Camden County Tea Party Patriots

Tea Party Meetings for 2011

2010-12-28T12:41:00.000-08:00

Howdy folks!

I just wanted to let everyone know . . .

The first Tea Party meeting for 2011 will be on Monday, 3 January at 7:00PM. From February through December, the meetings will be on the first Wednesday of every month, again at 7:00PM.

Hope to see you there!

Ciao,
Donnie Tevault

TEA PARTY CONVERSATIONS: BEWARE OF INVOKING ARTICLE V

2010-10-06T12:48:00.000-07:00

By Jason Spencer

It is the month of September and many of us think of paying tribute to America’s workers by recognizing their efforts on Labor Day. There is also another significant date this month which is important to be aware of in our Republic’s history: September 17, 1787. On that day, the Constitution of the United States was signed during the nation’s first and only Constitutional Convention (Con-Con). Referred to as a “miracle’ by our founding fathers, our Constitution is now celebrated 223 years later. Created in 2004, September 17 (Constitution Day) became a national holiday.

Today, much debate about the Constitution and the role of limited government dominates political discussions in America because of the unadulterated exhibition of raw, unconstitutional usurpations of power by the federal government. This great awakening has led many in the Tea Party Movement to explore ways to restore the ideas of limited government. Specifically, many conservatives, constitutionalist, and libertarians within the movement are raising the prospect of calling a constitutional convention as a way to restore good government by invoking Article V to amend the Constitution. The people have lost faith in the political will of Congress to propose Amendments that would truly benefit them. Even state legislatures across the country have called for a Con-Con to force the federal government to adopt a Balanced Budget Amendment. This country has not had a Con-Con since the first one convened in 1787. Should this be the strategy of those who champion limited government? Should the Movement encourage Congress to submit specific amendments for ratification to the states instead?

Take a moment to look up Article V of the Constitution and read it carefully. According to Article V there are only two ways that amendments can be proposed to the Constitution: (1) by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress; or (2) on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states, Congress shall call a convention for proposing Amendments (commonly referred to as a “constitutional convention” or “Con-Con”). The second method has never been used. After amendments are proposed by either method, they then must be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures, or by three-fourths of special state conventions. According to Article V, Congress decides which ratification process will be used.

While Article V offers a mechanism to essentially by-pass Congress to amend the Constitution, it does not confront the primary problem that ‘limited government types’ may find appealing. The main problem is that the three branches of government do not adhere to the Constitution as intended by the Founders. For example, it has also been proposed by some in the Movement to invoke Article V just to get Congress scared enough to follow through on proposing various amendments that would include term limits for legislators. Simple amendment of the Constitution will not be adequate to bring government back under control. Therefore, those of us in the Movement who find a Con-Con appealing must understand the major downsides to invoking Article V.

Herein lies the problem with the calling of a Con-Con: Once convened, the convention would be at liberty to consider and propose whatever amendments to the Constitution it deemed beneficial. By doing so, this could lead to a “runaway convention” in the same way the first Con-Con ignored its initial charter, which was to revise the Articles of Confederation on matters of interstate commerce. Its charge was not to write an entire new Constitution and system of government. There are no rules in the Constitution or in any law to limit a Con-Con's purpose, procedure, agenda, or election of delegates. Furthermore, there is no way to control a Con-Con in advance or to require it to consider only one subject, regardless if the application specifically delineates what subject matter is to be considered. Great latitude on any given matter is implied to exist when delegates convene. We were very lucky to have had brilliant minds at the first convention drafting our Constitution. Frankly, I do not see very many individuals that are the caliber of Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and Patrick Henry to give us a product that is to protect individual freedoms and liberties.

With all the special interest groups and bitter partisan hacks on both sides of the isle that we have today, a Con-Con would be political chaos, pandemonium and a spectacle of pure evil. In 1788, James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” warned us directly about calling another constitutional convention:

‘If a General Convention were to take place for the avowed and sole purpose of revising the Constitution, it would naturally consider itself as having greater latitude than the Congress.... It would consequently give greater agitation to the public mind; an election into it would be courted by the most violent partisans on both sides ... [and] would no doubt contain individuals of insidious views, who, under the mask of seeking alterations popular in some parts ... might have the dangerous opportunity of sapping the very foundations of the fabric.... Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers experienced by the first Convention, which assembled under every propitious circumstance, I should tremble for the result of a second, meeting in the present temper in America.’ [From a letter by James Madison to G.L. Turberville, November 2, 1788.]

James Madison’s arguments for opposing an Article V constitutional convention are very convincing. The Tea Party Movement would do well to heed the warning echoed over two hundred years ago. There are too many progressives, special interest and “individuals of insidious views” ready to completely re-write the Constitution into a modern day Communist Manifesto. Let us dismiss the calls for a Con-Con and appreciate what we currently have. While the Constitution is not perfect, I would surely hate to see the meaning of Constitution Day changer forever, especially for the worse.

TEA PARTY CONVERSATIONS: Is Dissent the Highest Form of Patriotism?

2010-06-20T17:19:00.000-07:00

By Jason Spencer

If one has been to a local Camden County Tea Party meeting recently, one will notice that the meeting begins with the usual opening prayer to God, followed by the Pledge to the Georgia Flag, and then we conclude our “opening ceremonies” with a pledge to Old Glory herself. Recently, I have been criticized by some who believe it is a mistake or even an act of “treason” to acknowledge an allegiance to the State of Georgia before that of United States of America. I find this criticism nothing more than rhetoric based in ignorance about the essence of the TEA Party Movement (henceforth known as The Movement).

The Movement embraces dissent and challenging the status quo in order to effect positive change that drives our nation back to its founding principles. Not until the election of President Barack Hussein Obama, have the people realized that there have been a “long train of abuses” against them. These abuses pre-existed the election of Mr. Obama and now dissent is seen by those in The Movement as the highest form of patriotism. Resistance to illegal and unconstitutional usurpation of our rights is required. Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring necessary changes.

Furthermore, our rights come from our humanity, which is a gift from God or Nature. As a result the Camden County Tea Party recognizes this fact by honoring the Creator with an opening prayer. The Pledge to the Georgia Flag follows the prayer because The Movement is committed to our founding principles and it recognizes that the States preceded the birth of the Union. By that acknowledgment, The Movement is recognizing a fact in our history that is so often ignored. In our country’s founding, the States were seen as sovereign political entities that represented sovereign individual citizens that came together to form a Union. Hence, the strong stance The Movement takes with regards to state sovereignty.

The Union was given enumerated powers by the States to handle a limited list of duties for the general welfare and interest of the United States. In essence, it was the Federal government who became the servant to the States, but today the role is clearly reversed. States now beg for stimulus money, federal highway money, federal dollars for public education, and entitlement programs. This role reversal includes an omnipotent Federal government that uses the States as an administrative sub-unit to carry out its functions while the individual, and even God, are in a position of serfs to the almighty central government. It will take real patriotism to reverse the “top heavy” structured form of government.

So, what is real patriotism? Webster’s dictionary defines it as "a person who loves his country and defends and promotes its interests." I find this definition too broad on not in sync with the current political mood in our own state and in our country. First, a love of country cannot and does not mean a love of state or a love of government. I certainly do not love or adore most of the policies coming from the federal government. In addition, I certainly do not agree with the latest coming out of Atlanta with Governor Purdue vetoing two of the most important bills (SB1 and SB 148) that would bring fiscal sanity to the Gold Dome. I would define patriotism as the defense of liberty, and at all costs; nothing more and nothing less. Furthermore, one could say that patriotism is that effort to resist oppressive state power.

American patriotism is based upon principles and ideas. Since our founding, the country has continually expanded with more and more hypothetically sovereign states, and has people from many diverse backgrounds, so it is hard to say that it is based on blood and soil. The real American ideals are rooted in the principles of freedom expressed in the Declaration of Independence, and ensured in the Constitution. But somewhere between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr., today’s concept of patriotism turned into a love of the federal government, combined with apathy whenever our freedom and money have been taken away. Our allegiance should be to the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and that of our own State Constitution.

Almost every single public school student has to say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, yet a recent survey shows that the majority of them thought that the Marxist credo: “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need” is from the US Constitution. I am sure most of these students love America and feel patriotic, but there's obviously little substance behind that patriotism if they do not even have a basic understanding of our constitution. When the Pledge to the Georgia flag is recited at our meetings, I often have the pledge written down so people can learn it. This is an attempt to get people closer to their history, not an act of treason. However, if recognizing my own state is an act of “treason”, then I embrace this label. Thomas Jefferson did say, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

As we celebrate Independence Day, think about where your allegiance lies and really discover what does patriotism mean. Does patriotism mean love for government institutions and programs or is your patriotism rooted in the defense of liberty at all cost? Among many of those in The Movement, patriotism has to do with resisting state power, not supporting it. The true patriot challenges the state when the state embarks on enhancing its power at the expense of the individual. The Camden County TEA Party chooses to recognize the State of Georgia with its pledge because we recognize the historical contribution Georgia has made to America. Georgia was one of the brave thirteen colonies who understood that a greater determination to rein in the oppressive state power of Britain was the duty of the people. Are we, as a nation, faced with a similar circumstance today? I believe dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Our Founders exercised courageous dissent as well as many historical figures such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Were they wrong to challenge the status quo?

Kingsland retail legislation fails

2010-05-03T07:10:00.000-07:00

Kingsland retail legislation fails
by Walter C. Jones Morris News Service
05.02.10 - 06:13 pm

ATLANTA -- Legislation failed to pass the General Assembly this year that would have offered the tax incentives desired by a developer considering a large "retail destination" in Kingsland near Interstate 95.

In the balance are an estimate 6,000 jobs at a time when the Southeast Georgia town has seen more than 100 businesses fold due to the recession.

Rep. Cecily Hill, R-St. Marys, introduced a bill with some of the concessions which she planned to alter at the request of the developer, RED Development. She was recycling a bill that other legislators had passed twice before, vetoed each time by Gov. Sonny Perdue.

The version Hill introduced did pass on the final day of the session, Thursday. However, she was never able to win passage of the amendment she needed to tailor it for RED. Specifically, she wanted to remove wording that prohibited the tax concessions from going to a retail development like the one the company is considering for Kingsland.

The prohibition had been included in the bill's text when she dusted if off in a rush to meet an internal deadline for passage in the House. Her intention was to convince the Senate to remove the prohibition, but Sen. Chip Pearson, chairman of the Senate Economic Development Committee refused.

Pearson wanted to see the bill pass with the prohibition because he feared otherwise Perdue would veto it again. The chairman favors the concessions as an incentive for an Atlanta developer who plans to build the world's largest indoor ski slope.

Hill wasn't discouraged Thursday when her chance slipped away for this legislative session.

"We'll come back strong next year," she said. "Of course, I'm being very presumptuous. I have two people running against me."

Actually three. Republicans Rindy Howell of St. Marys and Jason Spencer of Woodbine qualified to face her in the July primary. The resulting GOP nominee will face Democrat Adell James of Kingsland in November.

Editorial: Tax break bill betrays lawmakers' bias

2010-05-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

Editorial: Tax break bill betrays lawmakers' bias

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/043010/opi_628296007.shtml

Athens Banner-Herald

Published Friday, April 30, 2010

Buzz up!The fact that state Rep. Cecily Hill, R-Kingsland, had - according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle - introduced the tax break that is House Bill 1251"primarily with a huge retail complex planned for her Camden County House district in mind" should have been enough to have kept it bottled up as the piece of special-interest legislation it so clearly was designed to be.

However, the idea of refunding a portion of the sales taxes collected by a tourist attraction - which is how the retail complex is being billed - proved so enticing to other legislators that the bill "was broadened as it made its way through the House so that it could apply to tourist attractions across the state," according to the business newspaper's Wednesday report. The bill passed the Senate this week, after getting through the House last month.

It's important to note here that, under terms of the bill, the refunded portion of sales tax collections wouldn't have to go to the people who actually paid the tax in the first place. While it's certainly possible that a qualifying attraction might offset its tax refund with special admission prices or other deals, a point made explicit in the bill is that a qualifying attraction "shall have no obligation to refund or otherwise return any amount of this sales and use tax refund to the persons from whom the sales and use tax was collected."

Additionally, it's important to note the timetable by which the bill moved through the legislature. It passed the House on "crossover day" - the last day a bill could clear one legislative chamber and remain alive for consideration in the other chamber - and it earned Senate approval on the 39th legislative day of the 40-legislative-day General Assembly session, as lawmakers were wrapping up business. Both are clear indications that the bill was being handled in "under the radar" fashion.

There is little wonder as to why House Bill 1251 was moved surreptitiously through the legislative process. Of course, as already noted, it started out as a piece of special-interest legislation, and it remained suspiciously narrowly tailored. As passed, the bill would apply only to qualifying new tourism projects that cost more than $100 million.

The immediate question, obviously, is why it was applied specifically to those projects, rather than to all of the state's tourist attractions. The answer, just as obviously, is that expanding the tax break beyond new, high-dollar projects could cause significant disruption to the state's revenue stream, a problematic occurrence at a time when a faltering economy has been decimating the state's revenue receipts.

In that light, it's interesting to recall that, just two years ago, a bill that would have applied to both new and expanding tourism projects was vetoed by Gov. Sonny Perdue.

Left unaddressed with this year's bill, as written, is the issue of why any of the state's older tourist attractions, which - like, say, Six Flags Over Georgia - might be generating more tax revenue for the state than newer, less established attractions, shouldn't be allowed to take advantage of a sales tax refund.

The point here is not necessarily to suggest that granting a sales tax refund to some tourist attractions around the state is a bad idea. The point is to suggest that in not applying the refund as broadly as possible, lawmakers have admitted that, sometimes, in some circumstances, tax breaks may not be the most prudent fiscal policy.

Carpenters Union Responds to VP Dave Claflin's Letter to Camden Tea Party

2010-04-29T13:28:00.000-07:00

Patriots,

Below is a letter from Dave Wilson from the Carpenter's Union in Lee Summit, Mo. That group is responsible for creating the website NoBailout4RED.com. He called me today because he found our blog posting on RED Development. He respectfully asked to respond to Mr. Claflin's letter that was addressed to myself regarding HB 1251. Mr. Wilson has some other information to bring to the table as Camden County citizens and our officials begin looking into this issue. Below in the italic print is Mr. Wilson's response to Mr. Claflin:
____________________________________________________________________________________

As the group responsible for the NoBailout4RED.com website, we stand behind our position. The response issued by RED Development's Vice President Dave Claflin is one side of the story. We think it is important to present the other side. Let's break down what Dave Claflin is saying, piece by piece.

Claflin says: The action by the Lee's Summit City Council was not a bailout.

Not True: After already being promised more than $52-million in direct taxpayer subsidies and after the Summit Fair project was well underway, Red Development went to the City of Lee's Summit, Missouri to ask that the City change the development agreement and issue bonds early (before any retailers even opened their doors to generate sales tax to pay for the debt service on the bonds). All the while, RED was claiming that without the early issuance of the bonds, the project could stall and sit as an empty eyesore along one of the major thoroughfares into the city (talk about blackmail). The City agreed to the early issuance, however, without existing revenue to back the bonds, it was unlikely anyone would be willing to buy them. This left RED in quite a pickle. To make the bonds marketable, RED asked the City to use its credit to back the bonds so the bonds would have a higher rating. Many in the City weren’t comfortable putting the City’s credit on the line, so the City administrators came up with the idea to give RED a loan. Keep in mind that none of this--the early issuance or the loan--was in the original development agreement. RED says that’s not a bailout, but we disagree. Dave Claflin didn’t explain the “complex underlying financial issues” that we just outlined because most Americans would agree with us -- IT'S A BAILOUT! Apparently the voters in Lee’s Summit think so too. Mayor Karen Messerli, whose tie-breaking vote ended the deadlock on the council and allowed the $9 million loan to proceed, was voted out of office at the beginning of April 2010.

Claflin says: This tool [Tax Increment Financing - TIF] has utilized “net new” revenue to allow the construction of projects which would otherwise not be economically feasible.

Half truth: What Dave Claflin doesn’t mention is that sales-tax dollars are being bled away from other retailers in the area. In fact, it was sickening to watch as RED pitted Kansas City Metro-area cities against each other (Blue Springs, Independence and Lee’s Summit, Missouri) promising that citizens in each city would be able to shop within their own city instead of driving ten minutes to the same store somewhere else. In other words, each City was losing sales tax to the others. It kind of reminds you of an arms dealer selling weapons to all sides of warring factions, with the only one getting rich being the arms dealer.

Claflin says: Much of this deliberately false information has been dispensed by a union that is unhappy that we used contractors who gave bids approximately 50% lower than theirs. They want to blackmail RED into using their labor.

Not True: RED chose to use out-of-state contractors because they were significantly cheaper (39% cheaper, according to local contractors). The part that RED leaves out is that we met with their general contractor, VCC, before the work got started and warned them that the employment practices of at least one of the contractors selected were illegal. Dave Claflin left out the part about 42 of 48 workers on the project having invalid social security numbers. Dave Claflin left out the part where the contractor didn’t register with the State of Missouri, which we believe was done to avoid paying employment taxes to the State of Missouri. Dave Claflin left out the part about a Missouri Department of Labor investigation that found violations of the State’s minimum wage law and ordered those involved to pay thousands in back wages. Gee, no wonder the out-of-state contractor was cheaper, and a local contractor who has worked in this area for more than 20 years and provides family healthcare and retirement benefits to local workers was underbid. RED would like to run away from those facts, but we set up the NoBailout4RED.com website to educate the public about what we see as a greedy developer taking advantage of taxpayers and workers to line their own pockets. The information on our website is not false, no matter how many times Dave Claflin, Dan Lowe and others associated with RED Development claim it is.

Decide for yourself -- Is RED an outstanding member of the community with the Midas touch? Or are they just another bunch of corporate fat-cats trying to make a buck and drive up their profits at the expense of taxpayers and workers?

Thanks,

Dave Wilson

RED Development Responds to Blog Post and Letter to the Editor

2010-04-27T19:48:00.000-07:00

Patriots,

Below is an email response from the Vice-President of Marketing for RED Development to the blog posting dated April 1st. Also this posting appeared as a Letter to the Editor in the April 7th edition of the Tribune & Georgian.

In the interest of presenting all the information out there, I have decided to post RED's rebuttal to the information I found on the internet that was the basis of my letter. Here are the links that I referenced in my letter: (1)http://www.nobailout4red.com/index.html and (2) http://www.examiner.net/business/x1409370357/RED-Development-to-ask-Blue-Springs-for-more-help.

Here are other links of interest: (3) http://www.bluespringsjournal.com/2010/03/30/29814/red-bonds-squeeze-by-council-with.html and (4) http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2010/01/18/daily27.html
(5) http://www.citizens4eagle.com/articles.htm

Italic text is the email response. See below:

Mr. Spencer, thanks for allowing us to respond. I have attached a Word document containing our response as well as pasting it into the body of this email.

Dear Mr. Spencer:
I read your editorial, posted April 1st, that discussed our company and two centers we have developed in the Kansas City area, and appreciate you giving me the opportunity to post my response on your site. Though the underlying financial issues involved are somewhat complex, there is a simple fact that is quite easy to understand: There was no bailout for RED. We did not ask any city for additional money to complete a project and both projects mentioned are successful and are already adding revenue to the city’s coffers.

Both projects were built in partnership with their respective cities using Tax Increment Financing. This tool has utilized “net new” revenue to allow the construction of projects where they were otherwise economically not feasible. As a result of this and a similar project we built earlier, the finances for Lee’s Summit, Missouri are thriving at a time when not many other municipalities could say that. In fact, the mayor has said that the two centers RED has built in Lee’s Summit, “have made the city not only solvent, but thriving—at a time when many other municipalities across the country are struggling with dramatically decreased revenues forcing draconian cuts to their services.”

The fact is that these projects were built without any funding that was in excess of the original TIF agreement, in spite of what you might be able to find on the Internet. Much of this deliberately false information has been dispensed by a union that is unhappy that we used contractors who gave bids approximately 50% lower than theirs. They want to blackmail RED into using their labor. We want to spend our, and the local municipalities’ money prudently in building these economic generators in partnership with local government.

One can find many things out on the Internet. Not all of them are true. Thanks again for allowing my letter to be printed on your site.

Dave Claflin, VP Marketing
RED Development, LLC
4717 Central
Kansas City, MO 64112

Caution: Bailout Alert in Rep. Cecily Hill's HB 1251

2010-04-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

By Jason Spencer

The Tribune and Georgian and the Augusta Chronicle recently had articles detailing the efforts of our State Representative, Cecily Hill, on sponsoring a “jobs bill” known as HB 1251 that recently passed the House. While it is commendable that Rep. Hill is doing what she can to bring jobs to Camden County, as a tax payer, I feel a little cautionary discretion is in order before the local and county governments start salivating over a newly anticipated tax base.

According to the Tribune article and its related opinion piece, HB 1251 is designed to entice a potentially large commercial real estate developer, Red Development (RD), based in Kansas City, Mo. to bring in a “tourist attraction”, while highlighting that Red Development has a “track record of success”.

With just a few key strokes, one kind find not-so positive information on this developer with regards to two Missouri communities--Lee Summit and Blue Springs. Each of these communities had to use tax dollars to bailout the large developer to finish projects. In the case of Blue Springs, Mo., the city council backed bonds with the cities credit rating worth $14 million dollars and the city was approached a second time for a bond backed request for $17 million dollars. On its initial submitted proposal, RD led the city council of Blue Springs and its citizens to believe the only assistance it needed to construct the project was to create a TDD (tax development district).

A similar scenario arose out of Lee Summit, Mo. The City of Lee Summit shelled out $53 million dollars of direct tax subsidies before RD came back to them asking for more money to finish their project due to the declining bond market during this economic downturn. Furthermore, the developer wanted the tax payer to back $23 million dollars worth of Tax Incrementing Financing Bonds (TIFs) in case there was a short fall in the financing of the project from those bonds. Clearly, the citizens of Lee Summit saw this as a tax payer bailout. In addition, the developer was hiring out of state contractors to work at the site and did not offer the local labor pool jobs so as to circumvent state working and regulation requirements.

As a tax payer who supports free markets, the aforementioned situations that developed with these two cities clearly does not reflect a true free market endeavor on the part of the developer. Government should never bankroll a private project. This is crony capitalism or corporatism at its best. Using the tax payer as a safety net creates moral hazard when projects stall or become money pits. Private corporations should bankroll their own projects. I hope our local officials will keep their eyes on this one. The Camden County tax payer can’t afford heartbreak from another developer.

Here are some helpful links: http://www.nobailout4red.com/index.html

and here

http://www.examiner.net/business/x1409370357/RED-Development-to-ask-Blue-Springs-for-more-help

SOCIALIST ROOTS OF THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

2010-03-15T23:44:00.000-07:00

Pledging Allegiance to the Omnipotent Lincolnian State

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

The US Supreme Court’s recent decision to review the constitutionality of the "under God" wording in the Pledge of Allegiance provides an occasion to educate Americans about the ideological purpose of the Pledge. A good place to start would be John Baer’s book, The Pledge of Allegiance: A Centennial History, 1892-1992 (Free State Press, 1992). In it one would learn that the author of the Pledge was one Francis Bellamy, a defrocked Baptist minister from Boston who identified himself as a Christian Socialist and who preached in his pulpit that "Jesus was a socialist."

Bellamy was the cousin of Edward Bellamy, author of the extremely popular 1888 socialist fantasy, Looking Backward. In this novel the main character, Julian West, falls asleep in 1887 and awakens in the year 2000 when the socialist "utopia" has been achieved: All industry is state owned, Soviet style; everyone is an employee of the state who is conscripted at age 21 and retires at age 45; and all workers earn the same income.

Francis Bellamy said that one purpose of the Pledge of Allegiance was to help accomplish his lifelong goal of making his cousin’s socialist fantasy a reality in America. He further stated that the "true reason for allegiance to the Flag" was to indoctrinate American school children in the false history of the American founding that was espoused first by Daniel Webster and, later, by Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln falsely claimed that the states were never sovereign and that the union created the states, not the other way around. (But as Joe Sobran has remarked, the notion that the union is older than the states makes as much sense as the idea that a marriage can be older than either spouse. It is impossible for a union of two things to be older than either of the things it is a union of).

The truth is that in all of the American founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution, the states refer to themselves as "free and independent." The Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War was a treaty with the individual, free and independent states, not "the whole people" of the United States.
The citizens of the states understood that they were sovereign over the federal government, not the other way around, as Lincoln absurdly claimed. The sovereign states delegated a few enumerated powers to the central government, as their agent, while maintaining sovereignty for themselves.

Despite Lincoln’s effort to destroy the system of federalism and states’ rights that was championed by Jefferson and other founders by waging total war on the South, many Americans still believed in the Jeffersonian states’ rights ideal as of the 1880s. Despite all the death and destruction of the war, and several subsequent decades of Lincolnian propaganda about the alleged evils of states’ rights, many Americans still viewed federalism and states’ rights as a safeguard against federal tyranny – just as the American founding fathers, especially Jefferson, had done.

Francis Bellamy was alarmed by this, for he understood perfectly well that the first step along the way to his socialist utopia was a consolidated or unitary state, just like the one Bismarck had created in Germany through "blood and iron," and the one Abraham Lincoln championed in the U.S. Monopoly government, in other words, was a necessary first step on the road to socialism. All semblances of the Jeffersonian philosophy of federalism and states’ rights must be destroyed.

In Bellamy’s own words:

The true reason for allegiance to the Flag is the "republic for which it
stands." ... And what does that vast thing, the Republic mean? It is the concise
political word for the Nation – the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to
prove. To make that One Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is
indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches. (See
John W. Baer, "The Pledge of
Allegiance: A Short History)."

Bellamy considered the "liberty and justice for all" phrase in the Pledge to be an Americanized version of the slogan of the French Revolution: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." The French revolutionaries believed that mass killing by the state was always justified if it was done for the "grand purpose" of achieving "equality." In an 1876 commencement speech Francis Bellamy praised the French Revolution as "the poetry of human brotherhood." And "what we call the Civil War," Donald Livingston has remarked, "was in fact America’s French Revolution, and Lincoln was the first Jacobin president" (Donald Livingston, "The Litmus Test for American Conservativism," Chronicles, Jan. 2001).

Bellamy intended the Pledge of Allegiance to be a vow of allegiance to the state, a quintessentially un-American idea. He stated that he got the idea from the "loyalty oaths" that were imposed on Southerners during Lincoln’s invasion of the Southern states and afterward, during Reconstruction. During the war, adult male civilians in the South were compelled to take a loyalty oath to the federal government or be shot. During Reconstruction almost all Southern white adult males were disenfranchised by the requirement that in order to vote or hold political office, they must take the following oath: "I ______ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto . . ." (Baer, The Pledge of Allegiance, Chapter 4). Few if any Southern men would dare to take this public pledge in the post-war years.

Francis Bellamy first published the Pledge of Allegiance in the September 1892 issue of The Youth’s Companion, which has been described as "the Reader’s Digest of its day." By that time, Bellamy had been forced to leave his Boston pulpit because of his practice of preaching socialism rather than the Gospel.

In addition to his work at the magazine, Francis Bellamy was the vice president in charge of education for the "Society of Christian Socialists," a national organization that advocated income taxation, central banking, nationalized education, nationalization of industry, and other features of socialism. In his classic book, Socialism (p. 223), Ludwig von Mises characterized Christian socialism as "merely a variety of State Socialism." Its advocates, like the Bellamy cousins, held that

Agriculture and handicraft, with perhaps small shopkeeping, are the only
admissible occupations. Trade and speculation are superfluous, injurious, and
evil. Factories and large-scale industries are a wicked invention of the "Jewish
spirit"; they produce only bad goods which are foisted on buyers by the large
stores and by other monstrosities of modern trade to the detriment of
purchasers.

The Bellamy cousins decided that American youth needed to be taught "loyalty to the state" because they realized that the individualism and the love of liberty of the American founding fathers would always stand in the way of achieving the socialist utopia that was described in Looking Backward. America supposedly suffered from too much liberty and not enough equality, said the author of the Pledge of Allegiance.

The "one nation, indivisible" wording was especially important to the Bellamy cousins, for if secession were legitimized, their pipe dream of socialism through a consolidated, monopoly government would be destroyed. This was the thinking of all the worst tyrants of the twentieth century, including Hitler and Stalin. (Hitler even quoted approvingly Lincoln’s "union created the states" theory from his first inaugural address in Mein Kampf in order to make his own case for destroying federalism and states’ rights in Germany.)

The public schools must be used to teach blind obedience to the state, the Bellamys reasoned, and the National Education Association was pleased to help them accomplish this goal. They planned a "National Public School Celebration" in 1892, which was the first national propaganda campaign on behalf of the Pledge of Allegiance. It was a massive campaign that involved government schools and politicians throughout the country. The government schools were promoted, along with the Pledge, while private schools, especially parochial ones, were criticized.

Students were taught to recite the Pledge with their arms outstretched, palms up, similar to how Roman citizens were required to hail Caesar, and not too different from the way in which Nazi soldiers saluted their Führer. This was the custom in American public schools from the turn of the twentieth century until around 1950, when it was apparently decided by public school officials that the Nazi-like salute was in bad taste.

The Pledge of Allegiance is an oath of allegiance to the omnipotent, Lincolnian state. Its purpose was never to inculcate in children the ideals of the American founding fathers, but those of two eccentric nineteenth-century socialists. (Not surprisingly, among its staunchest contemporary defenders and promoters are the Straussian neocon Lincoln idolaters at the Claremont Institute.)

If the Supreme Court decides that the "under God" wording in the Pledge is unconstitutional, it will be doing the right thing for the wrong reason (it does not "establish a religion"). The Pledge itself is an oath of allegiance to the central state, and the "under God" language only serves to deify the state. From the perspective of a Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, or James Madison, nothing could be more un-American. After all, they and their contemporaries had fought a long and bloody war of secession to sever their forced allegiance, complete with loyalty oaths, to another overbearing and tyrannical state, namely the British empire.

A Letter to the Census Bureau

2010-03-12T13:23:00.000-08:00

To Whom It May Concern,

Pursuant to Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution, the only information you are empowered to request is the total number of occupants at this address. My “name, sex, age, date of birth, race, ethnicity, telephone number, relationship and housing tenure” has absolutely nothing to do with apportioning direct taxes or determining the number of representatives in the House of Representatives. Therefore, neither Congress nor the Census Bureau have the constitutional authority to make that information request a component of the enumeration outlined in Article I, Section 2, Clause 3. In addition, I cannot be subject to a fine for basing my conduct on the Constitution because that document trumps laws passed by Congress.

Interstate Commerce Commission v. Brimson, 154 U.S. 447, 479 (May 26, 1894)

“Neither branch of the legislative department [House of Representatives or Senate], still less any merely administrative body [such as the Census Bureau], established by congress, possesses, or can be invested with, a general power of making inquiry into the private affairs of the citizen. Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 190. We said in Boyd v. U.S., 116 U. S. 616, 630, 6 Sup. Ct. 524,―and it cannot be too often repeated,―that the principles that embody the essence of constitutional liberty and security forbid all invasions on the part of government and it’s employees of the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of his life. As said by Mr. Justice Field in Re Pacific Ry. Commission, 32 Fed. 241, 250, ‘of all the rights of the citizen, few are of greater importance or more essential to his peace and happiness than the right of personal security, and that involves, not merely protection of his person from assault, but exemption of his private affairs, books, and papers from inspection and scrutiny of others. Without the enjoyment of this right, all others would lose half their value.’”

Note: This United States Supreme Court case has never been overturned.

Respectfully,

A Citizen of the United States of America

SEN. BUNNING: PITCHING FOR AMERICA

2010-03-07T04:16:00.000-08:00

Pitching for America

by Patrick J. Buchanan

It was Father's Day, 1964, when the Phillies' Jim Bunning, a father of seven, took the mound against the Mets.

Ninety pitches later, Bunning had struck out 10 and allowed not one batter to reach first base. Twenty-seven up, 27 down. The first perfect game in 86 years in the National League, and the finest hour of the Hall of Famer's baseball career.

Beginning last week, Jim Bunning took the Senate floor for five straight days to object to Harry Reid's call for unanimous consent to waive through a $10 billion spending bill. First, the Kentucky senator demanded, show me how we're going to pay for it.

His own leadership abandoned Bunning. Susan Collins of Maine assured the Senate and country that Republicans did not back their colleague: "Senator Bunning's views do not represent a majority of the caucus. It's important that the American people understand that there is bipartisan support for extending these vital programs."

Vital programs?

Had Bunning blocked rescue flights to Port au Prince or Santiago, or ammunition for the Marines in Marja?

No. Bunning had held up for a couple of days a vote on a $10 billion bill to extend unemployment benefits, make payments to doctors under Medicare and extend satellite TV to rural America. Reportedly, some 2,000 Transportation Department workers were furloughed for a few days.

"If we cannot pay for a bill that all 100 senators support," Bunning said, "how can we tell the American people with a straight face that we will ever pay for anything?"

Good question.

Indeed, the behavior of senators suggests that neither party appreciates the depth of the crisis we are in or the pain that will be required to get us out. Last week, Bunning did more than any senator in many moons to raise the consciousness of the country to the magnitude of the deficit-debt crisis.

His taking to the barricades may have inconvenienced some, but Bunning forced us all, briefly, to stare into the chasm.

Consider. Congress this year will spend $1.6 trillion more than it collects in revenue, with the largest outlays in that FY 2010 budget for defense at $719 billion and Social Security at $721 billion.

Thus, if the U.S. Government on Oct. 1, 2008, had shut down the Pentagon and furloughed every soldier and civilian here and around the world, and announced that it would not send out a Social Security check for a full year to any of the 50 million retired and elderly, we would still be $160 billion short of balancing the budget. If you zeroed out federal benefits to veterans for a full year, that, added in, would bring us close.

Such is the magnitude of the fiscal crisis facing the country.

To balance the budget this year would require a 43 percent across-the-board cut in every category of federal spending – defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Homeland Security, highways, etc. – or, if one used taxes alone, a 72-percent increase in federal tax revenues.

Budget cuts of that magnitude are impossible. They would cause a revolution. And any attempt at tax hikes of that magnitude would drain off all available consumer capital and hurl the economy into another Depression.

For the foreseeable future, then, this nation is going deeper into debt

And when Harry Reid and colleagues wave through yet another $10 billion for unemployment checks and making sure farm folks get yard dishes to see reruns of "The Sopranos," the United States must go to Beijing, Tokyo or Riyadh and borrow the money.

That is the hole we are in.

And when one stares at some of those budget numbers, the priorities of the Obama administration seem almost surreal.

In George W. Bush's last full year in office, we spent $29 billion for "international affairs." The lion's share of that was foreign aid. In FY 2011, the year for which Congress has begun to budget, spending for international affairs and foreign aid is to jump to $54 billion and continue to surge through the Obama years.

What is the rationale for the United States, the world's greatest debtor nation, putting itself deeper in debt to China to send foreign aid to nations that will never repay us and that vote habitually with China and against us in the United Nations?

This city does not seem to grasp that the days of wine and roses are over. We are not in the 1950s or 1960s anymore. Then, we could throw open our markets to imports from the world. Then, we could dish out foreign aid and fight wars in Vietnam with 500,000 men, while maintaining 50,000 troops in Korea and 300,000 in Europe.

America is headed for a time when, like the British Empire, she is going to have to make painful choices, or have them forced upon us.

He may have been booed all last week, but Jim Bunning pitched one of the best games of his career.

2010 Census: Much More than Simple Enumeration

2010-03-02T23:14:00.000-08:00

Written by Bob Adelmann

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/3053-2010-census-much-more-than-simple-enumeration

Tuesday, 02 March 2010 15:40

The Census Bureau is facing an uphill battle to obtain all the information being demanded in the short form arriving in the mail at every household in the country, starting this week. As usual, the government is making a simple task complicated by reaching far beyond what the Constitution allows. Article I, Section 2 states

The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.

Merriam-Webster defines “enumeration” this way: “to ascertain the number of.” Wiktionary is even clearer: “An official count of members of a population, usually residents or citizens in a particular region, often done at regular intervals.”

But change the word “enumeration” into “census”, let government do the defining, and this is how it looks: “an official, usually periodic enumeration of a population, often including the collection of related demographic information.”

The opening of Pandora’s Box was never clearer. Instead of once “within every…term of ten years,” it now becomes “periodic.” And instead of just “enumeration” or simply counting numbers, it “includ[es] the collection of related demographic information.” And instead of “shall be made…every ten years,” it becomes “often.”

And let Congress redefine the words “in such manner as they [the Congress] by law direct,” about how such enumeration will take place (i.e., mail, interviews, etc.), and the enumeration expands to include “name, age, sex, date of birth, Hispanic origin, race, ethnicity, relationship (to the first name on the form), and housing tenure.”

And these are just the questions on the “short form.”

It is clear how government expands when it is given the opportunity. According to the U.S. Code, Section 141: Population and other census information, “The Secretary is authorized to obtain such other census information as necessary. [emphasis added]” and “the Secretary…shall conduct a mid-decade census of population in such form and content as he may determine [emphasis added] …”. Furthermore, such “information obtained in any mid-decade census shall not [emphasis added] be used for apportionment of Representatives in Congress among the several states, nor shall such information be used in prescribing congressional districts.” The U.S. Code expands the definition of “census of population” even further, to include “population, housing, and matters relating to [emphasis added] population and housing.” Would that not include everything?

And what about enforcement, if a “sovereign citizen” refuses to complete his census questionnaire? Current law has provisions for fining those who refuse to complete the form.

Some of the other concerns facing the Census Bureau come from illegal immigrants who fear that the “confidential” information given will be used to deport them. Others are concerned about identity theft, not being particularly reassured that the data collected will be safe from prying eyes for 75 years. The expensive Super Bowl ads failed to impress, either. Kurt Bardella, press secretary for Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) commented that they were “not very effective” in getting the word out about the pending census.

The budget for the 2010 Census is an astounding $14.7 Billion, much of which will be spent following up with door-to-door interviews by Census workers for the anticipated 36 percent of citizens who will not have returned their forms. Rebecca Terrell reminds her readers that the census is undertaken not only to determine Congressional representation “but also because $400 billion in federal funding to states for a myriad of unconstitutional programs depends on the numbers generated.”

Here are the questions the Census Bureau demands to be answered:

1. How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?

This is Constitutional according to Article I, Section 2, Clause 3.

2. Were there any additional people staying here [on] April 1, 2010 that you did not include in Question 1?

Is this asked in case the citizen lied in answering Question 1?

3. Is this house, apartment, or mobile home: owned with mortgage, owned without mortgage, rented occupied without rent?

Unconstitutional.

4. What is your telephone number?

Unconstitutional.

5. Please provide information for each person living here. Start with a person here who owns or rents this house, apartment, or mobile home. If the owner or renter lives somewhere else, start with any adult living here. This will be Person 1. What is Person 1’s name?

No thank you. Unconstitutional.

6. What is Person 1’s sex?

Unconstitutional.

7. What is Person 1’s age and Date of Birth?

Unconstitutional.

8. Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?

None of your business, and unconstitutional.

9. What is Person 1’s race.

Human race. Unconstitutional.

10. Does Person 1 sometimes live or stay somewhere else?

None of your business. Unconstitutional.

As mentioned above, these are the short form questions. The long form has been replaced with the American Community Survey, which is sent on a continuing basis to 250,000 addresses every month. According to Wikipedia:

"The Department of Commerce has stated that those who receive a survey form are
required to provide answers to a long list of questions about themselves and
their families, including their profession, how much money they earn, their
source of health insurance, their preferred mode of transportation to and from
work, and the amount of money they pay for housing and utilities. Those who
decline to answer these questions may receive follow-up phone calls and/or
visits to their homes from Census Bureau personnel, and are threatened with
prosecution and fines up to $5000. No person has ever been charged with a crime
for refusing to answer the ACS survey, which several U.S. Representatives have
challenged as unauthorized by the census act and violative of the Right to
Financial Privacy Act. The Department of Commerce states that it is "not an
enforcement agency."

According to Rep. Ron Paul, the American Community Survey is “None of Your Business.” It contains questions that “are both ludicrous and insulting. The survey asks, for instance, how many bathrooms you have in your house, how many miles you drive to work, how many days you were sick last year, and whether you have trouble getting up stairs.” Needless to say, Representative Paul won’t be completing the ACS: “At the very least the survey will be used to dole out pork, which is reason enough to oppose it.”

Paul has plenty of company. Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) told the Washington Times recently that she and her family will not be fully filling out the [short] 2010 census form because “the Constitution doesn’t require any information beyond that.” And two writers in the Wall Street Journal agree. According to John Baker and Elliott Stonecipher: “the enumeration should count only citizens and persons who are legal, permanent residents … instead, the U.S. Census Bureau is set to count all persons physically present in the country — including large numbers who are here illegally. The result will unconstitutionally increase the number of representatives in some states and deprive some other states of their rightful political representation.”

Some are suggesting the strategy of asking the census taker where in the Constitution such powers exist to ask these questions. Others are handing out copies of the Constitution to the pollsters.

As a famous man once said, “Askin’ ain’t necessarily gettin’.”

No wonder the Census Bureau has such an uphill battle!

THE PAULPOCALYPSE

2010-02-24T20:32:00.000-08:00

The Paulpocalypse
Original post: http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/24/the-paulpocalypse

A longtime Ron Paul watcher wonders if his CPAC victory is the dawn of a new age, or the beginning of the end

Brian Doherty | February 24, 2010

The straw poll victory of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last week, with a plurality of 31 percent, spurred a wide range of reaction and emotions. If you weren’t already a fan of the radically libertarian Republican congressmen, his victory wasn’t the thing to make you start taking him seriously.

Many agreed that Paul’s win, if meaningful, could only bode ill for the Republican Party’s prospects. David A. Harris at TalkingPointsMemo thinks Paul’s ascendance means the GOP is determined to give up on the Jews (since Paul has suggested that certain U.S. foreign policy decisions benefit Israel more than they benefit the U.S.). Earl Ofari Hutchinson at Huffington Post thinks Paul’s win means racism and nativism is on the rise in the GOP, as he fantasizes about non-existent race-based jibes in Paul’s CPAC speech.

In the real world, Paul’s speech was mostly about fiscal probity and saving the U.S. from a debt-driven dollar collapse. Paul applied principles of limited government and restrained spending to a place where most Republicans fear to tread: foreign policy. He stressed the vital importance of the free exchange of ideas, including a long shout-out to Eugene Debs, the socialist leader jailed by Democratic god Woodrow Wilson for saying the wrong things, and freed by Republican President Warren Harding.

Paul talked to the assembled activists of the unity of liberty, including the liberty to eat and smoke what you want. He harkened back to old Republican icons (such as President Dwight D. Eisenhower with his military-industrial complex warnings) to give his constitutionalist libertarian version of conservatism a usable past. His talk was rambly, perhaps not ready for prime time, but united by a bracing vision of a government that did only what its Constitution intended it to do. This makes him radical indeed.

That radicalism makes it unsurprising that the Republican assault on Paul in America’s most prominent print outlets had actually ramped up in the week before the CPAC victory. Coincidence, or a subterranean sign that the forces of respectable Republicanism were feeling the pre-shocks of the CPAC Paulquake? In The Washington Post, former Bush speechwriter (now there’s a pedigree that should give you free rein to lecture conservatives about strategy) Michael Gerson openly called for an old-fashioned purge of Paulites (along with “racists and conspiracy theorists” and “acolytes of…Tom Tancredo and Lyndon LaRouche”—neither of them polled double digits at CPAC). Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal pre-emptively referred to Paul’s squad of dedicated activists for small government as “assorted other cadres of the obsessed and deranged” in the week prior to the surprise CPAC win.

Those who tend to agree with Paul were delighted by his victory, more excited than Paul was himself. Paul told me earlier this week that “I see [the CPAC win] as making progress, but I wouldn’t overblow it. I try to put it into perspective. I probably get more excited about what’s happening when I go to a college campus and get 1,500 students excited about what I’m doing. If they did a national poll of all Republican voters, I mean obviously I’m not going to be running the show.” (Paul still insists he is “firmly undecided” about another presidential run.)

The standard bastions of the right-wing were not amused by the shenanigans of the crazy kids at CPAC, and many noted that Paul’s victory should not be seen as a sign the Republican Party is his for the grabbing. Former presidential candidate and TV talk show host Mike Huckabee wrote off CPAC—that is, many thousands of the most dedicated and engaged political junkies and activists available to the GOP—as being too libertarian and thus irrelevant to his Republican Party. Neocon intellectual chieftain Bill Kristol thinks Paul’s win means nothing; why, Kristol pointed out on Fox News, the majority of those CPAC kids are under 25! Surely, crazy fads sweeping the young and politically motivated have no significance for a political party's future, right?

The lefties at Daily Kos noted that Fox News, the definers of the GOP as a media brand, were not too thrilled about Paul’s victory and dismissed its importance. The American Conservative recognized that while “Ron Paul people” may have had the plurality at CPAC, the widespread boos that accompanied the announcement of his win shows that he was probably widely reviled by the 69 percent who didn’t pick him.

Political analyst Patrick Ruffini at The Next Right has a balanced, non-fan’s perspective that I think gets it about right, explaining what the standard bastions of conservatism should both fear and credit Paul and his fans for:

In 2007, the Paulites were an oppositional force trying to submarine the GOP's commitment to the war on terror, thus threatening traditional conservatives. Today, libertarians and conservatives have come together against Obama's endless expansion of the State, with Ron Paul supporters supplying creative organizing tactics and boots on the ground.

….in terms of grassroots organization, Paul supporters are some of the best—if not the best—that we have. The iconography of the tea party movement is heavily libertarian (think the Gadsden Flag) and that's no coincidence. If you broke down the organizers and even those in attendance [at CPAC], you'd find more than your fair share of Ron Paul supporters. This is a categorical shift that's happened in the last year.

Victory in a CPAC straw poll (which belonged to Mitt Romney the past three years, smacked down this time with 22 percent to Paul’s 31) does not mean national leadership, the nomination, or the presidency. But beyond their affection for Paul himself—the most consistently and radically pro-liberty political figure of any significance on the Republican scene—a poll of CPAC attendees reveals encouraging facts about their general political attitudes: 80 percent claimed their “most important goal is to promote individual freedom by reducing the size and scope of government and its intrusion into the lives of its citizens” versus a mere 9 percent whose most important goal was to “promote traditional values” and 7 percent to “guarantee American safety at home and abroad regardless of the cost or the size of government.”

I predicted last September that Ron Paul could well be playing a Goldwater in 1960 role—the first stirrings of a strongly anti-government coalition whose electoral effectiveness won’t become manifest for a while—and the CPAC victory is an encouraging sign in that direction. The usual caveats apply about the unknowability of the future, and the generally predictable pusillanimity when it comes to liberty of both the voters and politicians who have tended to decide the Republican Party’s direction.

Still, it does feel like something is happening, and we don’t know what it is, do we Dr. Paul? I’ve been following Ron Paul’s career since 1988, when my buddies in the University of Florida College Libertarians brought him—then the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate—to our campus to speak. He drew 100 or so people, copped a front page story in the college paper, and fed into my and my comrade’s youthful sense of a subterranean liveliness in ideas and politics that it was still possible to dredge, at least for a moment, to the surface. Swaying masses in that libertarian direction seemed…well, I suppose it was the goal, but in the same sense that interstellar travel might be seen as the “goal” of reading and thinking about science fiction. Libertarian Party politics seemed at best an entertaining vehicle toward the semi-actualization of some wild, hopeful imaginings.

I was pleasantly surprised when Paul won his way through opposition from both Republicans and Democrats back to his Texas House seat in 1996. I first wrote about him as a profile of an entertaining GOP curiosity for the American Spectator in 1999. His political colleagues were alternately confused or amused by him, often good for a pro forma expression of respect for his steadfast refusal to compromise, but he was clearly the sort of anomaly that would just drive party leaders crazy if he multiplied.

By the time I was writing my book on the history of the libertarian movement, Radicals for Capitalism, which I completed in early 2006, Paul had settled into seeming like just a cute libertarian blip in the world of standard politics. I interviewed him for the book again, but did not give him nearly the play that events since then have proven he deserved. I was one of the first journalists to note his candidacy in January 2007, and followed him on the campaign trail for Reason in late 2007. I watched in amazement as his money bombs exploded and he forged a mass, youth-oriented movement, one that survived his campaign, and saw his oldest hobbyhorse, attacking the Federal Reserve, become almost mainstream.

Still, exciting as that disturbingly exhilarating feeling of having been, just maybe, on top of history can be, Paul’s rise to prominence is also, I confess, unnerving.

Various high-end libertarian luminaries—from Milton Friedman to Murray Rothbard—predicted that the appearance of crises for which libertarians had provided prescriptions and solutions would likely be key to public acceptance of libertarian governing principles. And indeed, in his CPAC talk Paul directly credited what public respect and attention he’s won since his failed presidential campaign to the fact that he predicted the current economic crisis, based on his understanding of Austrian business cycle theory and the dangers of low interest rates in causing boom-bust cycles.

Despite Paul’s cheery statement in the CPAC speech that he thinks the country could be a lot better off a year from now, the Paulite vision, if taken seriously, is pretty goddamn scary. It’s not scary because he’s scary, or because his ideas in application are inherently scary, but because he predicts very scary results from decades of government mistakes, overreach, and hubris. So much inflation, so much fiscal mismanagement, so much debt, so much imperial overreach, will, Paul regularly predicts, lead to a total collapse in the value of the dollar—a prospect that will have very dire effects for nearly all of us, nationally and internationally.

Despite his CPAC optimism, Paul told me earlier this week that “if we came to our senses,” avoiding collapse is “not difficult at all. You just allow a correction to occur, let bankruptcies and liquidation of debt happen, then we go back to work and produce and build a sound money and within a year or so everyone will be doing quite well.”

But he then admits that he doesn’t see the political possibility of that kind of hard, frugal sense coming to bear before it all comes down. More likely we’ll see “the catastrophic event that will come in the next several years because we are on the verge of it now. We can’t sustain this kind of deficit financing through the Federal Reserve.” A sovereign debt crisis awaits for the United States. As Paul notes (and as I tried to explain to Glenn Beck’s audience the other week), this does not mean the end of our ability to meet the economic needs of humans on Earth through production and trade. Not the end of the world per se; still, the collapse of the reigning system of money by which we exchange our title to wealth will be ugly and harm anyone who has tried to save in anything denominated in dollars.

So there’s a very good reason anyone with any skin in the game of the status quo—politician, commentator, or citizen—has to find it very difficult to take Paul seriously. That so many citizens and activists in the Tea Party movement are taking him seriously is scaring the establishment for good reason. Paul doesn’t just represent an opposition politician, he represents an absolute denial that “the system” makes any sense, has any justice, or is sustainable. It is this radical oppositionism that makes it so easy for standard issue pundits to just write his fans off as nuts and a bit scary.

Newsweek started to get at this important aspect of the Paul phenomenon, noting that “tea-partiers, Paulites, etc.─seem less interested in finding practical solutions to Washington's endemic problems than in tearing down Washington itself. As the 2010 elections approach, this nihilistic feeling will only grow stronger.”

That’s because the radical solutions that the Paul worldview demands—an end to overseas military adventurism, ending government’s ability to manipulate paper currency, severe cuts in spending on all the myriad income-shifting promises Washington has made the past 80 years—don’t register as “practical solutions” to (for lack of a better word) the establishment. They seem like nihilism, though they are actually a belief in the American Constitution.

Any standard Republican or movement conservative really can’t take Paul seriously without massive cognitive dissonance. You mean, we really really have to obey the Constitution, we really can’t keep borrowing and inflating forever? Signs like the CPAC vote of a significant number of politically active youngsters believing in Ron Paul are indeed a sign of an apocalypse of sorts for the world that most politicians and pundits know. If Ron Paul is right, then everything they know is wrong.

Senior Editor Brian Doherty is author of This is Burning Man (BenBella), Radicals for Capitalism (PublicAffairs) and Gun Control on Trial (Cato Institute).

LIQUIDATING THE EMPIRE

2010-02-23T20:36:00.000-08:00

Liquidating the Empire

by Patrick J. Buchanan

A decade ago, Oldsmobile went. Last year, Pontiac. Saturn, Saab and Hummer were discontinued. A thousand GM dealerships shut down.

To those who grew up in a "GM family," where buying a Chrysler was like converting to Islam, what happened to GM was deeply saddening.

Yet the amputations had to be done – or GM would die.

And the same may be about to happen to the American Imperium.

Its birth can be traced to World War II, when America put 16 million men in uniform and sent millions across the seas to crush Nazi Germany and Japan. After V-E and V-J Day, the boys came home.

But with the Stalinization of half of Europe, the fall of China, and war in Korea came NATO and alliances with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan and Australia that lasted through the Cold War.

In 1989, however, the Cold War ended dramatically with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the retirement of the Red Army from Europe, the break-up of the Soviet Union and Beijing's abandonment of world communist revolution.

Overnight, our world changed. But America did not change.

As Russia shed her alliances and China set out to capture America's markets, Uncle Sam soldiered on.

We clung to the old alliances and began to add new allies. NATO war guarantees were distributed like credit cards to member states of the old Warsaw Pact and former republics of the Soviet Union.

We invaded Panama and Haiti, smashed Iraq, liberated Kuwait, intervened in Somalia and Bosnia, bombed Serbia, and invaded Iraq again – and Afghanistan. Now we prepare for a new war – on Iran.

Author Lawrence Vance has inventoried America's warfare state.

We spend more on defense than the next 10 nations combined.

Our Navy exceeds in firepower the next 13 navies combined. We have 100,000 troops in Iraq, 100,000 in Afghanistan or headed there, 28,000 in Korea, over 35,000 in Japan and 50,000 in Germany. By the Department of Defense's "Base Structure Report," there are 716 U.S. bases in 38 countries.

Chalmers Johnson, who has written books on this subject, claims DOD is minimizing the empire. He discovered some 1,000 U.S. facilities, many of them secret and sensitive. And according to DOD's "Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country," U.S. troops are now stationed in 148 countries and 11 territories.

Estimated combined budgets for the Pentagon, two wars, foreign aid to allies, 16 intelligence agencies, scores of thousands of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our new castle-embassies: $1 trillion a year.

While this worldwide archipelago of bases may have been necessary when we confronted a Sino-Soviet bloc spanning Eurasia from the Elbe to East China Sea, armed with thousands of nuclear weapons and driven by imperial ambition and ideological hatred of us, that is history now.

It is preposterous to argue that all these bases are essential to our security. Indeed, our military presence, our endless wars and our support of despotic regimes have made America, once the most admired of nations, almost everywhere resented and even hated.

Liquidation of this empire should have begun with the end of the Cold War. Now it is being forced upon us by the deficit-debt crisis. Like GM, we can't kick this can up the road any more, because we have come to the end of the road.

Republicans will fight new taxes. Democrats will fight to save social programs. Which leaves the American empire as the logical lead cow for the butcher's knife.

Indeed, how do conservatives justify borrowing hundreds of billions yearly from Europe, Japan and the Gulf states – to defend Europe, Japan and the Arab Gulf states? Is it not absurd to borrow hundreds of billion annually from China – to defend Asia from China? Is it not a symptom of senility to borrow from all over the world in order to defend that world?

In their Mount Vernon declaration of principles, conservatives called the Constitution their guiding star. But did not the author of that constitution, James Madison, warn us that wars are the death of republics?

Under Bush II, conservatives, spurning the wisdom of their fathers, let themselves be seduced, neo-conned into enlisting in a Wilsonian crusade that had as its declared utopian goal "ending tyranny in our world."

How could conservatives whose defining virtue is prudence and who pride themselves on following the lamp of experience have been taken into camp by the hustlers and hucksters of empire?

Yet, now that Barack Obama has embraced neo-socialism, Republicans are about to be given a second chance. And just as Rahm Emanuel said liberal Democrats should not let a financial crisis go to waste, but exploit it to ram through their agenda, the right should use the opportunity of the fiscal crisis to take an axe to the warfare state.

Ron Paul's victory at CPAC may be a sign the prodigal sons of the right are casting off the heresy of neoconservatism and coming home to first principles.

STATE vs FEDERAL: The Nullification Movement

2010-02-19T00:33:00.000-08:00

State vs. Federal: The Nullification Movement

Written by Patrick Krey
Thursday, 18 February 2010 01:00

“Are we going to be free men or are we going to be slaves to the federal government of the United States?” retired state trooper and current State Delegate Charles W. Carrico, Sr. asked of the 1,000-strong rally gathered on the steps of the Virginia state capitol in January. While the like-minded crowd reacted with enthusiasm, such a rhetorical question might strike the average American as overdramatic. Are U.S. citizens really becoming “slaves to the federal government”?

There can be no mistake that the present-day federal government bears little resemblance to the extremely limited national government designed by our Founders, where the majority of domestic governing was to be left to the state and local levels. Fast forward 200-plus years and now Americans face a seemingly unstoppable centralized leviathan based out of Washington. Consider the following mind-blowing facts about the current U.S. government:

With about 2.0 million civilian employees, the federal government, excluding the Postal Service, is the nation’s largest employer.

The U.S. national debt is fast approaching $12.4 trillion, and Congress raised the debt limit by $1.9 trillion on February 4, opening the door for our debt to go above $14 trillion.

Abroad, more than 190,000 U.S. troops and 115,000 civilian employees are massed in approximately 900 military facilities in 46 countries and territories, not to mention the 130,000 in Iraq and soon-to-be over 100,000 in Afghanistan.

The enormous size of the federal government is not very popular either. A Gallup poll conducted last September found that more than half of Americans believe that “the federal government has too much power.” Unpopularity aside, keep in mind that history has well established that government cannot grow without a corresponding decline in the economy, peace, and the rule of law. One need look no further than past empires to see what fate awaits a citizenry that concentrates all its power in one central government. How is it then that the U.S. government has morphed from a limited Republic designed by the Constitution to a virtually all-powerful behemoth? How did the Constitution, which was designed to carefully define and limit the powers of the national government, become an open-ended grant of power to that very same government? Perhaps an answer can be found in the U.S. Supreme Court, the entity “conventional wisdom” believes is entrusted with the sole power to interpret the Constitution.

A federal government website, “Ben’s Guide to U.S. Government,” contains a cartoon version of Ben Franklin explaining how our current system of government works. The site includes the following proclamation: “One of the Supreme Court’s most important responsibilities is to decide cases that raise questions of constitutional interpretation. The Court decides if a law or government action violates the Constitution.… Since the Supreme Court stands as the ultimate authority in constitutional interpretation, its decisions can be changed only by another Supreme Court decision or by a constitutional amendment.” (Emphasis added.)

What’s wrong with this you might ask? New York Times best-selling author and historian Thomas Woods provided the answer clearly and concisely at the Campaign for Liberty’s January 15 regional meeting when he discussed the views of Thomas Jefferson: “Jefferson’s concern was that if we say the federal government has a monopoly on interpreting the Constitution, what do you think is going to happen? This is not brain surgery. If they have a monopoly on interpreting the Constitution, they’re going to interpret it in their own favor. Surprise! Then we all scratch our heads and wonder, ‘Why has the government gotten so completely out of control?’” Woods hammered home how completely preposterous it is for the Supreme Court to have the sole and final say on the extent of federal power with the following analogy: “If you enter into a contract with somebody, never, ever would you say that the other party in the contract can exclusively interpret what it means…. Obviously, if only one party in a contract can interpret it, it’s going to interpret it in its own favor!”

The Rise of the “Tenthers”

Proponents of the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution have been starting to rise up en masse to remind the national government of its proper constitutional role under the principles of federalism. This loose network of activists, widely referred to as the state sovereignty movement or Tenth Amendment movement, were given the derisive nickname “tenthers” by detractors, but in a witty reversal, they gladly adopted the label. The Tenth Amendment Center, the major hub online for state sovereignty activism, has even renamed its blog, “the tenther grapevine.”

Typically, the response by some of the biggest names in the news media has been to actively disparage anyone who strictly adheres to the original understanding of the U.S. Constitution. David Shuster of MSNBC proclaimed that most “people in their right-thinking mind know that the Tenth Amendment is a bunch of baloney.”

Fellow MSNBC news anchor Lawrence O’Donnell, filling in for Keith Olberman, also raged against what he ridiculed as “tenthers” — individuals who believe in the Jeffersonian principles of a government limited to the powers specifically enumerated within the four corners of our founding document: “The tenther movement ... erroneously claims that the federal government cannot force changes in health care law on the states.”

In O’Donnell’s view, anyone who would make such a claim is clearly ignorant and trying to dredge up areas that are now settled law. But what can be more settled than the fact that words have meaning, and the Constitution means what it says? Consider the clear language of the 10th Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Yet Supreme Court justices and others ignore and circumvent language such as this, based on the absurd theory that the Constitution must be constantly redefined to fit our “enlightened times,” with the power of constitutional interpretation vested solely with the federal government.

O’Donnell and similar critics should read some of the speeches of our seventh Vice President, John C. Calhoun, who warned that such a viewpoint would destroy the Republic and pave the way for tyranny. Calhoun addressed this directly in his Fort Hill address:

Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or a consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting ultimately on the solid basis of the sovereignty of the States or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, and violence, and force must finally prevail. Let it never be forgotten that, where the majority rules without restriction, the minority is the subject; and that, if we should absurdly attribute to the former the exclusive right of construing the Constitution, there would be, in fact, between the sovereign and subject, under such a government, no Constitution, or, at least, nothing deserving the name, or serving the legitimate object of so sacred an instrument.

Calhoun was but one of many of the most prominent advocates of state sovereignty throughout American history who were true believers in limited government. (For more of a historical explanation, see our article "Nullification in a Nutshell.")

Early last year, tenthers were instrumental in getting a number of state legislatures to introduce 10th Amendment resolutions that, while legally non-binding, not only invoked the 10th Amendment but stated: “This resolution serves as Notice and Demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.”

Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key was on the ground floor of the modern state sovereignty movement when it first started way back in the early ’90s, and was successful last year in getting a new 10th Amendment resolution passed in the house legislature in Oklahoma. In an interview with The New American, Key explained the educational importance of the 10th Amendment resolutions. “I feel very strongly about this system of government that we have as it was originally created. I feel very strongly about how we have moved far away from that and that we need to return to it. I saw the resolution as both a statement and a tool for informing and educating people but primarily as a first step to correct the problem.” Key explains that this first step is similar to a landlord delivering a notice of eviction to a tenant who has violated the terms of his lease. “If you’ve got a tenant that’s not paying rent, you don’t just show up one day with an empty truck. First, you serve notice. That’s how we see these resolutions, as a notice to the federal government. And there definitely will be follow up.” So that brings us to the next step: nullification.

No one ever accused the feds of being good listeners, so when some states passed these state sovereignty resolutions, the feds continued merrily on their unconstitutional path. States, however, are no longer just rolling over. Something exciting and unexpected is happening. States across the nation are either passing statutes or proposing amendments that directly conflict with federal statutes.

State nullification is actually an elaborate term for a simple concept that is taught to young children. When a child has a problem with another child who is verbally teasing him or her, they are often told “ignore them and they’ll go away.” State nullification basically follows this same directive. If the feds pass a law that a state deems to be outside the boundaries of its proper constitutional authority, the state will simply ignore the law and refuse to comply with it. This might sound revolutionary to some, but it shouldn’t. It’s already happened.

Nullification Illustrations• The REAL ID Act: REAL ID was passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by then-President George W. Bush in 2005, and the resistance to it illustrates a likely scenario for state nullification. More than two dozen states have passed laws or resolutions denouncing the act or refusing to comply with it. Have the feds responded by sending in federal agents with their guns blazing? Absolutely not! Instead, the feds were all too quick to chicken out and postpone enactment of the law. Michael Boldin, founder of the influential Tenth Amendment Center, writes, “Another indicator of victory for state-level nullification — the 2005 Real ID act was originally to be implemented in early 2008, and today, it’s still in limbo. Going on 2 years later, with more than two dozen states passing laws and resolutions denouncing or flat-out refusing to comply — and D.C. has no choice but to continue backing off…. Why? With such massive resistance among the states, the Feds just have no way to enforce it.”

REAL ID seems to have just been the start. As the nullification cat is out of the bag, states all across the nation are attempting to nullify federal laws covering such disparate topics as healthcare and firearms.

• Healthcare: Wisconsin’s Grandsons of Liberty and other groups began lobbying state legislators to pursue healthcare nullification by proposing an amendment to the Wisconsin state constitution allowing the state to opt out of government healthcare. This effort isn’t unique to Wisconsin, as activists in 28 other states are also involved in similar actions.

The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that members of at least 18 legislatures are submitting bills that would oppose or limit all or parts of federal healthcare reform efforts. Delegate Robert G. Marshall, the sponsor of Virginia legislation that would nullify Democratic healthcare legislation, said, “If this starts to roll across the United States, it’s going to send a big signal to Congress: You are messing with things you have no power to do.”

In Missouri, on January 13, 30 lawmakers and Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder joined a rally at the state capitol to endorse an amendment to the state Constitution that would nullify any national healthcare plan that makes it mandatory for Americans to purchase health insurance. The Missouri amendment states:

No law or rule shall compel, directly or indirectly or through penalties or fines, any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system. A person or employer may pay directly for lawful health care services and shall not be required to pay penalties or fines for paying directly for lawful health care services. A health care provider may accept direct payment for lawful health care services and shall not be required to pay penalties or fines for accepting direct payment from a person or employer for lawful health care services. Subject to reasonable and necessary rules that do not substantially limit a person’s options, the purchase or sale of health insurance in private health care systems shall not be prohibited by law or rule.

The idea to amend state constitutions to nullify federal healthcare legislation first started at the Goldwater Institute in the state of Arizona, where it will be on the ballot later this year. Clint Bolick, a lawyer at the Goldwater Institute who helped devise the idea, said, “The measures are an opportunity for people to make their views known in a tangible way, to generate some rumble at the grass roots.… Our system of federalism was designed to ensure that the federal government acts only within the boundaries of its defined powers and that states may give broader protection to individual liberty than does the federal Constitution. The system can endure only if its principles are applied consistently.”

This is just the beginning according to Wisconsin activist Tim Dake in an interview with The New American. He and the Grandsons of Liberty have their sights set on other targets for nullification. “Our group has actually hammered out a 12-item agenda we would like to see done legislatively in Wisconsin over the next two years. We’re interested in a healthcare freedom amendment to nullify nationalized healthcare but we also want to nullify cap and trade, card check, as well as passing laws like the federal firearms freedom act.”

• Firearms Freedom Act: While nullification legislation spreads like a wildfire, perhaps no other issue has generated as much controversy and excitement as the Firearms Freedom Act (FFA), which has been passed in Montana and Tennessee, has been proposed in Wyoming, and is being considered in 10 other states. The FFA openly challenges the federal contention that it has the authority to regulate firearms under the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, by declaring that any firearms made and retained in-state are beyond the authority of Congress under its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the states.

The Montana FFA states that a “personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in Montana and that remains within the borders of Montana is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce. It is declared by the legislature that those items have not traveled in interstate commerce.”

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) informed all licensed arms dealers via an open letter that such legislation is unconstitutional under the supremacy clause. Government lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief in federal court against the FFA.

Timothy Baldwin, attorney and son of the 2008 Constitution Party presidential candidate Pastor Chuck Baldwin, is co-counsel in the federal litigation to validate the Montana FFA. In an interview with The New American, Timothy Baldwin explained what he thought of the -BATFE’s response that the supremacy clause preempts any state legislation in this area. “That is simply an incorrect political position based upon the very nature and character of the Union in 1787. When the Ratifiers ratified the compact, it was understood to be what they called both concurrent powers and lines of sovereignty. The states were left with powers they did not concede. This was expressed through The Federalist Papers. When the federal government usurps those powers, it is the right of those people of those states to defend and repel those encroachments.”

Possible Pitfalls

This is not to say that all is rosy and state nullification is on its way to restoring our constitutional republic. A number of nullification laws have been vetoed by Governors or stalled in state legislatures. If nullification is going to succeed, many in the movement have to be wise about their next steps. The state nullification movement definitely does have major obstacles obstructing its goal of returning the federal government to its constitutional limits.

Some activists are heading down the fruitless path of endless legal challenges in federal courts to validate their state nullification legislation. The Montana Shooting Sports Association and the Second Amendment Foundation filed a lawsuit in federal court to uphold the principles and terms of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act. While good-hearted, these groups are unnecessarily expending their time and energy. Just as Thomas Woods explained at the Campaign for Liberty conference, entrusting one party (the federal government) with the sole power to interpret a contract (U.S. Constitution) is the problem. Most observers familiar with the centralizing nature of the federal courts would be shocked if the courts suddenly did a complete 180 and ruled that an act like the Freedom Firearms Act was constitutional. This was exactly why citizens took their battles to the state legislatures. If Montanans were serious about their sovereignty, they would simply start following the terms of the Freedom Firearms Act and ignore any federal directives.

This brings us to the next and biggest problem: How will the feds retaliate if states do start ignoring federal laws? The most likely scenario if states refuse to comply with federal mandates is the often used tactic of “power of the purse.” An example of the feds using funding as an incentive for a state to play ball is the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which required the states to uniformly raise their ages for purchase and public possession to 21 by October 1986 or lose 10 percent of their federal highway funds. The states all complied, and the rest is history. If states start resisting federal direction, the feds will utilize this tactic of threatening to bankrupt the states to silence the opposition. Can the feds blackmail the states into compliance?

Many of the 10th Amendment resolutions contain a reference to the U.S. Supreme Court’s case New York v. United States, as precedent that the federal government cannot “commandeer States into the service of federal regulatory purpose” via funding. While Justice Sandra Day O’Connor did make this statement in her opinion, it was in regard to a specific clause of federal regulation that actually would have forced the states to “take title” to radioactive waste. The Court actually did rule that two other funding-related clauses were constitutional under the taxing and spending clause of the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, in Fullilove v. Klutznick, the Court has ruled that “Congress has frequently employed the Spending Power to further broad policy objectives by conditioning receipt of federal moneys upon compliance by the recipient with federal statutory and administrative directives.” Tenthers have another think coming if they think federal precedent is on their side.

Timothy Baldwin is concerned, but told The New American that such action will be more detrimental to the feds in the long run. “Certainly the strings that are attached to federal funding are conditioned on the states going along. They may attempt to use that, but what I believe is that they will reveal their hand. They’re revealing that they are using federal funding as a method of enslaving the states. They will no longer have good faith in governing through the Constitution but rather are simply looking out for the power of the federal government. I think it will unravel for the federal government the more and more they press the issue.”

But will state residents support this if they’ll lose out on what many perceive as free cash? How would state residents react if a state that passes a healthcare nullification amendment loses out on all federal funding for popular programs?

Besides hoping to make D.C. appear like an extortionist by withholding federal funding, there is also another tactic states may use. A proposed state law entitled State Sovereignty and Federal Tax Funds Act, which has already been introduced in three states, would enable the states to interpose themselves between the federal tax collectors and state citizens. According to the Tenth Amendment Center, such “laws would require that all federal taxes come first to the state’s Department of Revenue. A panel of legislators would assay the Constitutional appropriateness of the Federal Budget, and then forward to the federal government a percentage of the federal tax dollars that are delineated as legal and Constitutionally justified. The remainder of those dollars would be assigned to budgetary items that are currently funded through federal allocations and grants or returned to the people of the state.” A bold move like this might stop the flow of money to the feds before they could even use it to force the states into submission. Again, tenthers will need to be wise about how they handle the political gamesmanship with the feds because they risk alienating the average voter if their tactics are too aggressive or confrontational. Perhaps even the threat of such legislation might be enough to make the feds back off on their threats of cutting off funds.

Finally, another potential pitfall lies in the possibility of someone taking the state nullification movement too far in the wrong direction. The goal of nullification should simply be inaction when the feds want action; however, some newer nullification legislation has become more forceful. A Firearms Freedom Act has been introduced in New Hampshire that contains the following clause:

Any official, agent, or employee of the government of the United States, or employee of a corporation providing services to the government of the United States that enforces or attempts to enforce a act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States upon a personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in New Hampshire and that remains within the State of New Hampshire shall be guilty of a class B felony.

The bill’s prime sponsor, state Representative Daniel Itse, said, “This is about protecting the rights of our citizens when the federal government has no jurisdiction.” This is the first FFA in the nation where federal officials could be criminally prosecuted for trying to enforce federal firearms laws. While that might sound good to some, the states need to be cautious about appearing as the aggressor. One false move could tarnish the state sovereignty movement and forever damage the cause in the court of public opinion. The key to successfully using nullification is to expose the federal government as the aggressive, unconstitutional usurper, and states would be wise to not directly confront them.

The Future of Nullification

While many mainstream media news articles on nullification paint it as a GOP tactic of merely paying lip-service to their anti-Obama base, nullification legislation appears to be cutting across the political spectrum. Some legislation is not limited to causes typically associated with the conservative movement. For instance, there is state nullification in the areas of marijuana decriminalization, as well as efforts to bring National Guard units home from unconstitutional wars overseas.

The “Bring the Guard Home” legislation, currently introduced in seven states and active in 20, was initially proposed by a liberal activist, but it is now being embraced by the grass roots from all walks of life. The proposed legislation would simply require a state’s Governor, and/or the legislature, to evaluate the legality of orders for Guard deployments and first have an opportunity to either allow or deny the deployment. One can only imagine how popular such legislation will be considering that opposition to the war in Afghanistan has risen almost as high as 60 percent.

Many within the freedom movement are excited by the prospect of liberal grass-roots activists in blue states nullifying unconstitutional conservative federal actions, with conservative grass-roots activists in red states nullifying unconstitutional liberal federal actions.

If the tenthers continue to play it smart, there is a good chance the sovereignty movement will continue to thrive and grow. If it does, it will continue to spark debate over not only the proper separation of power between state and federal governments but who decides when the federal government oversteps its proper authority and how to rein in the federal government when it does overstep. All of America will be watching to see how the federal and state governments actually react to these measures. As more states become involved in the surging nullification movement, the feds will find themselves faced with a veritable uprising of noncompliant states. The strong potential for the nullification movement to move far beyond partisan politics means that even if control of the capital shifts back and forth among the two main political parties, D.C. might begrudgingly find itself limited to doing only what’s allowed in the Constitution.

Orignial Post: http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/constitution/2957-state-vs-federal-the-nullification-movement

TEA PARTY DUMPS GOP IN NEVADA AGAINST HARRY REID

2010-02-17T02:06:00.000-08:00

Tea Party to field candidate in battle for Harry Reid’s Senate seat

By Sun Staff (contact)
Saturday, Feb. 13, 2010 1:45 p.m.
Beyond the Sun
Tea Party of Nevada's Constitution, bylaws and officers
Sun Coverage
Sun politics coverage

Sun columnist Jon Ralston is reporting that the Tea Party has qualified as a third party in Nevada and will have a candidate in the Senate race to battle for the seat held by Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The party has filed a Certificate of Existence but needs to get 1 percent of the electorate to vote for its candidate in November to permanently qualify, according to the report.

Ralston reported that Jon Ashjian will be the Tea Party's U.S. Senate candidate on the November ballot. Ashjian still must declare his candidacy.

There are six other third-party candidates going through the verification process to appear on the ballot as U.S. Senate candidates — one Reform Party hopeful and five as independents, Ralston reported.

Reid's Republican challengers currently include former state Sen. Sue Lowden, former UNLV basketball star Danny Tarkanian and former state Assemblywoman Sharron Angle.

The news also comes two days after first-term Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki said he won't run for the U.S. Senate to unseat Reid. Krolicki said Thursday he will be seeking a second term as lieutenant governor.

According to the party's constitution, the Tea Party of Nevada will "promote this nation's founding principles of freedom, liberty and a small representative government. We believe that our government under both Democrat and Republican control has led to massive national debt, crushing deficits, increased taxes; while establishing a large and powerful federal government in a direct refutation of the founding ideals of America."

The Tea Party of Nevada's constitution, bylaws and officers are available here.

OBAMA DECLARES HE WILL RULE BY AUTHROITARIAN DECREE

2010-02-15T09:37:00.000-08:00

by
Kurt Nimmo
Original Post (http://www.infowars.com/obama-declares-he-will-rule-by-authoritarian-decree/).
Infowars.com
February 13, 2010

The Obama administration has announced it will now rule by fascist decree and ignore Congress and the American people. “With much of his legislative agenda stalled in Congress, President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities,” reports The New York Times. “We are reviewing a list of presidential executive orders and directives to get the job done across a front of issues,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff who is fond of cracking his knuckles in Obama’s face.

According to The New York Times, ruling in authoritarian fashion is normal and acceptable. “Any president has vast authority to influence policy even without legislation, through executive orders, agency rule-making and administrative fiat.”

In fact, Obama’s plan to rule by authoritarian decree is unconstitutional. Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution states: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” Article II, Section 3 states that the president may call Congress into emergency session during a national crisis.

In other words, rule buy fiat is treason. Another section of the Constitution covers treason. Article II, Section. 4 states: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Rahm Emanuel should be arrested and prosecuted for treason under federal statute, specifically Title 18 U.S.C. § 2. It states: “Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.”

Treason is spelled out in Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution. “The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason,” it states.

“White House officials said the increased focus on executive authority reflected a natural evolution from the first year to the second year of any presidency,” The New York Times continues.

Hitler exploited this “natural evolution” to turn Germany into a fascist dictatorship through executive orders. In fact, Reagan, Clinton and Bush the Lesser issued a flurry of executive orders that surpassed anything Hitler or Stalin issued.

Executive orders have been around since the beginning of the republic. George Washington issued a number of proclamations, dispositions and recommendations. For instance, a suggestion that a day of Thanksgiving take place on Thursday, November26, 1789. He was severely criticized for issuing a proclamation suggesting U.S. citizens joining or aiding the war between Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Britain and the Netherlands be prosecuted. George Washington’s proclamations, however, did not over rule legislation passed by Congress.

Executive orders did not really pick up steam until the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. During the invasion of the South for opposing the federal government, Lincoln issued a large number of executive orders allowing the federal military to steal land and turn prisoners of war into forced labor slaves.

The grand daddy of executive orders was Franklin Roosevelt. He issued 3,723 of them. Here is a sample. Roosevelt’s most notorious executive order was 6102. It permitted the federal government to steal all privately held gold in the United States.

Ronald Reagan issued 381 executive orders, more than George W. Bush. Clinton came close to Reagan. He issued 364. Reagan violated the Constitution directly when he issued Executive Order 12611 ordering “Assistance for Central American Democracies and the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance,” in other words providing assistance to the Contras, a violation of the Boland Amendment.

Clinton used executive orders to defy Congress and conduct a murder campaign against the people of Yugoslavia. Clinton also violated Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution when he bombed the European country. Article 1, Section 8 states that “Congress shall have power to… declare War,” not the president.

During the election, Obama not only said he would not issue executive orders but he would reverse those issued during the Bush era. On his very first day in office, Obama broke this pledge and implemented and signed into law Executive Order 13489 barring the release of presidential records (presumably including his birth certificate).

Obama also signed executive orders allowing Interpol to operate beyond the law in the United States and establishing the Council of Governors.

Obama will continue the process of rule by decree established by his predecessors. He will rule in the tradition of the Roman Second Triumvirate and the Lex Titia decree under Gaius Octavian, general Mark Antony and pontifex maximus Aemilius Lepidus.

It should be noted that the resolution paved the way for the Final War of the Roman Republic and the total collapse of republican government.

NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE MISSES KEY STRATEGIC POINT

2010-02-12T21:13:00.000-08:00

National Right to Life Misses Key Strategic Point

Written by Warren Mass

Friday, 12 February 2010 09:52

In the January issue of the National Right to Life News, National Right to Life Committee President Wanda Franz noted in her From the President column, “January 22: Why We Must Be Pro-Life”: “There are only two ways to undo the Supreme Court’s miscarriage of justice: either amend the Constitution or have the Supreme Court see the light and reverse Roe v. Wade and its progeny.” (Emphasis added.)

Dr. Franz continued:

A constitutional amendment is a very difficult process. Realistically, there is currently little chance that pro-lifers could overcome the very high hurdles that any amendment attempt faces in the foreseeable future.

It is more promising to pursue the route of the Court reversing itself on abortion. The progress made under President George W. Bush in reshaping the Court in a pro-life direction has temporarily been halted with the election of President Barack Obama, the most pro-abortion president yet. Progress will resume when we elect a pro-life president and a filibuster-proof pro-life Senate in order to put Constitution-oriented justices on the Court.

The politically naïve observer might take Dr. Franz’s statement at face value, unless he or she is made aware of a third option to cancel the effects of Roe v Wade — an option that is far more feasible politically that the two cited. To understand how this option works also requires an understanding of an important part of the Constitution, Article III, Section 2:

Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States....

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. [Emphasis added.]

In other words, Congress has the power to except (remove) jurisdiction from the Supreme Court to hear appeals brought to it from lower courts.

Moreover, far from being a theoretical point of discussion in a constitutional law class, a proposal to remove the Supreme Court’s ability to hear cases pertaining to abortion is already embodied in legislation that has been introduced in the House of Representatives.

On January 14, 2009, U.S. Representative (and M.D.) Ron Paul (R-Texas) introduced H. R. 539, “To limit the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, and for other purposes”) in the House. Dr. Paul was joined by Representatives Walter B. Jones, Jr. (R-N.C.), and Ted Poe (R-Texas) as cosponsors. After summarizing the provisions in the Constitution giving Congress the power to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts, H.R. 539 proposes:

The Supreme Court of the United States and each Federal court —
(1) shall not adjudicate —
(A) any claim involving the laws, regulations, or policies of any State or unit of local government relating to the free exercise or establishment of religion;
(B) any claim based upon the right of privacy, including any such claim related to any issue of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction; or
(C) any claim based upon equal protection of the laws to the extent such claim is based upon the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation; and
(2) shall not rely on any judicial decision involving any issue referred to in paragraph (1). [Emphasis added.]

If passed, the above legislation would negate Roe v. Wade, which decision included the following majority opinion:

The principal thrust of appellant's attack on the Texas statutes is that they improperly invade a right, said to be possessed by the pregnant woman, to choose to terminate her pregnancy. Appellant would discover this right in the concept of personal "liberty" embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause; or in personal, marital, familial, and sexual privacy said to be protected by the Bill of Rights or its penumbras ... or among those rights reserved to the people by the Ninth Amendment. [Emphasis added.]

With such a politically viable alternative available to the pro-life movement, one wonders why pro-life leaders would continue to waste their members' time and their valuable resources — acquired though the relentless sacrifices of their hundreds of thousands of grass-roots members — to place all their bets on sending Republicans to the White House.

As for our most recent “pro-life” Republican President, where was George W. Bush every time the Right to Life Marchers were in Washington? Up on the platform with the bishops, priests, Christian pastors, Jewish rabbis, Members of Congress, and other dignitaries? No, he was hiding out at Camp David, where his telephone call was piped through to the marchers standing out in the cold.

Dr. Franz’s statement that “there are only two ways to undo the Supreme Court’s miscarriage of justice” is rendered all the more significant by the fact that the Washington, D.C.-based National Right to Life Committee is the largest pro-life organization in the United States, with over 3,000 local chapters in all 50 states. It was founded in 1973 in response to Roe v. Wade. But in comparison with other national pro-life organizations, NRLC is much more closely engaged with legislative issues in our nation’s capitol, and has been known to take a more pragmatic approach to getting less-than-perfect pro-life legislation passed, sometimes to the consternation of other pro-life leaders.

Among the other pro-life leaders who have voiced criticism of NRLC is Judie Brown, president and co-founder of the American Life League. Brown’s dissatisfaction with NRLC’s willingness to compromise at times was apparent in her answer to a question posed by a visitor to the EWTN website’s Question and Answers forum on October 25, 2002. The questioner asked, in part:

I just received the October issue of the National Right To Life News, in which just about the entire issue is devoted to the important upcoming Congressional Election. Here is my dilemma: I live in Connecticut's 4th district, where my Republican candidate is Christopher Shays. He only scored 6% on the "score-card" included in the NRL News. I cannot in good conscience vote for a candidate that is as pro-abortion as he is. I read Dr. Franz's article about the preference of voting for viable candidates that are mostly pro-life, rather than 100% pro-life third-party candidates that don't have a chance of being elected.

Mrs. Brown noted, in part:

Your question is very difficult because it is based on an assumption that if the Republicans retain control of the House and gain control of the Senate, more pro-life legislation will have a chance of being passed. But what if the majority of those who are Republicans are either pro-abortion, somewhat pro-abortion or only against certain types of abortion? How much progress will the babies make in such an atmosphere?

I wonder: What is the good of maintaining a certain party's control when its members have no problem with supporting the gruesome act of aborting children?

Could it be that some in the pro-life movement have become so political that the goal is no longer personhood but rather Republican Party control?

One finds it difficult to believe that an individual with a doctorate degree and 37 years’ experience in leading a pro-life organization could be unaware of the legislative strategy proposed by Dr. Ron Paul. In view of Dr. Franz’s glaring oversight in ignoring the political strategy with the best chance of removing the effects of Roe v. Wade, one wonders if such oversight is not inadvertent, but also part of NRLC’s agenda to help the Republican Party maintain control in Washington — at the expense of the success that pro-lifers have worked for for almost four decades.

Any pro-life organization worth its salt should make encouraging their members to put pressure on their congressional representatives to cosponsor H.R. 539 part of their agenda. Those who do not do so should be strongly suspected of pulling their punches, for reasons that remain unclear.

Original Post: http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/constitution/2927-national-right-to-life-misses-key-strategic-point

A Question For Glenn Beck

2010-02-12T04:10:00.000-08:00

A Question for Glenn Beck on Global Warming and Conspiracy

11. Feb, 2010 Written by: Michael Boldin

Glenn:I’m under the impression that you consider the science behind global warming to be inaccurate, and that the efforts to promote it include hiding truth. A grand conspiracy, of sorts.

On your TV show in November, 2009, you said:

Count them. There’s Jones, Mike, Keith, Gene and Caspar, whoever they are. Potentially deleting emails supposedly about supposed science. So why all the secrecy?

You went on:

“Deleting emails. Hiding declines. Incorrect Data. Inadequate systems. Redefining scientific peer reviews for their own uses. This is what appears to be going on behind the scenes. And literally trillions of dollars of policy decisions are being based on what these guys are telling us. If your gut said “wait a minute, this global warming thing, it sounds like a scam” – well, I think you’re seeing it now”.

The whole story sounds like a massive conspiracy to give the government an excuse to pass cap and trade, to impose restrictions on business and individual choice, to aggrandize themselves with more money and power. It wouldn’t really surprise me.

That is what government does in the United States. In fact, it’s things like this that made me realize that neither Democrats or Republicans in D.C. had any respect for your freedom or for the Constitution. That was a driving force behind launching the Tenth Amendment Center, which I founded in mid-2006.

But, you know what? I’m not a detective, and I don’t have time to study the science, the clues, the mystery behind global warming or the global warming swindle as many people call it. So, if you had me on your TV show (sorry I wasn’t available when your producers asked last year, but I think my recommendation for a substitute worked out great!), and asked me:

“Michael – do you believe in this global warming scam, do you believe what the mainstream scientists are telling us about global warming – yes or no!?”

I’d have to answer this way:

“I’ve heard a lot of reports from reputable people on both sides of that issue. There are some very good arguments, and I think the American people have not seen all of the evidence there, so I have not taken a position on that. What I do know is this, I don’t trust the government to tell me the truth.”

In response, would you then say that you’re “writing me off” and “writing the Tenth Amendment Center off” because I haven’t taken a position on this – and that a better source for state sovereignty information is now the Huffington Post?”

Well, that’s basically what you did with Debra Medina on your program this week (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oQuTEF9ba2s&hl=en&gl=CA&client=mv-google). The one person in the Texas campaign who’s had the courage to speak out about the Constitution, about nullification and interposition, about the founders, about the principles of liberty that this country was founded upon. That one person is “written off” by you because she hasn’t “taken a position on” a conspiracy theory that may or may not be of interest to her or her campaign? [emphasis and youtube link added]

Wow. Obviously the Constitution isn’t very important to you. A person’s stance on a conspiracy theory is. Or maybe this is just your way of trying to marginalize one of the few candidates in the entire country running their whole campaign on the original view of the Constitution.

Is that it, Glenn? Because it sure seems that way.

Maybe the real conspiracy isn’t 9-11 or Global Warming or anything of the sort. Maybe it’s all about the establishment media, and people like yourself – is this your way of letting the hardcore constitutionalists out here know that you really prefer the establishment candidates?

What should be more important is a person’s stance on the Constitution. In fact, that’s ALL that voters should care about. Not their race, their background, their religious views, their positions on conspiracies or anything else. People are elected to follow the constitution – and nothing more.

What’s more important to you, Glenn – a person’s stance on the Constitution or their view of a conspiracy theory?Don’t bother answering. You already have.

Michael Boldin is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. He was raised in Milwaukee, WI, and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.

Originally posted at http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2010/02/a-question-for-glenn-beck-on-global-warming-conspiracy/

Secession in the Air

2010-02-12T03:23:00.000-08:00

by Patrick J. Buchanan

No, it is not 1860 again.

But with all the talk of the 10th Amendment, nullification and interposition, states rights and secession – following Gov. Rick Perry's misstatement that Texas, on entering the Union in 1845, reserved in its constitution a right to secede – one might think so.

Chalk up another one for those Tea Party activists who exploded in cheers when Sister Sarah brought up the dread word in endorsing Rick Perry in the primary.

Looking back in American history, however, these ideas, these sentiments, decried as insane inside the Beltway, were once as American as "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere."

"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical," wrote Thomas Jefferson to James Madison from Paris in January 1787, about Revolutionary War Capt. Daniel Shay's anti-tax rebellion in Massachusetts.

In the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, both of these founding fathers sanctioned the idea that states could interpose their own sovereignty and nullify acts of Congress. Both were enraged by the Alien and Sedition Acts of John Adams and the Federalists, written into law to combat sedition during the undeclared naval war with France.

On taking office, President Jefferson declared the acts unconstitutional, refused to prosecute those charged and freed the imprisoned writers.

In 1814, Timothy Pickering, another veteran of the revolution and secretary of state to both George Washington and Adams, was a force behind the Hartford Convention, which argued for New England's secession and reuniting with Great Britain. Massachusetts opposed Madison's War of 1812 that had caused the British blockade that destroyed their trade and prosperity.
The war's end and Jackson's victory at New Orleans, however, aborted the Hartford movement and finished off the Federalists forever.

In 1832, it was Vice President John Calhoun who inspired South Carolina to vote to nullify the Tariff of Abomination that was killing the cotton-exporting South and enriching Northern manufacturers. To the chagrin of Madison, Calhoun invoked his and Jefferson's Virginia and Kentucky resolutions in defense of Carolinian defiance.

In 1845, it was Massachusetts again. Ex-President John Quincy Adams declared that admission of Texas to the Union as a slave state might constitute grounds for secession and civil war.
With Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 and Republicans, the Northern party, assuming power, South Carolina, Georgia and the Gulf states seceded.

But not until after Fort Sumter, when Lincoln called for volunteers to march south and crush the rebellion, did Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas secede, rather than remain passive or participate in a war on their kinfolk.

Unlike the issues of yesteryear that tore the Union asunder, Tea Party issues are not sectional but national. Yet, they are rooted in a similar set of beliefs – that the federal government no longer serves their interests, but the interests of economic and political forces that sustain the party in power.

In 1860, the South saw power passing indefinitely to a new regime, a Republican Party that represented high-tariff industrialists and New England radicals and abolitionists who despised the agrarian South and celebrated the raid on Harper's Ferry by the terrorist John Brown, who had sought to incite a slave uprising, such as had occurred in Santo Domingo.
What called the Tea Party into existence?

Some are angry over unchecked immigration and the failure to control our borders and send the illegals back. Some are angry over the loss of manufacturing jobs. Some are angry over winless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some are angry over ethnic preferences they see as favoring minorities over them.

What they agree upon, however, is that they have been treading water for a decade, working harder and harder with little or no improvement in their family standard of living. They see the government as taking more of their income in taxes, seeking more control over their institutions, creating entitlements for others not them, plunging the nation into unpayable debt, and inviting inflation or a default that can wipe out what they have saved.

And there is nothing they can do about it, for they are politically powerless. By their gatherings, numbers, mockery of elites and militancy, however, they get a sense of the power that they do not have.

Their repeated reappearance on the national stage, in new incarnations, should be a fire bell in the night to the establishment of both parties. For it testifies to their belief and that of millions more that the state they detest is at war with the country they love.

The secession taking place in America is a secession of the heart – of people who have come to believe the government is them, and not us.

Obama's problem, like the Bushes' in 1992 and 2008, is that one thing these folks are really good at is throwing people out of power.

posted at http://www.lewrockwell.com/buchanan/buchanan129.html