The Backdoor to Military Rule in America by Jacob G. Hornberger

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He writes:

Without any doubt, the most dangerous threat to the freedom of the American people in our lifetime lies with what might be called the Padilla doctrine, an exercise of such raw military power that, if upheld, will totally transform life in America as we know it...

One of the legitimate functions of government is to arrest, prosecute, and punish people who commit acts of violence against others... However, the obvious question arises: How do we really know that the person has truly committed the offense with which he is charged?

Obviously, one option would be to leave the matter up to federal officials. We could simply place our blind faith in their good judgment, trusting them to punish only the truly guilty and to leave everyone else alone.

That’s not the option that our forefathers chose, however, when they brought into existence the U.S. federal government. They instead brought forward, through the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, a criminal-justice system that recognized procedural rights and guarantees that had long been accorded people accused of a crime...

Why were such rights carved out over the centuries and why did people require the king or the president to recognize and honor them? Because people realized that, while the government is charged with the important job of punishing violent lawbreakers, government officials oftentimes abused or mishandled such power by wrongfully accusing innocent people of crimes. Thus, the protections that were built up over centuries were designed with one purpose in mind: to ensure that people were not convicted of crimes that they did not commit...

The Padilla doctrine is a back-door attempt by the Pentagon to sabotage America’s federal criminal-justice system. The doctrine threatens to destroy the centuries-old rights and guarantees. It is impossible to overstate its ominous and dangerous implications...

History is replete with examples of governments that used the criminal-justice system to round up and punish innocent people, especially those who have had the audacity to tell the truth about government abuses and wrongdoing...

Under the Padilla doctrine, there would be no check on the power of the military to take people into custody and punish them, even execute them. The military’s power over the American people would be absolute...

If the Pentagon ends up winning in the Padilla case, Americans will ultimately discover why the Pentagon was fighting so hard to prevail and how victory in the Padilla case will have provided the Pentagon with a backdoor to military rule in America.

The Backdoor to Military Rule in America by Jacob G. Hornberger