"Your Commander-in-Chief"

"Your Commander-in-Chief" is a phrase that I have been seeing more and more frequently as this tiresome campaign season grinds on. It is a phrase that ranges from just a bad understanding of the Constitution to a phrase that implies that we are electing a tyrant.

This is the relevant text from Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:

"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States"

Pay close attention to the words. "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States"

Unless you are in the Army, the Navy, the Marines or the Air Force, or unless you are in the National Guard in Federal service, the President is not your Commander-in-Chief. The President, as Commander-in-Chief, cannot tell you to do zip point shit. The proper response would be to tell him "ARGO", an unofficial naval acronym that stands for "Arr, go fuck yourself."

For that matter, unless you work for the Federal government, the President cannot order you to do anything at all. All he (or she) can do is enforce the law, which means if you do not do what the law requires, the Feds have to criminally prosecute you, file suit against you, or forget about it.

The President is not the boss of you. If you want to continue to live in a free nation, you had better keep that principle in mind.