Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Creed. I trust that wherever you are geographically, physically, spiritually, intellectually, and every other Lee, that it's a good place for you. I'm appreciative that you are listening to the podcast today, and believe it or not, this is the first episode of season three for Freedom's Creed. So, yay me. In all sincerity, though, I really hope that you are doing well and that you look forward to listening to this episode of Freedom's Creed today. I'll be talking about oaths of office, specifically the oath of office that one enters into in government service, whether that be an elected official or someone who's appointed to a position in a particular government agency. I want to share my views on what I think an oath is and how I think in many aspects in our government today the oath of office is being trampled upon, much like the Constitution itself, in my opinion. Now, there are separate oaths of office for an individual who serves in the government separate from the president. So anyone who's elected or appointed to an office in the government takes this oath upon themselves, quote, I do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God. It says, quote, I do solemnly swear or affirm that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, end of quote. The bottom line here is that every government employee, civil servant, uniformed services, etc., and members of Congress and the executive branch take an oath of office to defend the Constitution of the United States. And just so that judges or justices of the United States don't feel left out, they also have an oath of office, which comes from twenty-eight US Code Section four hundred fifty three, and that oath says, I do solemnly swear or affirm that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me under the Constitution and laws of the United States, so help me God. Yet in our society God is often ridiculed, and people who believe in God are often made fun of or ridiculed for their weakness in believing in a higher power. I find that interesting, don't you? Well, now don't uh run away or turn off the podcast by what I'm about to say, which is we're gonna break down what it means to take an oath in government and just look at the word oath in general. What is an oath? Well, it's a promise to uphold a particular standard, to do what you promise to do, that is, in this case, defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. What about to bear true faith and allegiance to the same? Doesn't that mean being faithful and true to the Constitution of the United States? I think it does. A person who enters an oath doesn't agree or promise to be faithful and true to one particular individual or a certain ideology. No, that's not the case. An individual takes the oath of office to defend the Constitution and bear true faith and allegiance to the same. That seems important to me. I also love the phrase to take this obligation freely. So in other words, no one's forcing you to enter into this oath or promise, covenant even. No one is coercing you to do so. You are doing it on your own free will and obligation. So my recommendation for those who really aren't interested in being faithful and true to the Constitution and doing it freely, don't even enter into the oath to begin with. In other words, do us all a favor and just do something in the private practice, just stay out of the government service altogether. I think that'd be great for everybody. Now, this next part, I think, uh clearly a lot of people have entered into office without regarding the importance of entering into it without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. One knows what they are getting into when they enter into an oath of office to serve their fellow citizens. So don't bother getting into it if you have no intention of upholding the oath to which you are entering. On the other hand, if your desire is to do the right thing and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office, so help you God, then by all means, get into office and make a real difference. Don't be a drain on the rest of us. Now, you know how in government organizations and really even private companies and organizations they have visions and mission statements and things like that. Well, I want to read some information from the FBI's website as well as the CIA's website. From the FBI, they have a vision that is ahead of the threat. Their mission to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States sounds pretty good. They have some priorities like protecting the U.S. from terrorist attack, combat significant cyber criminal activity, protect civil rights, combat transnational criminal enterprises, and so forth. On CIA.gov, their mission is to preempt threats and further US national security objectives by collecting foreign intelligence that matters. Hmm, wonder what that means. Foreign intelligence that matters. Producing objective all source analysis, conducting effective covert action as directed by the president, and safeguarding the secrets that help keep our nation safe. They also say with respect to service that we put our nation first, agency before unit, and mission before self. We take pride in being diverse, inclusive, agile, responsive, and consequential. Here we go with this inclusive and diverse and all of this. Let me just go on here. Under the heading of excellence on CIA.gov, they say we bring the best of our diverse backgrounds and expertise to everything we do. We are self-aware, reflecting on our performance and learning from it. I mean, when you hear stuff like this, this kind of language that is, don't get me wrong, it's wonderful and I appreciate it, but I just wonder how it actually plays out in the real world, if you know what I'm saying. The bottom line here, ladies and gentlemen, is that the oath of office should actually mean something. It's not simply some flowery language or hyperbolic language that sounds really, really good. No, it doesn't mean anything unless the people who actually enter into these oaths of office do what they promise to do, which is to uphold and defend the Constitution, period. Listen, an oath of office must be regarded as one of the most sacred things that any of us can enter into. An oath has to mean something. If it doesn't mean anything, or the person entering into the oath has no intention of upholding it, then it's completely and utterly worthless. And to me, that's dangerous for those of us who are supposed to be served by the people who enter into these oaths of office. It's our job, ladies and gentlemen, to hold people accountable for their oath of office. Even if they do not hold themselves accountable, it's our job to hold them accountable. End of discussion. The oath of office is to support and defend the Constitution. I'm sounding like a broken record, but that's what it is. It's not an oath to support and defend, oh, I don't know, a supervisor or some other person in the organization, even the president of the United States. No, that's not what the oath is. So if you take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and you know that someone in the organization has broken that oath, or you have credible evidence that somebody has broken that oath, then you need to have the stones to come forward and call that person out, even if it means that you may actually lose a career or have to find some other career. That's just the way it is. You see, you can't take this oath of office unless you are willing to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States, and that has nothing to do with anyone else but you. Now, let me talk about some of the ways that these government agencies focus on things like diversity and inclusion, culture, ethnicities, gender, etc. I hate to break it to people, but upholding the Constitution and our laws has nothing to do with gender or race, ethnicity, culture, diversity, inclusion, and a hundred other things. Nothing to do with that at all. And to be sure I'm talking about the Constitution of the twenty first century. We all know that the Constitution didn't work for blacks, women, and other cultures for a very, very long time. And though we're far from a perfect society, the way forward to me today is to uphold a document that truly benefits every one of the groups that I just mentioned. Now, if you listened to my last episode, I read a quote from Frederick Douglass. It's extremely important, and I'm going to read it again and think about it in the context of what I just said about how the Constitution benefits everyone in 21st century America. And mind you, this quote from Frederick Douglass was from the mid-19th century. He said this in 1857. And you know what, ladies and gentlemen? It took us a long, long time to get to a point where everyone in America can benefit from the Constitution. And thank God for people like Frederick Douglass, who had such amazing foresight to say something like this The Constitution knows all the human inhabitants of this country as the people. It makes, as I have said before, no discrimination in favor of or against any class of the people, but is fitted to protect and preserve the rights of all without reference to color, size, or any physical peculiarities? End of quote. I love that entire quote, but I think the part that I like the most is where he says it makes, as I have said before, no discrimination in favor of or against any class of the people. And you would think to yourself, how could a man back in the nineteenth century when slavery abounded, how could a man say this about the Constitution? And not just any man, a very prominent black American. Now perhaps Frederick Douglass lived well ahead of his time, and he saw a day when the merits of the Constitution would actually extend to all people in America, irrespective of their color or any other physical characteristic. Wow, what an amazing individual. And one, I might add, that one day I hope to meet. Again, I want to emphasize, ladies and gentlemen, that an oath of office is not to any one individual. It's not to a political party. It's not to any particular ideology. An oath of office and government service has nothing to do with any of these things, but everything to do with fidelity to the Constitution. Period. It's my belief, ladies and gentlemen, that the focus in many institutions of our government have been lost from loyalty to the Constitution to loyalty to the things which only really serve to divide people, not bring people together. You see it everywhere in government. There are these factions that are loyal to one another, but with respect to the Constitution, there seems to be how can I say this, a lack of loyalty. You know, we used to live in a meritocracy. The idea of competition is actually good. No matter what a lot of feel-good organizations will try to tell you today, that everyone gets a trophy, that we can just turn off the scoreboard, we don't have to keep score, let's just play and have fun, blah, blah, blah. You tell that to any of the players in the March Madness tournament going on in the NCAA, both on the women's and men's side. I guarantee you they're not out there just to have fun and not to keep score. No, they are out there to win and they're gonna do their very best to do so. That's called meritocracy. You get ahead in life based on performance. If you do better than the person that you're competing against, then you move forward. And for the person who gets beat or falls a little short, well, hey, that's better preparation for next time and maybe the next time your chance will come and you can be on the winning podium. Competition brings out the best in people. And don't we want the best in all of our government agencies? Shouldn't we want the best in the halls of Congress? Those people who have taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States? I think so. I think in that case, meritocracy is a great thing. People who rise to the top are the people who should lead us. I don't care what they look like, I don't care what their gender is, none of that matters to me. What matters to me is I said before, fidelity to the Constitution. That's what matters to me, and it's what should matter to everybody else as well. I will simply say that opportunities abound in twenty first century America. And the reason why those opportunities abound, you can trace them directly back to the Constitution. The Constitution has survived nearly two hundred and fifty years through turmoil, through race riots, through slavery, through the subjugation of women, and it continues to survive every other negative aspect of a society as diverse and wonderful as ours here in the United States. And it will only continue to thrive if we are faithful to the Constitution of our country. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I want to end this episode with a quote from the movie The Pursuit of Happiness. It was a movie that depicted a man by the name of Chris Gardner who had a son named Christopher. And in the film, the dad says this to his son, quote, Don't ever let someone tell you that you can't do something. Not even me. You gotta dream, you gotta protect it. When people can't do something themselves, they're gonna tell you that you can't do it. You want something? Go get it. Period. End of quote. In my mind, this quote is the essence of the Constitution. Don't ever let someone tell you that you can't do something. Not even someone who really cares about you. If you want to do something, you want to dream big, go get that dream. Period. End of discussion. So if you can think it, you can plan it. If you can plan it, you can do it.