Stewart Rhodes is the Founder of Oath Keepers. He served as a U.S. Army paratrooper until disabled in a rough terrain parachuting accident during a night jump. He is a former firearms instructor and former member of Rep. Ron Paul’s DC staff.
Stewart currently writes the monthly Enemy at the Gates column for S.W.A.T. Magazine
Stewart graduated from Yale Law School in 2004, where his paper “Solving the Puzzle of Enemy Combatant Status” won Yale’s Miller prize for best paper on the Bill of Rights. He assisted teaching U.S. military history at Yale, was a Yale Research Scholar, and is writing a book on the dangers of applying the laws of war to the American people.
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UPDATE : 10/07/2010 10.53PM PST — We have confirmed that the affidavit in support of the order to take the child from her parents states, along with a long list of other assertions against both parents, that “The Division became aware and confirmed that Mr. Irish associated with a militia known as the Oath Keepers.” Yes, there are other, very serious allegations. Out of respect for the privacy of the parents, we will not publish the affidavit. We will leave that to Mr. Irish. But please do remember that allegations do not equal facts — they are merely allegations (and in my experience as a criminal defense lawyer in small town Montana I saw many allegations that proved to be false).
But an even more fundamental point is that regardless of the other allegations, it is utterly unconstitutional for government agencies to list Mr. Irish’s association with Oath Keepers in an affidavit in support of a child abuse order to remove his daughter from his custody. Talk about chilling speech! If this is allowed to continue, it will chill the speech of not just Mr. Irish, but all Oath Keepers and it will serve as the camel under the tent for other associations being considered too risky for parents to dare. Thus, it serves to chill the speech of all of us, in any group we belong to that “officials” may not approve of. Don’t you dare associate with such and such group, or you could be on “the list” and then child protective services might come take your kids.
Note that there is no allegation that Oath Keepers is a criminal organization or that Mr. Irish, in the context of his association with Oath Keepers, is committing any crime. We are not advocating or planning imminent violence, which is the established line where free speech ends and criminal behavior begins (See Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), which, as Wikipedia notes, “held that government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless it is directed to inciting and likely to incite imminent lawless action. In particular, it overruled Ohio’s criminal syndicalism statute, because that statute broadly prohibited the mere advocacy of violence.” We don’t even advocate that the current serving use violence of any kind, let alone imminent violence. We ask them to merely stand down.
Neither is Oath Keepers a militia, for that matter. However, EVEN IF WE WERE, that also would not be a valid reason to take someone’s child away. PRIVATE MILITIAS, JUST LIKE OTHER VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS, ARE NOT ILLEGAL, and it is not a crime to associate with them. To the contrary, we have an absolute right, won by the blood of patriots, and protected by our First Amendment, to freely associate with each other as we damn well please so long as we are not advocating or planning imminent violence or directly harming our children (and no, teaching them “thought crime” like “All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” or that those who swear an oath should keep it, does not count — at least not yet). A parent associating with a militia is not engaged in child endangerment and is not evidence of child endangerment (despite the shrill screeching of people such as Mark Potock of the SPLC, who desperately wants it to be so). Just recently a Time Magazine article described how the reporter visited the happy home of a militia member and his family — and those kids are still at home, where they belong, as is the case with many th0usands of children across this country who have parents who “associate” with private militias and all manner of other non-criminal groups. You had damn well better defend the rights of those parents to freely associate in their militias and keep their kids while doing so. You can bet that if you let such an association be listed as grounds for taking children from their parents that it won’t only be militia folks who have their rights violated. Homeschoolers, evangelical Christians, gun owners, etc. will also be on the hit list. Just wait. Remember Pastor Niemöller’s timeless warning:
They came first for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
A modern version might read like this:
They came first for the militia members,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a militia member.
Then they came for the three percenters,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a three percenter.
Then they came for the Oath Keepers,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t an Oath Keeper.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
So, defend the right of even the most hardcore militia members to freely associate without that right being chilled and suppressed by means of the threat of taking their kids.
But this particular listing of an association with Oath Keepers as one of the reasons for taking a child from her parents is all the more absurd, taking it to a whole other level of Alice in Wonderland “down is up” and up is down,” when you consider that a significant percentage of the members of Oath Keepers are current serving police, fire-fighters, and military personnel. Three of our state chapter presidents are current serving police officers. How can “associating” with such fine men and women who are daily trusted with tremendous power and responsibility constitute evidence of child endangerment? How can it be that a New Hampshire police department can consider someone associating with other current serving police officers as evidence of child abuse and endangerment? Only in the bizzaro world of the SPLC are public servants who commit to simply following the law, keeping their oaths by refusing to violate your rights ,considered “extreme” and “dangerous.”
This is the camel’s nose under the tent. We need to fight even this one instance of such a violation of the right to associate and to peaceably assemble, and we need to push back against the new world of thought crime that is being relentlessly pushed upon us. If this listing of mere association with Oath Keepers is allowed to be used in this case to justify, even in part, removing a newborn from the custody of her parents, with nothing else alleged about Oath Keepers except that the father “is associated” with this organization, that will have a sweeping chilling effect on the First Amendment protected rights of freedom of speech, peaceable assembly, association, and petition for redress of grievances for all of us — and it will only be the beginning.
OK, now it is TIME TO PUSH BACK — peaceably, of course, using our voices and pens.
