VanLandingham on Prosecuting Retired Flag Officers for Their Speech

Rachel E. VanLandingham, American Democracy, Coups and Retired Generals, today at LAWFARE.

"​Despite this national strength of free speech, Flynn’s comment, as well as other recent public statements by former senior military leaders, has garnered much negative attention. This has included calls for criminal prosecution, recommendations that former military officers be stripped of their government pensions for their speech, and even general concern expressed for the health of civilian control of the military, all because of former military officers’ engagement in the polity. Such condemnation must be resisted: Not only is it not warranted, but it also is the wrong tack to take in America’s democratic, pluralistic national experiment, as I explain in this post."