Here’s something I’ll bet most people — especially we younger folks who grew up hearing the term in question on a regular basis — have never considered:<\/p>\n
WE hear constantly now about \u201cour commander in chief.\u201d The word has become a synonym for \u201cpresident.\u201d It is said that we \u201celect a commander in chief.\u201d It is asked whether this or that candidate is \u201cworthy to be our commander in chief.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But the president is not our commander in chief. He certainly is not mine. I am not in the Army.
\n…
\nThe president is not the commander in chief of civilians. He is not even commander in chief of National Guard troops unless and until they are federalized. The Constitution is clear on this: \u201cThe president shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
When Abraham Lincoln took actions based on military considerations, he gave himself the proper title, \u201ccommander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.\u201d That title is rarely \u2014 more like never \u2014 heard today. It is just \u201ccommander in chief,\u201d or even \u201ccommander in chief of the United States.\u201d This reflects the increasing militarization of our politics. The citizenry at large is now thought of as under military discipline. In wartime, it is true, people submit to the national leadership more than in peacetime. The executive branch takes actions in secret, unaccountable to the electorate, to hide its moves from the enemy and protect national secrets. Constitutional shortcuts are taken \u201cfor the duration.\u201d But those impositions are removed when normal life returns.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But we have not seen normal life in 66 years. The wartime discipline imposed in 1941 has never been lifted, and \u201cthe duration\u201d has become the norm. World War II melded into the cold war, with greater secrecy than ever \u2014 more classified information, tougher security clearances. And now the cold war has modulated into the war on terrorism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Just a little food for thought as the echoes from the Fourth of July fireworks fade and the campaign rhetoric returns to full volume. Original source here<\/a>, via<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here’s something I’ll bet most people — especially we younger folks who grew up hearing the term in question on a regular basis — have never considered: WE hear constantly now about \u201cour commander in chief.\u201d The word has become a synonym for \u201cpresident.\u201d It is said that we \u201celect a commander in chief.\u201d It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}