Tuesday, May 8, 2012

There was an article in the USA TODAY on April 13, 2012 titled "Marine's Facebook rants earn ticket out of the Military".
The article is really the opinion of the paper.  It has to do with Freedom of speech and the rights of a military man to express his political views freely.  Sgt. Gary Stein has come under fire for having a Facebook group called “The Armed Forces tea party”.  Actually it’s what he posts that has him in hot water.  He’s not a fan of President Obama and essentially said he would not follow any orders from him, nor would he salute him.  He, in fact, says that Obama is the enemy.  There is a Defense Department directive that explicitly bars active-duty members from doing that very thing. Now if I’m not mistaken the President is his Commander-in-Chief, so why would you publicly bad mouth your boss?  Certainly he cannot be surprised that someone noticed his comments and disciplinary action may be taken.  Sgt. Stein’s lawyer argues that he was within his free speech rights and that the military rules are vague enough to be considered unconstitutional. Hmmm!  I think there are some lines that shouldn’t be crossed and bad mouthing your boss could be career suicide!

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