{"id":88,"date":"2009-07-14T12:21:23","date_gmt":"2009-07-14T12:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/soldier-refuses-to-deploy-says-obama-isnt-president.html"},"modified":"2009-07-14T12:21:23","modified_gmt":"2009-07-14T12:21:23","slug":"soldier-refuses-to-deploy-says-obama-isnt-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/soldier-refuses-to-deploy-says-obama-isnt-president.html","title":{"rendered":"Soldier Refuses to Deploy; Says Obama Isn’t President"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love a good conspiracy theory.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook <\/a>is refusing to deploy to Afghanistan <\/a>because he doesn’t acknowledge President Obama as the rightful president of the United States. Cook <\/span>is being represented by Orly Taitz, who is also arguing Alan Keyes’ birth certificate case against Obama’s presidency<\/a>.  <\/span><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Birth certificate conspiracies aside, what about the ethical responsibility Cook holds as a soldier? Can his stand be compared to those soldiers who were morally opposed to Bush’s policies and the war but acknowledged him as their Commander-in-Chief? Isn’t his ethical obligation to serve the United States of America, whether or not he personally believes Obama is legally the president? After all, pending a completely out-of-this-world ruling that Obama is not qualified for the office, he is <\/em>the official head of state.  <\/span><\/p>\n

A federal court hearing will take place later this week. I’m curious to see what the consequences of Cook’s actions are. It’s not that I would want anyone denied their legal day in court (even those with a fair bit of craaaaazy), but I’m pretty sure the U.S. military takes refusal to deploy a bit seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love a good conspiracy theory. U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook is refusing to deploy to Afghanistan because he doesn’t acknowledge President Obama as the rightful president of the United States. Cook is being represented by Orly Taitz, who is also arguing Alan Keyes’ birth certificate case against Obama’s presidency.   Birth certificate conspiracies…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11,16,36,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-padmini-mangunta","category-ethics-responsibility","category-legal-ethics","category-news","category-political-ethics"],"yoast_head":"\nSoldier Refuses to Deploy; Says Obama Isn't President - Everyday Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/07\/soldier-refuses-to-deploy-says-obama-isnt-president.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Soldier Refuses to Deploy; Says Obama Isn't President - Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I love a good conspiracy theory. U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook is refusing to deploy to Afghanistan because he doesn’t acknowledge President Obama as the rightful president of the United States. 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In addition to writing for a various print and online publications, such as Parenting Magazine and iVillage, she was the Website Manager for the Henry Street Settlement, a social services and arts organization serving Manhattan's Lower East Side. Most recently, she worked on the Thai-Myanmar border as a writer for the Burma Human Rights Yearbook. Her curiosity about human nature, coupled with duel streaks of idealism and Midwestern pragmatism, developed into an ongoing discussion with friends, family and strangers on ethical quandaries. When she's not asking \"Why?\" you might have trouble finding her, as her hobbies include nosing around used bookstores, exploring the world (near and far), meeting new people and occasionally twiddling her thumbs while daydreaming.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/pmangunta"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}