I don’t care about Maduro, as far as I’m concerned, they can shoot him if they want. What matters to me is walking through the streets of my city and seeing the faces of fear on my neighbors. The military patrolling to prevent looting due to panic. It’s a collective hangover, a horrible one.
It’s 2016 all over again. It’s seeing despair entering the circulatory system of all Venezuelans, only now it’s more sudden, and we are painfully aware of it.
This is far from improving, and we know it.
Yes. Yes they are supposed to.
All the ones that would, have been replaced.
That’s why I get pissed about stories of the variety “X resigns rather than follow administrations orders”. People seem to cheer when that happens because they see it as people pushing back on illegal orders, but they’re not. They’re just bailing from responsibility when they were one of the few people in the position to legitimately be a stopgap on this runaway power abuse. In resigning, they’ve just made it easier for a loyalist or morally corrupt replacement to come in and roll out the red carpet to the autocracy. Stay right where the fuck you’re at, plant your feet, and tell them that you’re absolutely not following illegal orders from anyone. That is worth cheering.
Resigning instead of refusing an illegal order is a betrayal of their oath to the constitution, and a betrayal of the American people
This. It’s not upholding the constitution, it’s standing back and watching it get fucked, while selling books or speaking engagements.
I don’t disagree, but then they get dishonorably discharged, lose their pension and benefits, a loyalist is put in their place and the end result is the same except that they’re worse off personally. I can absolutely see that the better option for them is to resign and make a statement rather than going hard-core and fight it. Unless they plan on a full-on military coup.
Apparently their main guiding moral is greed then.
Bit harsh IMHO.
It’s being human. Not everyone is prepared to throw away the future they planned for and have been working towards their whole life on principle, especially if the end result of that action is bugger all.
I might not agree, but I get it.
Well there’s plenty of us who never got a single second of the “future we planned for”. Sure its a bummer to have something you thought was nice and have it turn into something awful, but that doesn’t mean you should turn a blind eye towards your morals. Doubly so if you happen to be in the military.
These high level guys have the wealth to sue for their pensions. Courts will restore them if the orders they refused were illegal.
Except the supreme court ruled no order from the executive branch is illegal
I know youre being funny about it, but I need to point out the officer’s oath is not to the president, and the supreme court is irrelevant in this.
Specifically any orders which violate the constitution, federal law, or (specifically an “or” here, not “and”) international law should be refused. Typical examples are torturing people who are detained, targeting civilians, etc.
Not exactly. They ruled the president cannot be prosecuted for illegal acts taken in the capacity of president. So it’s more “he can do illegal shit and we can’t stop him” and less “anything he does it automatically legal”. So refusing an illegal order would presumably still be a valid route of action.
But from what I know about the military, they can just punish you in some other capacity even if what you did is technically legal. Ie reassigning you to some shit duty or miserable location.