Former Air Force Captain Justin Pavoni is back in the media. Last year he and his wife, Jessica Pavoni, launched a website and now have a podcast. Sadly, Dr. Ron Paul is continuing to buy into Pavoni's immoral nonsense as the video above shows.
Now that Dr. Ron Paul is out of office, I can express my respect for him -- and I have criticized those who were unethical in showing their support for him while he was a politician. I'm a huge fan of Dr. Ron Paul. He's not right all the time, he's just right the vast majority of the time. Dr. Paul, in my view, is one of the best Americans to ever serve in government. But he's not always right, and he's off by lending his support to Pavoni, just as he's been consistently wrong about a declaration of war being constitutionally required for combat operations, which is a view adopted by his two contract-breaking star-struck acolytes. So now back to Justin and Jessica Pavoni...
I criticized Justin Pavoni years ago when he was becoming an amateur media darling and began propping up his immorality as a mantle of ethics. One fighter pilot blogger also briefly discussed Justin and his wife Jessica, also a former Air Force pilot who flew the U-28, both breaking their contracts with the American people. I had some personal discussions with Justin at that time, but he wasn't convinced by my argument that what he was doing, backing out on a voluntary contact with the American people to their great financial detriment, was immoral. Or he simply didn't care, choosing himself over his obligations. I invited him to debate me on this blog and he declined.
Justin Pavoni, a guy who enjoyed a taxpayer funded college education (what Pavoni calls "free" education) at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) and who then took millions more in taxpayer money in order to train to become an F-15E fighter pilot, simply decided that he personally didn't think war was moral anymore. Well, that's what he claimed at the time in order to get out of his contract. He pretended that he was a "conscientious objector" to use, as Pavoni called it in the video above, a "loophole" to break his contract with the American people. In reality, he had refused to deploy while his so-called "conscientious objector" application was going through the wickets. Something he made clear on a prior Ron Paul interview that seems to no longer be available.
I knew years ago that Justin wasn't an actual conscientious objector and the video above supports that as it shows Justin talking of a non-existent "selective objector" status. Likewise, this video shows that his wife Jessica, another Air Force pilot who went to USAFA and who also broke her contract with the American people after milking them for a great amount of money, was also only interested in objections to "foreign policy" rather than some moral objection to war itself. They were not conscientious objectors and they knew that. They simply wanted to not only deliver politics by other means, but they also wanted to play the part of politician themselves directing their own action according to their own desires rather than the desire of their nation in their roles as public servants. Justin and Jessica wanted to become a nation unto themselves with money taken from others...
As it turns out, the Air Force found that neither Justin nor his wife, who commissioned as military officers after the U.S. invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, were conscientious objectors and they were dismissed on other grounds during a time when the Air Force was drawing down.
Justin and Jessica Pavoni defrauded the American people. An education at the U.S. Air Force Academy costs the American taxpayer around $416,000. It costs the American people roughly 2.6 million to train a brand new fighter pilot (another estimate says six million) and one million to train a non-fighter pilot like Jessica Pavoni. As a result, the American people require a contract and term of service to ensure their investment is not squandered. Jessica and Justin, however, misrepresented themselves as conscientious objectors and broke their contracts, thieving roughly four to seven million dollars from the American people who invested in them, and who provided them a world class education in which to ponder and prepare for war and their profession at a military academy, and who required them to take an oath to show their fidelity. Instead, the two Air Force Academy graduates refused to do as they promised the American people because they decided they simply did not agree with the lawful commands of those same people who paid them.
That is a decidedly immoral action. And yet they have decided to voice their immorality as though they enjoy some moral high ground, and are working with others including yet another USAFA graduate F-15E pilot from Justin Pavoni's squadron who also applied for separation as a conscientious objector (pro tip: one sure way to tell if somebody is not a conscientious objector....see if they voluntarily chose to go to a military academy -- works every time). Justin and Jessica now offer their support to others in the military who might also want to break their contracts, encouraging them to "quit" despite any, in Justin's words, "so called 'commitment.'"
Or as Jessica Pavoni, who uses the handle AnarchoMama, stated recently on Reddit, there are "anarchists" who want to help others who no longer want to serve in the military. Just don't want to serve anymore despite their contracts with the American people, meh.
The Pavonis' cavalier attitude might be summed up with the statement, "Whatever, just never thought about war at my premiere military college. Whatdya gonna do? Thanks for the millions!"
As a relevant aside, how in the holy hell is our United States Air Force Academy recruiting and commissioning such people? Is the training and education there completely and utterly worthless? There really should be an investigation on this topic. If this USAFA lack of quality control trend continues, our ability to project air power will be dismantled from within and at great taxpayer expense. Our Air Force Academy is failing in the character department and just the story of these three former pilots alone demonstrates that tens of millions of dollars in training is being squandered and justified with "meh, changed my mind."
The Pavonis are immoral people. And they should have been dishonorably discharged and spent time in prison for their conduct. Whether it's a banker, a corrupt politician, or a self serving military officer who fraudulently steals millions of dollars from the American people, fraud and theft should be punished.
I would no doubt agree with the Pavonis on a great many of their statements but the reality is they have no credibility on the subject matter. Foreign policy is not the issue. The issue is contracts, voluntary obligations, and keeping your word. In short, it's an issue of integrity. The Pavonis are the last people who should be talking about morality or government action. Government, at its core, is a relationship between people and it requires that individuals keep their word in voluntary arrangements.
Imagine a plumber who voluntarily agrees to take millions of dollars of another person's money in order to learn how to effectively fix a very complicated toilet system, in an agreement to fix that system, who then after that training just decides he thinks the shit business is immoral (immoral, boiled down, equals something that a person simply does not like). And so imagine this plumber quit his job without refunding the millions spent to train him after years of a world class education in plumbing that his employer funded, after signing a contract and raising his hand and swearing to complete the job without mental reservation or purpose of evasion. Now imagine that same plumber, when it came time to grab the plunger, just decided to up and quit.
Justin and Jessica, you two volunteered to enter the shit business and you both signed up to flush it on demand by those who paid and invested in you. There is absolutely no excuse for you not knowing that as adults, after four years at a military academy, prior to you both voluntarily contracting with others and taking their money.
You couldn't possibly have graduated the Air Force Academy thinking the war business would be roses.
You two lack credibility. And Jessica's view of a "logical consistent definition of philosophy" is something to be challenged as her idiotic appeal to Rothbard and his quack-intellectual concept of contracts, where contracts can be broken and a person's voluntary agreement becomes not enforceable, falls flat. The attempt to dress up simple immorality and lack of integrity with the thin veneer of intellectual justification is the stuff of mental reservation and purpose of evasion. It's not convincing.
Let's not kid ourselves about what really happened here. You two were living apart because you both took taxpayer money to go to USAFA and you both volunteered to become pilots, and you both volunteered to go to war when called, and you both lived apart because you chose different airframes. Got it. Public service is tough. But those were your decisions and your fabricated "philosophy" to rectify your regretted life choices at the great financial expense of the American taxpayer does not change that.
Faithful public service is hard. Doing what others tell you to do, especially when you disagree with those you work for and who pay your bills, can be a real challenge. I understand not agreeing with the American people when they send you off to certain wars. I was vehemently against the idiotic invasion of Iraq from the very beginning and yet I was there on night one and many times thereafter. I went because it was lawfully authorized and so I faithfully used my millions of dollars of training to defend eighteen year olds with rifles who did not have the benefit of four entire years of study to think about their future actions and warfare at a military academy nestled in the mountains. Those kids simply went to a lawful war when called to do so, and my training was used to protect them, disastrous as that war predictably has been. Had Iraq been unlawful, I would have refused. But it was not, and I had an obligation to the American people as a public servant. Despite disagreeing with my employers.
You two did not act from a moral position. And for the love of God please stop using terms like "first principle." Neither of you have any idea of the terms you throw around. You pretend to not even have a grasp of what voluntary means in order to rationalize your breach of contract. You are frauds who took from others, made a voluntary contract with them, and then misrepresented yourselves and broke that contract while considering your misrepresentation some kind of clever "loophole" like a corrupt politician might do; wasting taxpayer money and the time of others in the service with your lame application as conscientious objectors when you yourselves admit that you are not. And yet you two are comfortable sounding off like you're somehow champions of morality while you try to dress up your mental reservations and purposes of evasion with pseudo-scholastic mumbo jumbo. You two have no shame.
Two military academy college graduates who, between the both of them, could not figure out the most basic function of the military and what they were being paid to do. And unbelievably, one being the son of a fighter pilot. But somehow that whole military thing just blindsided them.
Justin and Jessica, your little scheme worked. Your fraud was a success. Now please quietly go away and stop pretending you have a moral position. And Justin, if you do decide to go back to school as your wife says you're considering, do enjoy those generous GI Bill taxpayer benefits. But also try to pay attention in class this time. Depending on your area of study, you may be presented concepts that are even more challenging than the basic one that you failed to grasp as an undergraduate. You know, the concept that the military exists to take life and destroy property as an extension of politics decided by civilian politicians who you may personally disagree with. That was a basic concept your four years at the United States Air Force Academy should have taught you. It was really simple, but somehow you weren't able to wrap your "conscience" around it. So please, please, do try to pay attention the next time you find yourself in a classroom.
Jessica and Justin have been invited to debate me on this matter and Jessica said they will "think about it." I let them know that what I would like to debate with them is not their actions, but rather their position that military officers should follow their own personal morality and consciences while in public service. That is a topic that would be useful to explore. Here's my position. If you are of the opinion that public servants should follow their own personal morality, rather than the law, then you welcome the assassination of American citizens, torture of Muslims, and every other unlawful action that a military member may personally feel is right or justified. The standard is not, and cannot be, "total freedom to act on one’s conscience" while in public service. The law, which is public morality distilled into black and white, must be the one and only standard. Sadly, Justin Pavoni said they will not debate me unless I delete my blog posts, despite the fact they have been repeatedly invited to correct or debate me here on this blog and regardless of the fact that they could correct those "issues" during a live debate.
The fact that they wish to make claims and not actually debate or discuss them, only crystallizes the obvious conclusion that they are two immoral and dishonest people who lack integrity and credibility and are not interested in the truth. If they truly thought I was unfair or wrong in my assessments or facts, as they have asserted without evidence, they would show up to correct those facts. It is what it is.
At any rate, for a better discussion on the role of the military and the difference between personal and public morality and the obligations of those in the military to obey the law while refusing unlawful orders, please checkout this discussion below that I had with a couple of Ron Paul supporters and one anarchist on alternative media. I've asked these two if they would be interested in moderating a debate between the Pavonis and myself, in the extremely unlikely chance the Pavonis grow a backbone and want to come out of the deceptive shadows and debate me.
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