Admiral McRaven to American people: “You need to shut up (except for me, of course)."

Who is "undermining" America?

Retired Admiral William McRaven gave an interview to Fox News ‘Fox and Friends’ on Wednesday morning. His comments were wrapped in platitudes but cut against the American people’s right to freedom of speech. He could not be more wrong.

McRaven claims that those who criticize government institutions “undermine America.” "Undermining America” is a serious charge. And when it comes from a four-star admiral who commanded the entire United States Special Operations Command, you can bet that it carries some clout among those who are wielding power. For these reasons, McRaven’s comments merit close scrutiny.

THE INTERVIEW

Steve Doocy began the interview by noting that McRaven had penned an op-ed published in the Washington Post on Tuesday. He noted that as a “lifetime military guy” McRaven had generally steered clear of the political statements. Referring to McRaven’s op-ed, he then asked, “What were you trying to do?”

McRaven began, not by answering the question, but instead by making sure that his political views got out there. His non-response to Doocy’s question was, “I am not a fan of President Trump. I think the jurors got it exactly right. And I hope he’s not re-elected.”

He then continued, “But that was not the point of the op-ed. The point of the op-ed is, you know, can we rise above all of the rhetoric that’s going on right now. And I tell folks look, can you lay down your rhetorical arms? Can we find a way to bridge the gap? And maybe its naïve on my part but what I see is every time Donald Trump does something wrong, then the left gloats about it, the right rants about it and it just begins to escalate. And we’ve got to find a way to deescalate this because the world is watching.” 

In response to prompts from Doocy, McRaven then spoke about how his mother had talked to him about some of the great things that this country has done, including Grant’s “grace and compassion at Appomattox,” about MacArthur’s enlightened policies toward the Japanese, and about the Berlin airlift and the Marshall Plan. McRaven then noted, “We were able to reconcile with the Japanese; we were able to reconcile with the Germans; we were able to reconcile between the North and the South; and now you’re telling me that we can’t reconcile among American people between Trump and Biden? I think we’re better than that.” 

Doocy concluded by reading from the op-ed and then asked, “Admiral, would you like the final word?”

McRaven did not hesitate: “Just a show of faith…. Stay away from our institutions. You know every time you undermine the judicial system, every time you undermine one of our institutions, you undermine America…. So, to say this was not a fair trial undermines the most important institution that we have and that’s our judicial system. So this is really a plea for civility and I hope folks on the left and the right will listen and read the op-ed and try to be, again, try to rise above this.”

My first reaction was that McRaven sounded a bit like Rodney King: “Can’t we all just get along?” His comments, like his op-ed, are replete with ‘motherhood, apple pie and American flag’-type platitudes that no one can reasonably disagree with. But when you take a closer look, the platitudes obscure the danger in his other comments. So let us take that closer look. Don’t just focus on the platitudes – take a look at what this four-star admiral instructs.

IF YOU DISAGREE WITH THE GOVERNMENT, YOU ARE UNDERMINING AMERICA.

McRaven began the interview by exercising his own First Amendment right to free speech by criticizing President Trump¹ and praising the jury that convicted him: “I think the jurors got it exactly right.”  Then almost exactly three minutes later, he made clear that you must not disagree with that by expressing your opinion that this “was not a fair trial.” If you do, you risk being labeled by a four-star admiral as one who “undermines America.”

YOU TRUMP SUPPORTERS – STOP RANTING EVERY TIME HE DOES SOMETHING WRONG.

McRaven then deplored the divide in our Country that has led to sometimes-uncivil rhetorical combat between the battling sides. First, he noted how the North and the South reconciled after our Civil War. And the same is true of the U.S. and Japan, and Germany. What he fails to note is that the post-Civil War reconciliation and peaceful relations came only after General Sherman laid waste to much of the South, killing civilians and livestock and burning farms. And, as McRaven well knows, the reconciliation and friendly relations with Germany and Japan came because German cities were firebombed and utterly destroyed, and the first nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan, until neither country had the power to fight any more. In other words, one side had to suffer disastrous consequences before peaceful relations and respectful dialog could resume.

McRaven then condemned the left’s ‘gloating’ and the right’s ‘ranting.’ But the way he framed his argument is telling – when does he say these “rants” by the right occur?  Why, it’s “every time Donald Trump does something wrong.” So, if you have complaints about Trump’s criminal trial, your “rant” is not because the defendant was not told what felony he supposedly has committed, or because the trial judge had a conflict of interest and allowed irrelevant but inflammatory evidence from a stripper that had nothing to do with an alleged bookkeeping error. No, you are “ranting” because Donald Trump did something wrong.

McRaven does not even hint that maybe, just maybe, the government has done something wrong, that President Trump has been wronged. No, according to him, the “rants” from the right come only when President Trump has done something wrong.

CRITICISM OF GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS IST VERBOTEN.

The real meat of McRaven’s comments, however, is in his wrap-up comments. “Stay away from our institutions.” If you criticize our institutions, such as the judicial system, “you undermine America.” And it is not just sharp criticism that is verboten – if you express an opinion that Trump did not receive a fair trial, you are undermining our judicial system and “every time” you do that “you undermine America.”

“Stay away from the institutions,” he warns. Don’t criticize the institutions? McRaven focuses on the judiciary, but it is just one of the three co-equal branches of government. Are we also not allowed to criticize Congress? And, of course, the presidency is an institution. Is the President also off-limits from criticism?

No, the criticism of government “institutions” is the exact reason we have the First Amendment. McRaven, however, tells us that if we exercise of our First Amendment right to criticize government institutions, we will “undermine America.” A man who took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States surely knows better.

If we are to seriously consider whether our institutions are the subject of valid criticism or whether the “rants” against them are “undermining America,” ought we not examine what those “rants” are about and whether they are justified?  That could take a book (or five), but let’s take just a short look at what some of the “rants” are about.

RANTING ABOUT the JUDICIAL SYSTEM.

As for the judicial system, which McRaven touts as “the most important institution that we have,” the irreplaceable Victor Davis Hansen puts it well in the New York Post:

The public still cannot digest the truth that the once respected FBI partnered with social media to suppress news stories, to surveil parents at school board meetings and to conduct performance art swat raids on the homes of supposed political opponents.

After the attempts of the Department of Justice to go easy on the miscreant Hunter Biden but to hound ex-president Donald Trump for supposedly removing files illegally in the same fashion as current President Joe Biden, the public lost confidence not just in Attorney General Merrick Garland but in American US jurisprudence itself.

The shenanigans of prosecutors like Fani Willis, Letitia James and Alvin Bragg, along with overtly biased judges like Juan Merchan and Arthur Engoron, only reinforced the reality that the American legal system has descended into third-world-like tit-for-tat vendettas.

I would add to that list DOJ’s and Merrick Garland’s refusal to safeguard the safety of the Supreme Court Justices when mobs of protesters were swarming their neighborhoods in a blatant effort to intimidate them into voting in sync with the Court’s leftist members. Was that worth a “rant” or two?

And what about the current Attorney General’s sponsorship of the letter by 51 lying former intelligence operatives, trying to persuade the public that Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” was Russian disinformation. Is it a forbidden “rant” to point out that the highest law enforcement official in the country basically set in motion a scheme to dishonestly interfere with the election? And don’t forget Joe Biden’s false claim that the laptop was a “Russian plant.”

The list could go on and on, ad infinitum. Here is just a small sampling: the New York prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, elected on a platform of going after one man in the best Soviet Union style (“Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.”); DOJ’s stonewalling of legitimate congressional requests (such as the audio of Biden’s testimony to Special Counsel Hur); heavily armed SWAT-type raids on nonviolent, elderly defendants not accused of any violent crime;  the sentencing of Trump’s 76-year old financial lieutenant, Allen H. Weisselberg, to five months in the notorious Rikkers Island prison, contrasted with no prosecution of Biden because the is an elderly man with a bad memory who will likely be viewed with sympathy by a jury; stacking RICO charges against abortion protesters while allowing Antifa and BLM rioters to take over and burn down neighborhoods; the FBI launching criminal investigations of Catholics who desire to attend Latin mass; and the lying FBI lawyer who altered a document to say exactly the opposition of what it originally said and who escaped with a slap on the wrist, not 42 felony counts or a fine of hundreds of millions of dollars.  

AND THE MILITARY?

As for another of our institutional crown jewels, is criticism of our military warranted, or is it just another “rant” stemming from other “somethings” that Trump “does wrong”?

Here is Hansen again:

The same politicization has nearly discredited the Pentagon.

Its investigations of “white” rage and white supremacy found no such organized cabals in the ranks. But these unicorn hunts likely helped cause a 45,000-recruitment shortfall among precisely the demographic that died at twice their numbers in the general population in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Add in the humiliating flight from Kabul, the abandonment of $50 billion in weapons to the Taliban terrorists, the recent embarrassment of the failed Gaza pier and the litany of political invective from retired generals and admirals.

The result is that the armed forces have an enormous task to restore public faith.

They will have to return to meritocracy and emphasize battle efficacy, enforce the uniform code of military justice, and start either winning wars or avoiding those that cannot be won.

That list also could go on and on.  I will add only that a military whose senior officers claim that “Diversity is our strength” instead of hewing to the centuries-old ethos that “Unity is our strength” while those same leaders also tout climate change as being on a par with Communist China as a national security threat, is a military in desperate need of an overhaul. The people “undermining America” are the authors of such insane policies, not those who shine a light on them, even when accompanied by strong rhetoric.

WHO DOES THIS?

There are countries that do not tolerate speech critical of the government and its institutions. There are countries where citizens who publicly disagree with the actions of the government and its institutions are condemned as disloyal citizens, investigated and tried. There are countries where people with political views that differ from those of the governing authorities are subject to governmental abuse and ruin just because of their political opinions. We have a name for these countries. They are totalitarian.

1. I had fallen into the habit, as have many writers, of referring to Donald J. Trump as “former President Trump.” An astute commenter asked me why and pointed out that we do not refer to President Lincoln, for example, as “former President Lincoln.” I think his point is well-taken and will use “President Trump” in the future.