The State of the Union in 1998 is such that protecting
ones individual rights from government usurpation is almost an
impossibility. Not only has the central government attempted to
legislate away many of our unalienable and Constitutional rights;
in many cases it has actually succeeded in redefining the meaning
of the terms used to describe these rights. This paper addresses
some of the more grievous inconsistencies between today's central
government and the Federal Government intended by the Founding
Fathers. It also discloses how many of these unconstitutional
changes in government came about, and how they have degraded the
freedom of the American people.
Whatever happened to the Rule
of Law?
Sure, we have all heard of it. But few Americans use the
term "Rule of Law" anymore for a very good reason. Except for
lawyers, not many of us have any idea what that term actually means.
Worse yet, some of us don't really care what it means. The term is
just not very useful for everyday conversation.
But we should care. There was a time, before about 1940,
when nearly every American citizen knew exactly what Rule of Law
indicated. And, they often demanded strict enforcement. You should be
very familiar with the term, too. It pertains to something very
precious to you: Your freedom. And today, we're desperately in
need of a resurgence in good old fashioned freedom from government
restraints.
One old political dictionary defines Rule of Law as "an
Anglo-American concept that emphasizes the supremacy of the law and
restricts the discretionary power of public officials. The Rule of
Law particularly stresses the protection of individual rights from
the arbitrary interference of officials." In other words, when
applied correctly, it protects your personal freedom. Not the
group rights the liberals and establishment media try to push,
but our individual rights and
liberties.
In The Road to Serfdom, Professor of Economics and Nobel
laureate F. A. Hayek says of the Rule of Law:
. . . this means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand -- rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan one's individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge.
Now do you see why we need to know more about the Rule of Law? Because it restricts the discretionary power of public officials. And yes, public officials are supposed to be controlled by
something other than the vote. It is the what that is supposed to limit the actions of public officials that has become foggy in the minds of many of today's American citizens. Luckily, the basics are quick and easy to learn.
Years ago, we used to say that we have "a government of law and
not of men." Back then, we expected our elected officials and
bureaucrats to stay within the boundaries set down in the law. That
is, Congress was not expected to pass unconstitutional laws, the
President and the Courts were expected to strictly enforce the Bill
of Rights, and your state and local officials would do only those
things outlined by your state constitution and/or city charter.
That is what our grandparents expected. The rights and liberties
of the individual citizen were supposed to be protected by
government. But, that was years ago. This is now. And things have
changed.
Today, there are so many things described as "rights" that the
meaning of the word has been totally corrupted. A right is something
which applies to everyone equally, like freedom of speech and
religion. The word "permission" should be used when the activity is
available to only a selected few -- such as licensing a special
group, collecting welfare, etc. -- and can be
revoked.
Among the protections citizens realize when they demand strict
interpretation of the Rule of Law is the American concept of freedom.
We all remember the words of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of
Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Jefferson took a little editorial liberty with the phrase "Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Consequently, if we modern
Americans are to fully understand our own personal rights and
liberties, this requires a little
explanation.
Back in the days of the Founding Fathers, every family was said to
have two well studied books in their homes. The most important best
seller around 1775, of course, was The Bible. The second best
seller in the Colonies was Blackstone's Commentaries on The
Law, then a new three volume set on English common law.
For the Founding Fathers, Blackstone's Commentaries was the
law book of the day. Of course, the writings of John Locke and others
were freely quoted too. But, they were theory. Blackstone's
was an accurately written description of the Law. Since then, it has
been used in every English speaking law school in the world. Even
today, a well read copy of Blackstone's Commentaries
can be found in any American law library.
Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, Alexander
Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin all studied Blackstone's
Commentaries at length, as did all of the Founders. That is
very evident in their writings. They quote and paraphrase the text
extensively.
So, it is no surprise that the phrase written by Jefferson in the
Declaration of Independence, is derived from Chapter One of
Book One of Blackstone's, titled Absolute Rights of
Individuals. Blackstone describes the absolute rights of
individuals as being our right to life, liberty and property.
Jefferson took the editorial liberty of changing "property" to
"pursuit of happiness," knowing full well that all Colonial Americans
would understand exactly what was meant.
It is us, today's Americans, who seem to have a problem with that
meaning. We Americans have lost the concept of true freedom because
we no longer know exactly what our rights are. In today's United
States, the word "rights" has been corrupted so completely that few
Americans any longer know the difference between procedural rights,
civil rights and our unalienable rights and liberties. However, the
basics can be learned in less than a minute, so let's examine a
little of Blackstone's original
text.
Sir William Blackstone defines our absolute rights as "those which
are so in their primary and strictest sense; such as would belong to
their persons merely in a state of nature, and which every man is
entitled to enjoy, whether out of society or in it." These rights
have also been called natural rights by some.
Blackstone then breaks these rights down into three basic
categories:
Life -- The Right of Personal Security:
"This right consists of a person's legal and uninterrupted
enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health and his
reputation." Herein can also be found your right of self defense.
Liberty -- The Right of Personal Liberty: "This consists
in the power of locomotion, of changing situation, of moving one's
person to whatever place one's own inclination may direct, without
imprisonment or restraint, unless by course of law." We find this
right protected, to a limited extent, within the body of our
Constitution, and further guaranteed within the Bill of
Rights.
Property -- The Right of Private Property: "This is the
third absolute right, and consists in the free use,
enjoyment and disposal by a man of all his acquisitions, without
any control or diminution, save only by the laws of the land."
Our Founding Fathers called these absolute rights
unalienable -- incapable of being given up, taken away, or
transferred to another. In Jefferson's first draft of The
Declaration of Independence, the word was conventionally spelled
inalienable. However, the newspaper editor among them, Benjamin
Franklin, thought unalienable sounded stronger. And, as they say, the
rest is history. Thus, the protection of Life, Liberty and Property
-- our natural, absolute and unalienable rights -- became the
underlying reason our country was formed.
There is, of course, a caveat here: As members of society,
we are required to respect these rights in all others. Therefore, the
most important reason we empower governments to make and enforce laws
is to insure that every person respects these rights of other
Americans.
The Federal Government is, of course, mandated to both respect and
protect these rights for all American citizens. In fact, the Founding
Fathers intended that the Federal Government have no power to violate
any of the individual rights, only to protect them. Towards this end,
the body of our Constitution was carefully crafted by the Founding
Fathers to allow the central government only certain enumerated
powers. Although it may not seem like it today -- with our hundreds
of thousands of pages of imposing laws, rules and regulations -- the
powers of the federal government were intended to be few, and the
freedoms of citizens were contemplated to be
many.
The basic reasons our federal government was formed can be found
outlined in the Preamble to our Constitution, which reads in
part:
. . . to form a more perfect Union, establish
Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common
defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings
of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity . . .
In other words, the expressed intent of forming a central
government was to insure a free, peaceful country in which to live,
work and raise a family.
Notice anything in the Preamble about regulating We the People
into submission? Of course not! Nor will you find anything within the
body of the Constitution. Furthermore, judging by the extensive
writings of the authors of our Constitution, that type of authority
was expressly forbidden to the Federal Government. It is hard to
believe today, but all policing powers (except for very few, such as
treason, piracy and counterfeiting) were intended to be left to the
states.
It was the Federal Government's duty, then, to not violate the
unalienable and Constitutional rights of the citizens. And, generally
speaking, it was the duty of the States to protect these rights. But,
as we said above, that was then, and this is now. Yet, there have
been no changes to the Constitution altering that arrangement. So,
the changes must have came about by other means.
Still today, the Rule of Law demands strict obedience of our
United States Constitution by all public officials. Should we be
surprised, then, that many of today's public officials find that term
embarrassing, and even repulsive?
It is because we Americans no longer study these most basic
tenants of human rights that we are losing them. After all, how may
we demand our individual rights be protected if we no longer know
exactly what they are? Consequently, we have developed a collectivist
society. A society in which group rights supersede individual rights.
A society in which the Marxist theory of "from each according to his
ability, to each according to his need" is usurping the original
American ideal of individual productivity and individual
responsibility.
The idea of group rights, group protections, and special
permissions for certain groups, is repugnant to the ideals set down
in our Constitution. The American ideal professes equal rights and
liberties for all, never special rights for any. But, along with
equal rights come equal responsibilities. And, accepting
responsibility for ones own actions is, in a nutshell, exactly what
the liberals among us are loath to accept.
Now that you have a general idea of the basic intent of the
Founding Fathers, we can move on to the methods used by the
bureaucracy to supplant our "unalienable" and Constitutional rights.
At this point, it is suggested that you actually read our United
States Constitution and take the time to become especially familiar
with Sections 8 through 10 of Article I, and the Bill of Rights.
The Usurping of our Unalienable
Rights
For the last sixty-five years, our federal government has
continually exhibited two very important predispositions:
These are a strong propensity towards steady growth, and the
accumulation and centralization of political power.
Of course, all of this growth and accumulation of power in
Washington comes from one source: We the People. This is
because, to put it simply, here in the United States all power
legally originates with the people. Put another way,
government cannot take a right away from us unless We the
People relinquish it.
Years ago, we called the ability to do as we wished "freedom."
And, back then, about the only caveat on our freedom was that we did
not bother others with our actions. But about eighty-five years ago,
this began changing. That is, starting about 1913, the federal
government began to centralize political power and hence, control
over the people.
The Founding Fathers designed a central government with authority
to conduct only eighteen basic functions. Their expressed intent was
that any powers not specifically delegated to the central government
by the Constitution were deliberately left to the states in general,
and to the people in particular. The Founders knew very well that
every law, rule and regulation passed by the central government would
decrease the rights and liberties of the people -- your personal
freedom. Therefore, they were very careful to give the national
government only those powers necessary for the country to function
effectively as a unit.
That has all changed. Today, freedom in these United States is
more or less a relative thing. Today's freedoms include only those
actions Congress and the regulatory bureaucracies wish to allow to
the people. That is, an American citizen is allowed to do something
only until Congress, or one of the administration's regulatory
agencies, decides to forbid it. Exactly how most of this happened
will be addressed later.
And what of those eighteen powers given to the federal government
by our Constitution? One, the regulation of money, has been totally
abdicated to a semi-private corporation known as the Federal Reserve
System. And, two others -- the protection of our borders and the
proper operation of the city of Washington, D.C. -- have become utter
failures.
George Mason University Professor of Economics Walter Williams
writes that these eighteen duties mandated to the federal government
by our Constitution would account for approximately one-third of the
federal budget. The other two-thirds of the federal budget is,
therefore, "extra-Constitutional" spending. In other words,
two-thirds of the hard earned money we are forced to send to
Washington every year is spent by the federal government with no
Constitutional authority.
So too with many laws passed by Congress. Today's Congress
legislates on even the most basic of human functions. One day it was
how fast we will be allowed to drive our automobiles. Another day it
was what we will be allowed to view on television. On yet another day
it was what we would be allowed to transmit over our telephone or via
computer networks, and send though the mails. Most recently, it's
regulating how much water each personal toilet may use per flush and
how senior citizens may spend their own personal money for medical
care. Among the most humorous, though, was a discussion of how toilet
paper was to be manufactured and marketed.
The point is that if certain members of today's Congress can
contemplate something affecting human existence, chances are quite
good that they will also attempt to regulate it. Complicating the
problem is the fact that the federal regulatory agencies are now
allowed to pass laws (regulations) on their own volition. Worse yet,
these unelected federal bureaucrats are now even levying taxes on the
American public, with no comment from Congress.
"How can they do that?" seems to be a popular question
nowadays. Which should be stated more correctly as, where did they
find the authority to legislate on that subject? Congress
makes up their own authority as they go along, is the only completely
correct answer. Congress invents its own authority. And now,
so do the regulatory agencies.
Often, Congress starts by legislating on a matter that might
actually be useful and desirable, but just borders on being outside
the authority given by the Constitution -- like welfare, for
instance. If the people do not complain too loudly, and the courts do
not immediately knock it down, they then carry it on ad
nauseam. And, as in the case of welfare, they tend to continue
adding to the law every year, until its original intent is utterly
corrupted, and the whole system becomes a total affront to our
Constitution.
Contrary to popular belief by many in Washington, the term
"Federalism" does not mean that the federal government is to
control everything. The states were intended to have most policing
powers, the central government very few. Were the Ninth and Tenth
Amendments to the Constitution enforced with the vigor of the First,
this situation would be rectified immediately. Instead, our country
is infected by a quagmire of many thousands of often conflicting
federal laws, rules and regulations.
It is also disturbing that there are so many volumes of
ever-changing federal law that no single person can ever learn it
all. On top of that, there are two-hundred and some thick books of
poorly written regulations, most of which also come with severe civil
and criminal penalties. These regulations are enforced by ninety-some
federal agencies, all of which are continually working on hundreds of
new rules and regulations.
In fact, unelected federal bureaucrats now write so much law that,
on average, it totals 70,000 pages of small print in the Federal
Register annually. And, because ignorance of the law is not an
acceptable defense, this is law that all Americans are required to
know and obey. Clearly, the federal regulatory bureaucracy is out of
hand.
Worse, many federal regulatory agencies use a recently invented
power called the "General Duty clause." This allows regulators to
invent a regulation, on the fly, when they come upon a specific
circumstance that they do not have a standard regulation to fit. In
other words, citizens can no longer only rely on the written law.
Americans must also be able to read the minds of the regulators in
order to conform to federal regulations. Obviously, the federal
government has gone far afield from the rule of law on which this
country was founded. Today's federal government is more akin to
regulatory despotism.
This is further complicated by the diabolical attitude of those
entrusted with enforcing the law. For instance, during Attorney
General Janet Reno's Senate conformation hearings, she was heard
agreeing with (then committee chairman) Senator Joseph Biden that
"ignorance of the law is no excuse." In other words, she (or Biden)
does not need to personally know all the laws (no single
person can), but we citizens can be imprisoned if we do not obey them
all.
And that is exactly the problem in a nutshell.
The analogy is that of a one way street down that slippery slope
of justice; a road which contains many turns of unexpected
consequences, and eventually leads down to the state of tyranny. For,
when the volume of law enacted by government far exceeds the ability
of the governed to comprehend, there is, in effect, no law. The
unexpected consequence, then, is selective
tyranny.
In The Federalist Papers No. 62 James Madison
admonishes:
It will be of little avail to the people that
the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so
voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they
cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before
they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no
man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be
tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can
that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?
Today's federal government is quite obviously not the government
intended by our Founding Fathers.
The IRS and the Downfall of our Bill of
Rights
Most Americans will long remember the IRS agents testifying about
their misdeeds before a Senate committee last year. They were hidden
from public view and even had their voices changed. Like Mafia
stoolies, they feared the retribution of their coworkers.
And well they should. The Internal Revenue Service is the meanest,
most obnoxious and ruthless of any of the federal agencies. It could
and should be abolished. But instead, it has the support of nearly
every elected official in Washington.
When the Sixteenth Amendment was debated in Congress, it was said
that "the federal income tax will never increase over 10%, and
would only approach that level for the most wealthy in the
country." What is your tax rate today?
Also, our federal income tax system is said by the government to
be "voluntary." That probably explains why so many IRS agents now
carry guns -- so we will immediately "volunteer" to contribute
whatever they instruct us to forfeit.
Clear thinkers will label them by their actions: An old
rule of thumb in political science teaches that when you transform a
crime-detecting police force into a crime-preventing
policing apparatus, you have created a police state. In a
dictatorship, or police state, organizations spy on the citizens
before they have been accused of committing a crime. In a free
society, there must first be reasonable suspicion that a citizen has
committed a crime before the policing agency may inquire. Somehow
this concept has been lost where federal taxes are concerned.
The Internal Revenue Service is plugged into nearly everything we
do. That agency does not secretly spy on citizens like the BATF, the
FBI and the spook agencies do. No, they are very out-front and
blatant about it. The IRS just outwardly demands that
taxpayers produce any and all information they want. It also demands
that others, such as banks, employers, credit reporting agencies,
auto dealers, etc., etc. also report all major taxpayer transactions
to them. The IRS also freely shares this information with other
federal government organizations. In other words, the IRS
historically displays zero respect for the Rule of Law, and thus, for
our United States Constitution.
The IRS's systematic contempt for our Constitution began years
ago, when Congress decided that Constitutional protections -- such as
our Fifth Amendment protection against self incrimination, and the
Fourth Amendment mandate that government agents first obtain a search
warrant before rifling through our private documents -- would not be
required for that agency. Consequently, today's IRS is able to do
just about anything it wishes.
As a result of this institutionalized contempt for American
citizens, today's IRS pretty much just physically takes
whatever it wants -- or puts a lien on it, in the case of real
property. IRS agents collect merit pay increases and bonuses based on
how much they collect, not on how much they legally collect.
The agency also pays many millions of dollars annually in rewards to
informants willing to spy on other citizens.
Recently, the IRS tried to pull another fast one on the American
public. The IRS commissioner released what they call "The Taxpayers
Bill of Rights." This so called bill of rights revolves around an
ombudsman, who is also under IRS employ. Their resulting text is
little more than pitiful pacification of Congress, and borders on a
complete sham. Perhaps it is time we again inform our Members of
Congress that we already have a Bill of Rights in our Constitution.
And that is the Bill of Rights -- the only Bill of
Rights -- federal officials must honor. Short of passing a
Constitutional amendment, there can be no exceptions.
That is the Rule of Law. Remember? No place in our Constitution is
there offered even a hint of permission for any government agency to
function in violation of our Bill of Rights. Nothing in any
succeeding Amendment canceled anything in the Bill of Rights.
Therefore, the first ten amendments remain the law of the land; that
is, if we citizens start to demand that they be enforced as such.
Another major injustice to the American public is that the
government is continually changing the tax laws. The 1995 version of
the Federal Tax Code was 1,378 pages in length. Income tax
regulations included another 6,439 pages. The explanation of the
above 7,817 pages of poorly written income tax law is 45,000 pages
long. Don't bother to try to read it all, though. You will not have
time.
Just last year, Congress decided to fix the tax code again.
Consequently, they added 285 new sections and amended 824 others.
And, of course, every American taxpayer is required to obey every
section.
As the Kemp Tax Commission reported last year, there were over
4,000 changes in the tax code within the last nine years alone. Panel
member Shirley Peterson, who is also a former IRS commissioner, was
quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying that the tax code
is so badly broken that "It can't be rescued."
She should know. She was a leader among the thousands of
bureaucrats who helped corrupt it. Being broken does not stop them
from imprisoning citizens for violations of that mess they call law,
though. The reader is referred again to the above James Madison
quote. Quite obviously, this is not the government intended by the
Founding Fathers.
All government officials take an oath to support and defend our
Constitution. So it is fair to ask any Member of Congress why the IRS
is not required to honor all of our Constitutional protections, as
well as their oath of office. Ten to one you will get a dirty look,
and no answer. But, if you are lucky enough to receive an
answer, the forthcoming rambling babble of rhetoric will probably be
a marvelous lesson in political side-stepping.
The dirty little secret is that everyone in Congress, the
administration and the courts know perfectly well that most actions
of the IRS are unconstitutional. What they are not willing to do is
put a stop to these blatant violations of our rights. It is a very
irritating fact to the Washington bureaucracy that the Sixteenth
Amendment was not designed to repeal anything that James
Madison wrote into the first ten.
Search and Seizure -- a new government
profit center
The White House, Department of Justice, CIA, National Programs
Office, National Security Agency, and the FBI are working in unison
on the passage of an unconstitutional bill to allow warrant-free
wiretaps of any and all civilian and commercial telephone lines (the
National Security Agency already does this) by the federal
government. It will pass.
In addition, the FBI informed Congress that it needs equipment to
tap 1,500,000 American telephones simultaneously. That is up
from a total of less than 1,200 wiretaps by all police
departments in the United States for the whole year of 1993. Congress
let the request pass, and funded the program.
At this writing, there are also at least four bills in Congress
forbidding encrypted computer and telephone messages by American
citizens. Originally, the administration pushed for the clipper chip,
a National Security Agency designed computer coding device to encrypt
computer messages sent out via computer networks. Public opinion
quickly squelched that idea because government was to keep the
decoding device. So now the administration is pushing the
anti-encryption bills. Their bureaucratic reasoning is that if we
citizens start encoding all our telephone calls and computer
transmissions to each other, Uncle Sam's police agencies cannot snoop
to see who is breaking the law.
For some reason, today's Washington bureaucrats seem to think that
spying on citizens is a right of government. Obviously, it has not
occurred to anyone in the White House, the spook agencies, or the
Department of Justice, that they have no authority to be snooping on
us in the first place. The bureaucratically inconvenient words in the
Fourth Amendment that supposedly limit their spying on citizens
are:
"The right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and
no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by
Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to
be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The operative words shall not seem rather understandable to
most people, just not to politicians and bureaucrats. Also, the
intent of the Founding Fathers was that every word of
our Constitution is to apply equally to every official in
government -- especially to the policing agencies and tax collectors.
So, who can be depended on to defend our Fourth Amendment, and our
right to privacy? Apparently, no one in Washington. Listen closely.
Do you hear any words of support for your individual rights,
liberties and privacy coming from your elected officials? Of course
not. Because the Rule of Law is dead, the Constitution is no longer
the law of the land.
What you will hear from those in the federal government is how we
must step-up the drug war, pass stiffer sentences, and God forbid one
of us look at a picture of an unclothed human body. And, oh yes, we
need stricter enforcement of all of those federal regulations, too.
You will not hear freedom mentioned. Rather, you will hear stricter
controls of the population proposed. Freedom is out. Rigid control of
the people is in.
Towards this end, President Clinton calls for a beefed-up FBI and
another 100,000 police officers on the streets. That's a start.
Clinton also suggested taking those mustered out of the down-sized
military and making them federal police officers. But, will this be
enough enforcement personnel? With all those federal regulations,
probably not.
So, there are two other plans afoot. First, all over the country,
junior colleges are training students to become state and federal
agency regulators -- 50 to 200 of them graduate from each school,
each semester. That is thousands of new regulators each year!
What do you suppose all these new bureaucrats will be doing?
Second, the administration is arming as many federal agents as
possible. Already, the federal government has a standing army of over
80,000 armed agents on the street. They plan to hire at least 20,000
more within the next two years.
In this atmosphere of fiscal austerity, some ask where the money
will come from to pay all these new bureaucrats. Never fear, that has
already been worked out by way of changes in the civil forfeiture
laws. Today, if an officer sees that you have a large sum of cash
with you, chances are excellent that money will be confiscated.
Law-abiding citizens pay by check, or credit card, prosecutors say.
So, anyone carrying a large sum of money must be a crook or a drug
dealer, they say. Therefore, they take the money, and you must hire a
lawyer and go to court to try to retrieve it.
If a cop finds so much as one marijuana seed in your nice new car,
they can take the car. A California man ran over some type of weird
protected rat while plowing his farm, so EPA fined him and
"forfeited" his big, expensive new tractor rig. One police officer in
Florida rips off thousands of dollars each week from out of state
cars on the highway in the name of fighting drug trafficking. Others
do the same in Louisiana. A Michigan grandmother's farm house was
broken into by police because her visiting grandson was suspected of
smoking a joint out behind the barn. They took the $5,000 cash she
had for seeds, plus her new Christmas present -- a nice stereo
system. This civil forfeiture practice already adversely affects tens
of thousands of ordinary, law-abiding American citizens every year.
Look for it in your neighborhood soon.
Interestingly enough, the combination of ever changing tax laws,
warrantless searches, and this unconstitutional civil forfeiture
scheme, were the primary reasons our country's Founding Fathers went
to war with England in 1776. Today, civil forfeiture is the major
tool used by the IRS, EPA, DEA, FBI, and most Federal prosecutors.
Soon, it is to be extensively used by all regulatory agencies
as a supplement to their budgets. Already, bonuses are awarded to
regulatory agents collecting the most "forfeiture" from unsuspecting
citizens in their districts.
Because the goods and money "forfeited" is used to supplement the
prosecutor's and policing department's budgets, the court rules are
set in their favor. In other words, the deck is stacked against the
citizen and, more often than not, the practice amounts to little more
than legal thievery.
The point is that, by virtue of the way the civil forfeiture laws
are designed, any aggressive bureaucrat can effectively rip off
enough from an unsuspecting population in three months to pay for ten
more regulators for two years. So be assured, a workable plan to pay
for more regulators and police officers is in place. And, as with tax
law enforcement, none of the normal Constitutional rights and
protections are available to the citizen. The current administration,
and many in Congress, seem to feel that our Bill of Rights must give
way to the expediency and expansion of the central government's
bureaucracy.
Even more ominous are the federal government's 280 or more SWAT
teams. Depending how SWAT teams are set up, it takes twenty-four to
forty-eight trained shooters to make a good squad. That comes out to
between seven and fourteen-thousand well-trained killers working for
the administration of the Federal Government -- and that is without
counting anyone in the military or the CIA.
These shooters do not go after those involved in organized crime
or drug trafficking. They will not be used to clean up the crime
infested streets of Washington, D.C.; where, incidentally, our
Constitution gives the federal Government complete policing powers.
Nor will these gunmen be protecting our country's borders. So, who do
you think they will be going after?
Obviously, there is some sort of a plan here. And without a doubt,
there is also great potential for a police state. We cannot yet tell
if the ultimate overall plan is to intentionally create a police
state. But it is most certainly apparent that the intentions of many
in government do not include protecting the personal freedoms of
American citizens. Nor do they include honoring the ideals set forth
in our Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The Root of All Evil
Have you ever wondered where all of our money went? And no, we are
not talking Federal Reserve Notes here. Federal Reserve Notes are
script. Our Constitution intentionally defines money as something
other than script. Exactly what is Constitutionally acceptable
as money is unfortunately not clearly defined. Even so, it is quite
clear that Federal Reserve Notes are not what was intended.
Article 1, Section 8 of our United States Constitution states that
"Congress shall have the Power To . . . coin Money, regulate the
Value thereof, and foreign Coin, and fix the standards of Weights and
Measures . . ." That is not much information. The Constitution gives
the power to coin and regulate the value of money to Congress. Shall
we take the word "coin" literally? There is much debate on that
question.
Article 1, Section 10 of our United States Constitution gives us
another hint: "No State shall . . . coin Money; emit Bills of
Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment
of Debts . . ."
No State shall . . . make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a
Tender in Payment of Debts. Taken literally, this presents a
rather inconvenient problem. Gold and silver coin -- or at least
bills backed by gold and silver -- is what the Constitution mandates
to be used as legal tender within the States. Federal Reserve Notes
are obviously a "Thing" other than gold or silver coin.
Therefore, is this script we call money Constitutional for us to
use within the States? It probably would be legal tender in
Washington, D.C. But in the States too? According to our
Constitution, States are not allowed to "make" anything but gold and
silver a legal tender. Does this mean "make," as in 'produce' or
"make" as in 'allow to be used'? Should we just forget that part of
the Constitution? The Supreme Court says that all words of our
Constitution apply equally, so obviously not.
Article I, Section 8 already gave Congress the power to coin money
and regulate its value. Therefore, Congress is charged with producing
the money. So, if we remove all words not needed in Section 10 to
answer this question we see: "No State shall . . . make any Thing but
gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of debts." This use of the
word "make" then, must mean 'to allow.' So, the only other
interpretation possible becomes: No State shall allow
anything but gold and silver coin to be used as legal tender.
To be sure, the federal government has passed laws making Federal
Reserve Notes legal tender for all debts public and private. But, so
what! Over the years, the federal government has passed many laws in
direct violation of our Constitution. Historically, it is quite
obvious that the concept of Federal Reserve Notes is far from what
the Founding Fathers had in mind as legal tender when they wrote our
Constitution. There have been no Constitutional amendments changing
the sections mentioned above. Therefore, this question of legal
tender needs a great deal of serious discussion.
The United States could easily return to the silver standard.
However, that would require banks, especially the Federal Reserve
System, to keep silver to redeem on demand for the Silver Certificate
bills. Banks, of course, do not wish to do that because their lending
capacity would then be based on the amount of silver they had on
hand. Also, they could no longer create fiat money out of nothing,
and then profit from the resulting interest and inflation.
We cannot, however, return to the gold
standard.
Probably the greatest financial-political whodunit story of this
century is The Creature from Jekyll Island, by G. Edward
Griffin. The book is a frank, yet interesting and readable,
discussion on the Federal Reserve System and exactly how our money
comes into being. As reported by Griffin and others, the Federal
Reserve once was used to hold our public and private gold reserves.
It then issued bills, which were always redeemable in gold on demand.
That was the contract between the Federal Reserve System, its member
banks, and the people. American citizens thought the bills
were always redeemable for gold on demand.
After the big stock market crash of 1929, people started asking
for their gold from the banks. Bankers, and later the President,
called this action a run on the banks. Banks did not want to return
the gold. So, people were suddenly accused of "hoarding" their own
gold. Actually, the problem was that banks could not return the gold.
First, the banks had issued many more gold certificates than they
ever had gold -- they made a lot of money that way. And second, they
did not even have much of the gold they were supposed to have. The
gold was gone!
How and why the gold was gone is still being discussed. That much
of our gold was found later, in Europe, is fact. Exactly how so much
of it got there is the mystery. Regardless, the bankers pulled a fast
one on the American people, and Roosevelt Administration helped by
covering for them.
Another fact is that the bankers who were devious enough to send
the gold to Europe at that time realized a profit of about
60-percent. The fact that it was not their gold to send is
incidental. . . . It soon became an insignificant point anyway. Under
Roosevelt, the federal government confiscated all gold from the
American public and sold off much of that resulting stash to Europe
too.
Still today, when coin dealers wish to purchase American gold
coins for sale in the United States, they often buy them in bulk from
Europe.
The Founding Fathers knew exactly what they were doing by adding
that gold and silver clause into our Constitution. Gold and silver
are a hedge on inflation. Back when gold was confiscated from
American citizens, a good quality new car could be purchased for
about 60 twenty-dollar gold coins. Sixty of those very same
twenty-dollar coins will still by a good quality new car
today. When used as currency, gold and silver provide a strong
backbone for a stable economy.
Today's Federal Reserve money, however, is inherently unstable.
All else being equal, today's money itself causes about a 2.5 percent
annual rate of inflation. It must, because that is the "handling
charge" profit skimmed off of the top by the banks. So, every ten
years, Federal Reserve Notes alone cause at least a 25-percent
increase in inflation. Or, put another way, you are assessed a
disguised two and one-half percent (or there about) hidden tax on
every dollar because of the actions of the Federal Reserve System and
its member banks. This would not be true with gold and silver
coin.
The federal government may, if it wishes, use Federal Reserve
Notes as legal tender outside of the States. That issue was settled
by the Supreme Court when Lincoln printed the Greenback Dollars. But
Lincoln did not remove the customary gold and silver tender. He only
supplemented it with Greenbacks, which people used to pay taxes. That
tried and proven arrangement could still be workable today, were we
to have the coin available. Our minimum savings, after all, would be
the hidden tax of the inflation caused by the
banks.
Another government action stymieing our economy and inflating our
dollar is the national debt. The $5.5-Trillion national debt comes
out to just over $44,000 per taxpayer -- almost enough to buy a
decent house in some areas. Worse yet, the national debt is often
expanding at a rate of nearly One-Billion dollars per day. The
interest alone on the national debt eats up nearly one-third of the
federal budget annually.
Yet, the Clinton Administration plans to add another $1-Trillion
to that national debt before we start paying on the principle. Paying
off $6.5-Trillion, in principle and interest, will be equal to
a second home mortgage for all American taxpayers.
This government has kept us working 40-percent of each year just
to pay taxes. It is almost a certainty that our children will work at
least half of the year to pay taxes. Now, it looks as though our
grandchildren and great-grandchildren will have to work at lease
three months each year just to pay the principle and interest on
our portion of the national debt. Only then will they
began working to pay their taxes. Yet, when some of the newly
elected Members of Congress brought this problem up for discussion,
they were immediately labeled radical trouble makers by the president
and the obedient mass media. Does anyone see a problem with this
picture?
We need a balanced budget, all right. More importantly, though, we
must pay off the national debt! But start today, not seven years and
over $1-Trillion more from now. All we are doing is stealing from our
as yet unborn great-grandchildren.
There is, in fact, a method of shrinking government down to the
size and cost it should be. The scheme is to once again return these
United States to a Constitutional form of government.
The Coup de Grace of our
unalienable rights
The above corruptions of our
Constitution should be enough to pique any freedom-loving American
citizen's interest. But unfortunately, there is more. Much more.
Current laws allow our whole Constitution to be totally suspended
with little more than the utterance of two magic words by one
person.
Since March 9, 1933, the United States has been in a continuous
state of declared National Emergency -- and, those are the two magic
words: National Emergency. Federal law gives the
president a whole host of otherwise unconstitutional powers during a
declared national emergency. Only the president can declare a
national emergency and claim these extra-Constitutional powers. And,
of course, presidents want these extra powers. Therefore, each
and every president since Roosevelt has signed the directives
necessary to keep us in a continuous state of
emergency.
Before FDR, the president's special War Powers Act could only be
activated during wartime. Roosevelt had Congress include civil
emergencies to the War Powers Act and, during the depression, FDR
used these new powers as authority to "regulate" every industry in
the country. Most of Roosevelt's regulatory agencies are still with
us. We have no emergency, but we still have the effects of these
Emergency and War Powers
acts.
In 1933, Roosevelt used these new powers to propose the National
Industrial Recovery Act and form the National Recovery Administration
(NRA). That agency was the cornerstone of the early New Deal
programs. It was also the first of a long line of executive agencies
to combine the executive, legislative and judicial functions in one
commission. This was, of course, an obvious violation of the
separation of powers doctrine of our Constitution.
In The Federalist Papers, No. 47, James Madison labels that
arrangement tyranny:
"The accumulation of all powers,
legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands,
whether on one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self
appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very
definition of tyranny."
In 1935, the Supreme Court ruled the NRA, and a few other such
oppressive control schemes by the Roosevelt Administration,
unconstitutional. This caused the great confrontation in which FDR
threatened "court packing." He rationalized that if he could appoint
justices sympathetic to his socialist schemes, he could get the Court
to approve his heretofore quite unconstitutional agenda.
Congress did not increase the number of justices for Roosevelt. As
it turned out, that was not necessary. Due to resignations and death,
Roosevelt was able to appoint enough justices to control the Court.
And, during the 1937-38 Supreme Court session, the Court reversed
itself, disregarded our Constitution, and allowed socialism to
flourish in the United States.
Previously, the Court had interpreted the Constitution with what
was called the "original understanding" doctrine. Under this
doctrine, they honored the words of our Constitution as written. And,
when further explanation was needed, they referred to the ancillary
writings of the original authors, such as The Federalist
Papers. Suddenly, the Supreme Court declared that our
Constitution was now an "evolutionary document." Apparently, for
these nine old Supreme Court Justices at least, it was no longer
necessary that the words of our Constitution be different for
the meaning of the words in our Constitution to be
different.
Thus, the administrative branch of government also began acting as
a quasi-legislative branch and, through the regulatory agencies, also
a quasi-judicial branch. The administrative branch called the new
rulings "presidential proclamations" and "executive orders." The
executive agencies call them "rules" and "regulations." But whatever
these new rulings were called, to the citizens they were all just
more federal laws. All have the force of law, and all impact on the
citizen just as any law passed by Congress would. It is only a matter
of political semantics. Because, when they are fining you, or taking
you off to prison, there is no important
distinction.
Without even including the numerous emergency acts Roosevelt had
passed though Congress, and before even contemplating entering the
Second World war, he alone issued over 200 presidential proclamations
and over 1,500 executive orders. Add to this the many
thousands of rules and regulations from the new executive
agencies, and you have some idea of how the president's emergency
powers changed our nation.
Quite obviously, the War and Emergency Powers Acts have corrupted
our Constitutional form of government.
The United States Senate started looking into this
extra-Constitutional emergency war powers situation once, back in
1973. They published some very surprising findings. One interesting
section of the Senate Report's introduction relates part of the cold
hard truth:
"A majority of the people of the United
States have lived all their lives under emergency rule. For 40
years, freedoms and governmental procedures guaranteed by the
Constitution have, in varying degrees, been abridged by laws
brought into force by states of national emergency."
But there's more. Unfortunately, a lot more. Another part of the
findings of the Senate concerning the emergency powers available to
the president upon his decree is also very informative. This is also
related in Senate Report 93-549 of 1973:
"This vast range of powers, taken
together, confer enough authority to rule the country without
reference to normal constitutional processes. Under the powers
delegated by these statutes, the President may: seize property;
organize and control the means of production; seize
commodities; assign military forces abroad; institute martial
law; seize and control all transportation and communications;
regulate the operation of private enterprises; restrict travel;
and, in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all
American citizens."
Many of these powers were already Constitutionally available to
the president during wartime. Roosevelt had Congress add the
emergency clauses, making the powers available to him, or any
succeeding president, anytime. Which means, we could actually
have a dictatorship starting today. All that is necessary is for the
president to say those two magic words.
Senator Church commented in the same document:
If the President can create crimes by fiat
and without congressional approval, our system is not much
different from that of the Communists, which allegedly
threatens our existence. These powers, if exercised, would
confer upon the President total authority to do anything he
pleased.
Church was exactly right. The laws, collectively called the
emergency and war powers act, give the president the authority to
declare a national emergency at will. The Clinton Administration
recently did -- twice. Once was to send troops to Bosnia, and the
second was so Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin could impound
federal worker's retirement funds for government use. Actually,
Clinton has unilaterally made law a number of times by executive
order. Congress does not seem to care.
The fact is, the president's emergency powers are almost
limitless.
The Senate then (in 1973) asked the Attorney General for a report
on what the consequences would be, were all of the emergencies to be
terminated and the emergency powers laws repealed. And finally, here
comes the truth about the origin of the federal authority to operate
all of those meddlesome federal agencies. The Attorney General
reported:
. . . a 'national emergency' is now a
practical necessity in order to carry out what has become the
regular and normal method of governmental actions. What were
intended by Congress as delegations of power to be used only in
the most extreme situations, and for the most limited
durations, have become everyday powers, and a state of
'emergency' has become a permanent condition.
Got that? He said, "what has now become the regular and
normal method of governmental actions." And he said, "power to be
used only in the most extreme situations, and for the most limited
durations have become everyday powers." Yet, the word
unconstitutional never reached anyone's lips in this
discussion! It is often hard to define the exact line between
ignorance and outright negligence in public officials. But in this
case, it is easy. The members of this Senate panel were traitors!
They completely violated the public trust in their office and the
whole of the Constitution.
The Attorney General might have used polite language, but what he
said was: 'These powers are unconstitutional. And, yes, we
know that. But so what! We are use to having these powers. We like
all these powers. So, too bad about the Constitutional part. We are
going to keep and use all of these unconstitutional powers.' And so
they did.
Even using the attorney general's words, this could be seditious
behavior. At the very least, it is nonfeasance -- which should have
been enough to impeach every official in the room. The Attorney
General's reply is the exact opposite of supporting and
defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies
foreign and domestic. Which is, by the way, what all these men swore
to God to do.
It is clear that these officers of the federal government knew
perfectly well that this was an unconstitutional arrangement. They
clearly agreed that it was, in open testimony, in the Senate of the
United States. All concerned were also in a good position to correct
the problem and restore our country to a Constitutional form of
government. They were also in a very good position to protect the
rights and liberties of the American people, as was their primary
function in government. But, to a man, they intentionally
chose to do nothing! Hence, there is a very strong case of
dereliction of duty, or nonfeasance -- maybe even treason.
But, nobody was complaining, so why rock the boat. That was back
in 1973. To this day, Congress has done nothing. We still have all of
those oppressive -- and, obviously unconstitutional -- laws, rules
and regulations. We still have all those unconstitutional agencies
bothering us, each one operating like a little Soviet Politburo. We
still have hundreds of unconstitutional expenditures eating away at
out tax dollars. And, because of all this, we still have a federal
tax rate of more than double what is necessary.
By 1976, Congress was starting to question all this again and
managed to pass something called the National Emergency Termination
Act. To be fair, the Act did cancel a few leftover "emergencies."
However, it terminated nothing in the way of unconstitutional
emergency powers. In fact, it made the president's emergency powers
even stronger, by making some of them permanent. Now remember, there
have been no changes to the Constitution to validate any of this.
They just did it on their own volition.
So, what is Congress doing today? Still not rocking the boat! Oh
sure, some of the newly elected members of the House brought the
subject up once or twice. Again, they were called radicals by the
president and his obedient press corps. Effectively, they were told
to go sit down and shut up. They
did.
To put credit where credit is most definitely due, it should be
added that Congress passed another emergency law a few years ago.
This one (50 USC 2251) creates the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) and more or less gives it dictatorial powers over
American citizens during any type of emergency. Section 2-203 defines
"emergency":
For the purposes of this Order, "civil
emergency" means any accidental, natural, man-caused, or
wartime emergency or threat thereof, which causes or may cause
substantial injury or harm to the population or substantial
damage to or loss of property.
That sure is rather vague and open ended. It is an emergency
because they say it is an emergency: ". . . any . . . or threat
thereof. . . " No other criteria are necessary. The rest of the words
are just excess spaces.
Under this law, an emergency gives FEMA powers to do just about
anything. They can take over all communications, all medical
establishments, all business, relocate people as necessary, send
citizens to work in any place necessary and at any wage designated,
pass any and all rules and regulations, control all military and
civilian policing, limit travel, etc., etc. In other words, they
control your body, your labor, your property, and under a related
banking regulation, can even confiscate your bank account. And by the
way, Congress and the civilian courts have no authority after a
president declares an emergency. The only properly descriptive word,
therefore, is "dictatorship."
Someone once said that only Stalin had more power than the
administration under the emergency and war powers act, but that is
not necessarily true. Through FEMA, the administration can also
declare martial law and inflict strict curfews with shoot on sight
regulations. Or, they can try offending citizens in a quasi-military
court and hang them -- without any right of appeal. The agency
already has a large police force, complete with SWAT teams. They also
have complete authority over all police and military forces.
Federal agencies were said to operate like little Soviet
Politburos. FEMA is no different. In any type of major emergency,
FEMA actually becomes a real Politburo! It is responsible to
no one, other than the president. And, it has full authority to
control everything, other than the president.
Today, the Director of FEMA is none other than Clinton's Arkansas
crony James Lee Witt. Witt was a high ranking Arkansas State Police
officer before moving over to FEMA. He was also profiled in a number
of publications as being instrumental in the cover-up of the
Clinton's Whitewater affair.
Under the law, only the president may declare a national
emergency, and only the president may end it. Remember that, the next
time you vote. Also remember that this
same opportunity was allowed by Article 48 of the German Constitution
in the 1930's. Therefore, the German President -- Hitler -- was also
able to suspend the Constitution by presidential decree alone. Shall
we wait for a dictator before we attempt to change our laws?
Some emergency and war powers are necessary. If the United States
is attacked, we would want the President to have the power to take
swift and decisive action. But, that action is to be directed against
the enemy, not American citizens. And then, when the threat is over,
so too must any emergency declarations end. These powers are
Constitutional, and could become necessary; but only in time of
war.
All of these laws are available for reading in many public
libraries. Look under War Powers, Emergency Powers, and especially
Trading with the Enemy (12 USC 95b), for others not quoted here. That
many of these laws need repealing is beyond a doubt. That none of
these laws will ever be changed, or repealed, without the effort of
the people is also beyond a doubt. Every Member of Congress knows of
these inconsistencies between our United States Constitution and the
written federal laws. But, Congress will never act unless we demand
swift correction.
Many of us might even enjoy living under a truly Constitutional
form of government. At the very least, we should have the opportunity
to experience it for a while. Regardless, sixty-five years of
continuous rule by presidential emergency decree is about enough.
Oath of Office -- a law without
enforcement
Such blatant violations of our Constitution would also be
violations of the oath of office taken by all public servants. You
know, the one in which they raise their right hand and solemnly swear
to God to support and defend the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies, foreign and
domestic.
Federal law (5 USC 3331) requires that:
An individual, except the President, elected
or appointed to an office of honor or profit in the civil
service or uniformed services, shall take the following oath:
I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will
support and defend the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear
true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this
obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of
evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the
duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me
God.
Any violation of the oath of office should be grounds for
immediate impeachment and/or dismissal. However, it is not. One dirty
little secret in Washington is that there are no penalties for
violation of the oath of office. And evidently, everyone in
government likes it that way. Violating one's oath of office, and
hence the Constitution, has become a rather acceptable and expected
practice nowadays.
Ask your Member of Congress why there is no penalty for violation
of the oath. The reply should prove very
interesting.
There is, however, a federal law (18 USC 1001), titled "Fraud and
False Statements," that is sometimes used against citizens lying to a
federal agency. The full text of the law is short, but rather
interesting:
Whoever, in any matter within the
jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States
knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals or covers up any
trick, scheme, or device a material fact, or makes any false,
fictitious or fraudulent statements or representations, or
makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to
contain any false, fictitious or fraudulent statements or
entry, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not
more than five years, or both.
The word "whoever" makes the reader believe that the law would
apply to public servants as well as to citizens. If so, the effective
enforcement of that law could sure bring a little honesty and honor
to the halls of government in a hell of a hurry. Most of the halls
would soon be empty. So would the White House.
But in today's political atmosphere, such convictions would be
virtually impossible. Why? Well, first, consider the Congressional
testimony during the Ruby Ridge, Waco and the fundraising hearings.
Then, consider the probable resulting debacle involved with having
Janet Reno and her assistants prosecuting other government liars. . .
.
For the Washington crowd, any lie, no matter how outrageous, is
justified by calling it "spin." It is their opinion, or their
recollection, they say, no matter how fraudulent it may be.
Even when they intentionally twist or misrepresent facts to
deliberately mislead the public, it is still winked at and called an
opinion. It doesn't matter that when the establishment press reports
these intentional fabrications as news, as they usually do, the lies
are often believed to be honest facts by many in the public
sector.
Unfortunately, the False Statements law is not used against
federal law enforcement agents either. A prosecutor, FBI agent, IRS
agent --- or any government bureaucrat or agent, for that matter --
can tell a citizen anything they wish. They can also accuse a citizen
of any crime they wish. And, other than proving their innocence in
court, citizens have absolutely no recourse. The only hope is to
catch the lying agent with a perjury charge, if they lie in open
court. Even then, to charge them requires the assistance of a willing
judge, which will not happen often. Prosecutors, by the way, are said
to have the protection of the Crown. They do as they please because
they are immune.
An oath of office presupposes honor in the person taking the oath.
Honor that seems to be woefully lacking in many of the public
servants officiating in today's federal government. So today, the
oath of office is little more than an interesting relic; and perhaps
a barometer of just how much the quality of people running our
central government has degraded over the years.
It is Time to Honor Your
Constitutional Duty
Our United States Constitution is the people's order to
federal bureaucrats of how We the People want public servants to
operate our government. The Constitution is, in effect, their job
description. Therefore, when permission for an activity is not
granted government within the text of our Constitution, the
government simply has no authority to perform that activity. Period!
Stop! End of story!
More importantly, when public servants attempt to grab oppressive
powers expressly forbidden by our Constitution -- such as violating
the Fourth Amendment's search and seizure provision -- punishment
should be swift and sure, and include imprisonment. The most
important function of government is to protect our rights, not to
limit them under color of fighting crime. As Ben Franklin said, "They
that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Public servants must somehow be made to understand what they are
-- the servants. Question your Member of Congress about the
issues raised here. Ask direct questions in writing, as well as at
public meetings. If you do not get an acceptable answer, work to get
that person tossed out of office. Elect someone who supports freedom.
We have had enough rhetorical excuses.
Watch C-SPAN. If you do not see your Member of Congress frequently
making strong demands for a resurgence of individual freedom, start a
movement to throw the rascal out! It is easier than you think. Small
groups can do wonders.
For "the battle is not for the strong alone," said Patrick Henry;
"it is for the vigilant, the active, the brave." We citizens must
never forget that in the United States of America we, not the
politicians and bureaucrats, are the ultimate sovereigns. We are also
the ultimate controlling legal authority in the United States. That
means, when enough of us demand that something happen, it
will.
But meanwhile, what do you think the Founding Fathers would say
about all this? Luckily, in The Federalist Papers No. 78,
Alexander Hamilton gives us a pretty good idea:
There is no position which depends on
clearer principles than that every act of a delegated
authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which
it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore,
contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this would
be to affirm that the deputy is greater than his principal;
that the servant is above his master; that the representatives
of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men
acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do
not authorize, but what they forbid.
Strong stuff! No legislative act, contrary to the Constitution,
can be valid. There is certainly no equivocation there. That is
quite a concept, especially coming from a man who actively
participated in the Convention that wrote our Constitution. It should
be noted too that Hamilton was a bit of an authoritarian. At the
Constitutional Convention, and within the Cabinet of the Washington
Administration, he was a major proponent of a strong central
government.
The Federalist Papers, by the way, are often cited by the
United States Supreme Court as a source of Constitutional law. An
inexpensive paperback book version can be found in any bookstore.
That text should be studied by every American
citizen.
Although this text seems somewhat depressing on its face, there is
one very promising event in the federal government to report. That
is, that the United States Supreme Court is again beginning to
realize that the words of the Tenth Amendment have real meaning. The
Court now signals that some of the contemptuous rulings during the
Roosevelt era are to be changed. Through a series of opinions,
cumulating in Printz et al v. U.S. (95-1478,
1997), the United States Supreme Court is attempting to put the
federal government back into it's proper place in the scheme of
things. The words below specifically concerned the Brady Bill. But
they are also quite appropriate to dozens of other recent laws, rules
and regulations promulgated by the federal government.
Much of the Constitution is
concerned with setting forth the form of our government, and
the courts have traditionally invalidated measures deviating
from that form. The result may appear 'formalistic' in a
given case to partisans of the measure at issue, because
such measures are typically the product of the era's
perceived necessity. But the Constitution protects us from
our own best intentions: It divides power among sovereigns
and among branches of government precisely so that we may
resist the temptation to concentrate power in one location
as an expedient solution to the crisis of the day.
Those words were written in the Court's majority decision of the
Printz opinion just last year. The problem is, the Clinton
administration decided to ignore this and other inconvenient United
States Supreme Court opinions and continue regulating as usual. Yet,
"No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be
valid." Indeed.
The United States Supreme Court even used Hamilton's words in a
few opinions. Yet, the administration refuses to heed these opinions.
The executive branch will not begin to give up authority, no matter
how unconstitutional that authority may be. Nor does Congress seem to
care how the Supreme Court tries to rein them in. "To serve is to
rule" seems to be the only bylaws in today's political climate. And
"rule" they do, on any subject they so choose, and by any means
necessary.
So, what do we, you and I, do about it? Because that, dear reader,
is the major problem of our era. The "Rule of Law," if used, is on
our side. But, they have the power; the guns. And when the
administration does not respect the Courts, when Congress does not
respect either the will of the people or the Courts, what shall be
our recourse? This is our present dilemma.
This text will not offer an answer to that problem. This is the
soapbox. We still have the ballotbox. Perhaps, if these boxes do not
work, others will be used later. Nevertheless, these problems are
real. They are now. And they must be addressed soon. The whole of our
American way of life depends on it.
How soon these problems will be addressed is only proportional to
the amount of noise we voters make. This is, after all, an election
year.
This text is by no means complete -- it doesn't even begin to
touch on such things as censorship, education, gun rights, medical
care, the Ninth Amendment, racism, religion, or socialism. Nor should
it be used as a complete authority on any subject discussed. Rather,
the intent is to bring to light a few of the more malicious
violations of our United States Constitution. The information related
is correct at the time of writing. How you act upon it is your own
personal decision.
However, if you honor our Constitution, the objective should be
clear. We must all work diligently -- as is our responsibility as
American citizens -- to "support and defend the Constitution of the
United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Because, if
we citizens do not, who will?
Those presently in government had their chance. Quite obviously,
they have failed miserably.
End
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