Reply #8: Absolutely, Sir [View All]

[The Magistrate]

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Constitution, and the debates over its adoption, undertsands this.

The 'commander in chief' title refers only to the direction of military forces, and indicates that a President ranks any member of the armed forces. It has nothing whatever to do with any other element of the civilian government. Those who exalt it in that regard seem to be under the misapprehension that the military forces of the United States are an element of the U.S. government, as opposed to one of its tools. At bottom, they are making the ludicrous claim that the Constitution of the United States not only envisions but establishes the government of this country as a military dictatorship.