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According to nearly a dozen retired officers and current military lawyers, as well as scholars who teach at West Point and Annapolis, an intense if quiet debate is underway inside the U.S. military community about what orders it would be obliged to obey if President-elect Donald Trump decides to follow through on his previous warnings that he might deploy troops against what he deems domestic threats, including political enemies, dissenters and immigrants.

Archived at https://archive.is/He9O6

  • @[email protected]
    24•12 hours ago

    Wasn’t that literally the last thing Julius Caesar did immediately before declaring himself emperor for life?

      • @[email protected]
        5•6 hours ago

        Pompey and his allies induced the Senate to demand Caesar give up his provinces and armies in the opening days of 49 BC. Caesar refused and instead marched on Rome.

        Source: Wikipedia

        Addendum:

        The civil war ultimately led to Caesar’s becoming dictator for life (dictator perpetuo). Caesar had been appointed to a governorshipover a region that ranged from southern Gaulto Illyricum. As his term of governorship ended, the Senate ordered him to disband his army and return to Rome. As it was illegal to bring armies into the northern border of which was marked by the river Rubicon, his crossing the river under arms amounted to insurrection, treason, and a declaration of war on the state. According to some authors, he uttered the phrase iacta alea est (“the die is cast”) before crossing.

        Source: Wikipedia

        • @PugJesusEnglish
          5•6 hours ago

          1. It was not what he did before declaring himself ‘Emperor for life’, because Caesar never declared himself Emperor.

          2. The initiation of the civil war was not because Caesar decided to deploy troops as a matter of suppressing popular dissent, but because the Senate, at the behest of the ultraconservative Cato the Younger, was hell-bent on having the reformer Caesar executed for behavior of his that the Senate had already sanctioned, and preventing the democratic popular assemblies from saving him.

          3. Caesar, quite famously, did not repress his political enemies, even during the civil war; those political enemies who remained in territory he controlled were left unharmed and unimpeded; those who fought against him were unconditionally pardoned. Many of them went on to stab him several years later, so it’s not like he was pardoning just the harmless ones.

          4. Caesar’s appointment as dictator in perpetuity was not preceded by military crackdowns.

          • Flying Squid
            4•5 hours ago

            You just love ruining our Ancient Rome arguments with reality, don’t you? 😝

            • @PugJesusEnglish
              5•5 hours ago

              It’s an addiction. ROME’S HONOR MUST BE DEFENDED