Why Does Our Constitution Insist on Civilian Control of the Military?

 1.  Why does our Constitution insist on civilian control of the military?

Answer:  A democracy requires civilian control of the military.  Only with this structure is the individual citizen's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness protected.  The military is present, but civilian life remains at the center of the society -- and within this societal architecture, the individual has the right to express himself through free speech, free assembly, freedom of the press, etc. without being punished for the manifestation of his sovereignty.

In an autocracy, the paradigm is reversed, and civilians are serving the freedoms maintained by only a few, including those with privileged positions within the military and law enforcement agencies.  With autocracy, free speech disappears from the expectations of the public at large.  There are some observations which people are afraid to publicly express.

2.  Why afraid?

Answer:  Because autocracies will generally arrest anyone who voices criticism of those wielding unelected power.

Or they will arrest a relative of the person expressing dissent.

And many of those "arrests" are perpetrated with a violent intent, and, in fact, manifest tragic outcomes.

3.  Have there been military encroachments in civilian life within the United States?

Answer:  There have, yes.  And these have manifested in conjunction with the expansion of the intelligence community in aggregating information about law-abiding U.S. citizens.

4.  You have spoken a little bit about Shoshana Zuboff's observations concerning "surveillance capitalism" as a form of fascism.  What does she mean by that?

Answer:  She describes a process in which the public relinquishes privacy rights in return for convenience as consumers.  When a member of the public makes a purchase from Amazon or makes a deposit at their consumer bank or makes a donation to a charitable organization, she is signing a "privacy agreement" with every transaction.  And that privacy agreement may actually waive all of her rights to her own personal information.

5.  What is wrong with businesses aggregating personal information on their consumers?

Answer:  First, we can never assume that "personal information" is truthful.  In the matter of the FBI's falsified law enforcement reporting, the agency has aggregated a large volume of material which its personnel know to be fabricated.

What that means is that many "privacy agreements" place Americans at risk of being slandered and defamed at the directive of the FBI or its affiliates.

But secondly, we recognize that Americans are entitled to privacy in some aspects of their lives.

Should the FBI have the right to film spousal intimacy without its "targets'" knowledge or consent, and then to disseminate that material as "personal information"?

Absolutely not.

Thirdly, how can an uninformed electorate be expected to make perceptive judgements about what is real and what is fake?

How can they determine what constitutes an egregious falsehood as opposed to what is an appalling privacy violation?

The public has no means whatsoever of making those assessments.

Fourth, slander and defamation, as perpetrated by the FBI, do not constitute an end in and of themselves.  Rather, they are utilized to justify other harms.

So, in answer to your question, there's actually a great deal that's wrong with businesses aggregating "personal information" regarding U.S. consumers.

6.  What would be the goal of the aggregation and dissemination of false and defamatory information about the United States' citizenry?

Answer:  Autocratic control over the American electorate.

7.  But you're not speaking of control exercised by President Joe Biden?

Answer:  Decidedly not.  President Biden supports democracy, not autocracy.  He would never stand in favor of a usurpation of the sovereignty of the American people.

8.  Then where is this autocratic push coming from?  What is its origin point?

Answer:  The far right has made inroads into the intelligence, military, and law enforcement communities within the United States.  But rather than characterize this problem as being without boundaries, we would be better off to closely examine certain programs whose administration is shared on an interagency basis.

9.  Programs like the "target of interest" program.  

Answer:  Yes.

10.  Can such an examination be undertaken?

Answer:  With courageous leaders in the White House, yes, it can.  That's why President Biden and Vice President Harris' re-election is critical for all who love democracy.

11.  Why has this issue not come to light before now?

Answer:  Congress has been asking the right questions for years, but it has not been provided with truthful answers concerning the mass surveillance of the American public.

And, while this can be a difficult for some to grasp, mass surveillance is never benign.

12.  Why not?

Answer:  Mass surveillance rapidly becomes a totalitarian tool.  Human beings, in knowing everything there is to know about their neighbors, can easily begin to wield private information for destructive purposes.  We don't want to place that much power in the hands of the unelected few.

13.  Please say a few words about President Biden as our Commander-in-Chief.

Answer:  Gifted.  Courageous.  Principled.  Brilliant.  Determined.  And protective.

President Biden represents THE Commander-in-Chief our country needs at this moment in our history.  And the reason I say that is because he is continually striving to protect the rights of the American electorate.  Having been handed the keys to the kingdom as the leader of the strongest nation in the world, President Biden hands them back to the people.

I hope the American electorate can come to understand how rare and valuable President Biden is as our Commander-in-Chief.

If our democracy has a chance to endure -- and it does -- it is because of him.

14.  You admire him.

Answer:  Greatly so.  

15. And you have recently expressed your admiration for Vice President Harris as well.

Answer:  My admiration for both of them started off abundantly, and only continues to grow.  Those who watched Vice President Harris' 60 Minutes interview last Sunday were privileged to witness her intelligence, her wisdom and her fortitude first hand.

16.  Both President Biden and Vice President Harris have expressed that, in 2024, democracy will again be on the ballot.  What does it mean, to say that democracy is on the ballot?

Answer:  They are trying to let the electorate know that we stand at an inflection point that will be determinant of our freedom in the future.

And this is difficult for Americans to fully comprehend, because we do not have a totalitarian history from which to draw.

As a nation, we are not informed about the costs of autocracy.

We don't know directly know about the price of democracy's loss.

17.  What is the price?

Answer:  The price, fully disclosed, is human atrocities.  Once the civil liberties and human rights of the law-abiding American citizenry are no longer defended by a Constitution and a rule of law that are robustly upheld, those wielding unelected power are likely to become much more aggressive.

The most egregious harms are likely to be covert, but fascism always attempts to hide its most egregious harms.  This is not a new phenomenon.

18.  What needs to happen now?

Answer:  The truth needs to happen now.  And for democracy to survive, it needs to keep on happening until the public can be awakened to this attempt by the far right to undermine our most fundamental freedoms.

19.  You believe that President Biden has the character and the courage to pursue this disclosure.

Answer:  I know he does.  And, as I said, it's the rarest of Commanders-in-Chief who will understand that his greatest task is the defense of the freedom of his nation's citizens -- and who will back that up every day through striving to preserve the sovereignty of the people.

And I believe that Vice President Kamala Harris would support this disclosure, too, which speaks volumes about her own bravery and integrity.

20.  What does the fight for the soul of the nation mean to you?

Answer:  Everything. 

 It means our insistence that Americans are committed to compassion, benevolence, diversity, principles, honesty, and justice on our way to creating a more perfect Union.

It means that our greatness is defined by our goodness, and we can never leave that behind when we travel into the wider world.

It means that our determination to defend the rights of others ennobles us, refines us, and renders us worthy of the freedoms and the dignity that belong to a sovereign people.

So, yes, it means everything.

Lane MacWilliams