than the neocons accepting the blame for losing the Senate seat to Tester in the first place, and acknowledging their transgressions and repenting of their sins, they are doubling down and once again running an oath breaking traitor, while telling us that if Tester is reelected it is our fault. What a joke. The fault lies with a party that has largely abandoned our Constitution, and until the GOP returns to it, and actually defends it, it deserve to lose, and will lose.
Once Rehberg is entrenched as an incumbent in the Senate, how will you ever get rid of him? In a primary? Not likely. We just tried that, and failed because the GOP faithful are willing to vote for an oath breaker who they think can defeat the Democrat. That is all they seem to care about. If you help Rehberg win, you will just be telling them they are correct, and that running an oath breaker is a winning strategy. That will make it all the harder to ever reform the Montana GOP.
Once Rehberg is in the Senate, the only way to get rid of him would be to withdraw your consent in some future election, just like you did with Conrad Burns, and let the Democrat win. And then you would still have to try and defeat the Democrat by once again trying to convince the GOP faithful to finally get behind a real constitutionalist to run against the Democrat, and that would be all the harder after they had had a successful election cycle running an oath breaker for U.S. Senate.
Why kick the can down the road and have to go through all of that all over again? We are in the middle of this fight for the heart and soul of the Montana GOP (and for the heart and soul of this Republic) right now. So let’s get it over with now. Root out Denny Rehberg, and then run a real constitutionalist against Tester in the next election and root Tester out too.
We did the right thing in 2006 by rooting out Conrad Burns. His political career was done. If the GOP had come to their senses and run a constitutionalist against Tester, we could have rooted Tester out this year and finally Montana would have a Senator who was not an oath breaker.
The GOP should have learned their lesson, but apparently need to have another trip to the wood shed. Let’s give it to them. Let’s root out Denny Rehberg and end his political career. He is seen as a “party leader” here in Montana, just as Burns was. As with Burns, he needs to go. We need to root him out as part of our battle to root the neocons out of the Montana GOP.
And then let’s run a real constitutionalist against Tester next election, and finally root him out.
The neocons have joined with the Marxists on the left and are placing this nation on a short track to having to fight another bloody revolution/civil war. The only way to possibly pull us back from the brink is to purge all oath breakers out of office and to clean up our own state. And even if we do that, we may still have to fight. But at least we will go into battle with a clear conscience and the knowledge that we did not give our consent and support to the destruction of our own Republic.
When I confronted Rehberg at the Lincoln Dinner in Kalispell, I told him that he would go the same way that Conrad Burns did – that because of his vote for the NDAA, constitutionalists and liberty movement people in Montana would not support him and he would be “Conrad Burned.” Let’s make it so. Withdraw your consent. Take a stand. Send Rehberg back to his fake ranch where he can play cowboy. “Conrad Burn”him today.
Stewart Rhodes
PS- the views above are my own only, as an individual American, and not in my capacity as President of Oath Keepers. I would like to personally thank Ed Berry for inspiring me to write this, at the 11th hour. It was his incessant, ankle biting, petty attacks against me and Chuck Baldwin, and his revolting cheer leading for oath breaking GOP traitors that reminded me of my obligation speak out today. Thanks Ed! I was going to just sit this one out, and give the Montana GOP faithful some “tough love” after the election by trying to point out why they lost, in the hopes of talking some sense into them, but you have prompted me to instead send this message out to thousands of Montanans in the liberty movement today to do my small part in purging the neocons out of Montana politics. If Rehberg loses, and I am given any small part of the credit for his loss, then I wish to share that credit with you, since you prompted me to write this.
Posted by O.K. at 7:01 AM
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