To my active duty brothers and sisters ...

Having served in Fallujah in 2004 with a Marine Corps Civil Affairs Team and come home with some mixed feelings, I have some thoughts I'd like to share with my active duty brothers and sisters. Although I am dead set against killing for Trump, we share the noble cause of being willing to put our lives on the line for this country. There are some critical lessons to be learned from recent history that directly relate to your life in uniform. Whether you choose to recognize that connection is up to you.

Foreign policy is the primary reason the federal government is bankrupt and has to borrow about 40 cents of every dollar it spends. The debt per citizen is over $60,000. That's a stone around the neck of every child who is supposed to be born free. For the sake of argument, let's accept that the threat of terrorism is as bad as the government claims (which is a pretty ridiculous assertion) and accept that the government might be justified in a few drone strikes or even sending some missiles to protect us from the overblown specter of a tin-pot dictator. But the premise of the majority of our military spending is that it's ok for the government to sell future generations into debt slavery so that rich men can get richer while poor men die in wars based on some supposedly well-intended notion that we can improve the lives of people in other countries through imposing martial law.

Of course, there's always the reassuring idea that you are serving in the military to protect our freedom. But for some reason, as the size of the military has increased, freedom has continued to decrease. Obviously, economic freedom is at an all-time low, but the police policies under which we live, have become a constant threat to civil liberties as well. Political prisoners like the Bundy family and Ross Ulbricht still rot in jail. So let me be brutally honest for a second here: if you're defending our freedoms, YOU - FUCKING - SUCK!

In 1932, the "Bonus Army" of 17,000 WWI veterans and tens of thousands of supporters marched on the capitol to demand the bonuses that the government had promised them. They set up an encampment quite similar to Occupy Wall Street, except well-run, well-organized, with a critical mass of people, and in order to live in the camp, every veteran had to prove their honorable discharge. Back then, they referred to it as a Hooverville, like the thousands shanty towns that sprang up around America due to economics that were blamed on President Hoover. (If they weren't still under the propaganda spell of our then exploiter-in-chief, the "Occupation" protestors could have called their encampments "Obamavilles.") President Hoover ordered the veterans' encampment cleared and sent in Generals MacArthur and Patton. Yes, THAT MacArthur, and THAT Patton. The protestors thought the troops were marching to honor them, until the cavalry charged and the infantry came in with fixed bayonets, and adamsite gas, a vomiting agent. 55 veterans were injured, 135 arrested, and the speech of all effectively silenced.

No modern war was fought for the reasons the troops were told and the police who think they are supporting the rule of law are just as clueless as the troops in Vietnam who thought the Gulf of Tonkin incident was real. As much as there is a war on drugs, and a war on crime and a war on poverty and a war on terrorism, there is a war by the government, against YOU! War is the health of the state. War is exploitation. And as Marine Major General Smedley Butler said, "WAR IS A RACKET."

The greatest exploitation happens here at home. Wealth flows to the friends of government while the dependent class grows and the people who actually pay taxes get fleeced. So what is YOUR role as one of Trump's imperial foot soldiers? You're just a pawn. Nothing new. Not only are you a good excuse for the government to spend more money on the military, you're also a way to "project power" abroad so that our government can exploit foreigners, AND a way to control the population here at home. Remember the Kent State incident on May 4th 1970 when national guard troops shot and killed four protesting students? While using troops to confiscate firearms during Hurricane Katrina was a rare exception, more troops are now training for domestic operations than ever before, and the police are increasingly militarized.

But of course, if you really want to crack skulls, you don't have to wait for the next mobilization of troops against civilians, you can just join the police. For obvious reasons, many veterans go right into law enforcement, and while this may help you get out of a speeding ticket if the officer pulling you over is a fellow vet, it doesn't do anything but reinforce the system that has become the greatest threat to the rights that it's supposed to protect.

The American founders opposed the idea of a standing army entirely, favoring a militia defense, knowing that it would be in line with the needs of the people, whereas a military is more in line with the needs of politicians and special interests. Who would have thought that the men who founded this country would have considered joining the military anti-American? It just goes to show you how effective government propaganda can be. If we're asking the question of which country to invade next, we're not asking if maybe we shouldn't be invading other countries at all. And if we're debating that, we've forgotten to ask the question, "Should we have a military at all?" Because when you ask that, you soon realize that not only is the answer a resounding "NO!" but that having a military makes us less safe. Yeah, it's counter-intuitive, but lives are at stake, so it's pretty important to get this one right. The most dangerous weapon to a corrupt power is an open and engaged MIND!

So finally, back to that noble cause. As much as I'd like every soldier to immediately start disobeying all unconstitutional orders and live up to our oath of enlistment, I realize that's a bit much to ask. Standing up for what you believe in has consequences after all. But it also has rewards! So I'll just INVITE you to apply the same courage it took to put on that uniform for the first time, to asking yourself WHY you joined the military in the first place and WHETHER OR NOT the system you are a part of serves that cause, or undermines it. While a war can be just on one side if it is truly defensive, war has always represented the greatest failure of humanity, and modern war, has never been about settling legitimate disputes, but rather the most vicious exploitation by government. Whether or not you believe that war has ever been just or necessary, let us share the lessons of our experience, let us not be deceived again, and let's make ours the last generation of combat veterans the world will ever know. Hoorah?

I am the author of FREEDOM!, a book endorsed (I mean banned) by the US Department of “Justice.” You can get a copy here. I’m running for Not-President in 2020 on the platform of the peaceful, orderly, and responsible dissolution of the United States federal government. You can find out more here. Whoever has the top comment on this post after 24 hours can claim a free signed copy of FREEDOM! by sending me a message with their address.