Dereliction of Oath

12500 N.E. Tenth Place • Bellevue, WA 98005 • JPFO.org • 800-869-1884 • info@jpfo.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  •  Jan 14, 2020  •  Contact: Floyd Neeland A POLITICAL PLATFORM THAT DEMANDS VIOLATING THE CONSTITUTION REQUIRES "DERELICTION OF OATH" Such candidates make themselves ineligible to attain the office They cannot in good faith take the oath of office without lying The U.S. Bill of Rights has a plain and direct ban on infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Presidential candidates who run must know, as the public does, that if they win election they must take the oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." If a candidate harbors an intent to ban or confiscate arms the public already owns, that oath cannot be taken honestly or legitimately. Such a person cannot validly hold the office and must not run. This is the simple and plain position of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, http://www.jpfo.org. This applies to state races and other offices as well. Political parties themselves are expected to know this and act accordingly, refusing to endorse candidates whose stated goal is the destruction or abolition of the Constitution's requirements. Numerous candidates running for president have proven themselves ineligible to the office by this plain standard. By declaring plans for infringement even before taking office, we the people cannot expect those candidates to honor their oath or the Constitution, and they should do the respectable thing and withdraw. No punishment is provided in our national charters for such malfeasance short of armed revolt, which is why our Founders provided for an armed electorate. If election is an insufficient safeguard for our liberties, these candidates threaten the very fabric of the nation, and must do one of two things--change their platform or withdraw. JPFO is keenly aware of the nation's Judeo-Christian heritage, and has set its moral compass accordingly. "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." ~ John Adams, 2nd president of the United States, Oct. 11, 1798. The oath of office is a meaningful thing. It is not there for no reason or lightly. America runs on honor -- not all systems do. If a person approaches public office with purpose of deception, or willful design to ignore or abrogate its terms, such breach nullifies that person's moral authority to attain the position. That's why oaths exist. You must take the oath and honor it. Failure to do so undermines the very nature of "our system" -- which is more than its written documents. That this even has to be said is stunning. Americans used to know this to their core. It was beyond reproach. When we were a deeply honorable people it needn't even be said. Now saying it is virtually controversial. The parties themselves should know better. They no longer do, or actively participate in undermining the oath. It is in fact the quintessential argument and requirement. Their failure to honor the oath is an abomination. The president must take the constitutional oath and mean it. JPFO cannot possibly stand behind any other position, and still stand for the preservation of firearms ownership. If it proves to be controversial, we'll just have to withstand the slings, arrows and spotlight. Do you stand with us and the oath -- or against us? Support JPFO. • • • BACKGROUND-- Numerous prerequisites condition eligibility to the office of President of the United States: A person cannot run for a third term, cannot be a foreign citizen, cannot be a convicted felon, must win a majority of the Electoral College votes in a quadrennial election or rise to office through legitimate succession, must meet the Constitution's requirements of Art. 2, Sec. 2, cl. 5, for age (35 years), residency in the country (14 years) heritage (natural born Citizen), and take the Oath of Office. ##### Support JPFO, speaking truth to power: https://store.jpfo.org/11-donations Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, http://www.jpfo.org is America’s most aggressive civil-rights organization, dedicated to destroying the notion of “gun control” as any kind of credible public-policy position. So-called “gun control” does not control guns and doesn’t control criminal behavior. What it does is disarm the innocent, leaving them helpless in the face of criminals, tyrannical governments and genocide. History repeatedly proves this fact. Founded in 1989 by Aaron Zelman as a response to the Holocaust, JPFO speaks with the moral authority and tenacious commitment of survivors of persecution, and knows that surrendering your personal and family safety to government protection courts disaster. “You don’t have to be Jewish to fight by our side, you just have to love liberty.” View it in your browser on JPFO.

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Why the Founders Wanted You to Own Military-Style Weapons

Two hundred and twenty-seven years ago this month, the U.S. Congress passed the Militia Acts of 1792. This pair of bills authorized the president to lead the state militias in war and to conscript all able-bodied free men to fight with self-provided arms and munitions.

To a modern American living in the midst of an empire with a permanent military presence both here and abroad, there might be little reason to acknowledge this anniversary. However, it offers an example of how the founders believed military defense and war should be handled, and why so many modern arguments against civilian gun ownership don’t match the history.

The first Militia Act was passed on May 2, followed shortly thereafter by the second Act on May 8. The first act gave the president the power to call up the militia “whenever the United States shall be invaded, or be in imminent danger of invasion from any foreign nation or Indian tribe.” The second Act called on every “free able-bodied white male citizen” between the ages of 18-45 to join a militia.

Why are these laws relevant today?

We live in a time when Americans are told by self-appointed “wise overlords” that the founders never intended for private citizens to have military weapons. Incidentally, they never cite anyplace that the founders made this assertion, nor where they declared their love for intervening in other countries’ domestic affairs, endless unconstitutional wars, and a permanent military with bases in foreign nations for that matter. This argument is used to justify gun control policies that restrict our right to keep and bear arms as described in the Second Amendment.

The reality is that many in the founding generation were terrified of a permanent, standing army that could crush liberties at home. This fear was a major theme during the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1788. In fact, the convention’s proposed Second Amendment text makes it clear why it was so important that the proposed central government had no say in the possession of firearms by Americans (bold emphasis added):

That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

The convention’s “Second Amendment” draft also provides another glimpse into their worldview. The country’s defense was to come from the people, not an army held to a different legal standard. There was no separation between soldier and civilian. At the convention, George Mason referred to the militia as “the whole of the people.” In every colony besides Pennsylvania, able-bodied men not only had to join a militia and show up to musters, but they had to furnish their own functioning arms.

The Militia Acts show that this tradition carried on through Colonial America into its history as an independent country apart from Great Britain and under the newly-approved U.S. Constitution.

Under the Militia Acts, the militia members had to bring the following:

A good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball; or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear so armed, accoutered and provided.

The militiamen were to be armed with their own weapons, not ones provided and owned by the federal government.

Now some might argue the U.S. government lacked the financial resources it does today, but that’s why it’s important to look at the broader context of the law. The founders did not want a standing army, and there were no calls for these men to surrender their personal firearms once a military crisis had been addressed.

Ultimately, free men must be the ones responsible for defending their liberties and their country if that freedom is to last. The founders believed that, and it’s why they favored a militia-style military composed self-equipped men, which would reduce the risk of a standing army that would take that responsibility away. If free men are not responsible, then they are not really in charge – and thus they are not truly free.

A constitutionalist or someone sympathetic to anti-federalist concerns might take issue with the law and how it was used to call up the militia during the Whiskey Rebellion. However, the Militia Acts offer reveal the blueprint for how the founders believed wars should be fought, and why they made it clear the central government should have no right to infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms.

TJ Martinell

TJ Martinell is an author, writer, and award-winning reporter from Washington state. His dystopian novel The Stringers depicting a neo-Prohibition Era in the city of Seattle is available on Amazon.

Visit his personal site at www.tjmartinell.com. Join his Facebook page here. Listen to his weekly podcast on Sound Cloud.

http://www.tjmartinell.com

Republished with permission from the Tenth Amendment Center. The original article may be viewed here.

Monday Morning Thought

My buddy in Missouri sent me a list of Thomas Jefferson's accomplishments and several quotes.
I wrote this in response:

I've been publishing those quotes, off and on, on my blog for years ... but I'm preaching to the choir. I rarely hear from anyone who doesn't already agree with the sentiments expressed by Jefferson.

You can go back to around 1885 or 1890 to find the Progressives who decided that the only way to curb the rampant liberty of free Americans was to dumb them down, and stop teaching about the Founders ... and about the Constitution ... and about our history.

And it's worked, by and large. The average American citizen has absolutely no idea about any of those things.

My friends, I won't stop talking about history, the Founders ... and about our Constitution; I truly believe it to be a document inspired by God Himself. For that matter, so did the Founders themselves.

Several wrote, after the dust had settled, that they couldn't figure out how such a historic document came from all the squabbling and politicking as took place during the Convention - unless God made it happen.

I believe He did.

Quote of the Day

Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence.

~ U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark - Mapp vs. Ohio

Quote of the Weekend

Here's an idea: when it comes to a debate on the meaning of the Constitution, let's take the word of a guy who quite probably knew what he was talking about ... you know, since he was THERE.

On every question of construction, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.

~ Thomas Jefferson

Quote of the Day

"The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."

~ Abraham Lincoln

QOTD: Thomas Jefferson on the Constitution

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first. 

~ Thomas Jefferson

Quotes for Friday

The United States enjoy a scene of prosperity and tranquility under the new government that could hardly have been hoped for.

~ George Washington, July 19, 1791 (from a letter to Catherine Macaulay Graham)


Tranquility reigns among the people with that disposition towards the general government which is likely to preserve it ... Our public credit stands on that [high] ground which three years ago it would have been considered as a species of madness to have foretold.

~ George Washington, July 20, 1791 (from a letter to David Humphreys)



Note the dates; then think on our Progressive "friends" who refer to the Constitution as a dusty old document ... and want to go beyond it, somehow.

Do you understand now?

What Were They Thinking? (part 10)

In this series, I hope to show how the understanding of our founders was shaped and guided by those literary works with which they were familiar.

In Part 9, I showed writings from Richard Hooker from which certain parts of the Declaration of Independence could be said to flow. Today we look at Letter #1 from "Centinel" to the readers of the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer and the Philadelphia Freeman's Journal on October 5, 1787, regarding the proposed constitution.

In the letter, "Centinel" compares and contrasts English society to America's, and points out that the form of government which works in Britain wouldn't work here. Through this argument, he asserts that the tri-lateral government proposed by the new constitution provides not nearly enough safeguards against those who would stray from the pure principals to which the authors ascribe.

There they have a powerful hereditary nobility, and real distinctions of rank and interests; but even there, for want of that three orders of government [legislative, judicial, and executive - Ed.] they exist but in name; the only operative and efficient check, upon the conduct of administration, is the sense of the people at large.

Suppose a government could be formed and supported on such principles, would it answer the great purposes of civil society; if the administrators of every government are actuated by views of private interest and ambition, how is the welfare and happiness of the community to be the result of such jarring adverse interests?

Therefore, as different orders in government will not produce the good of the whole, we much recur to other principles. I believe it will be found that the form of government, which holds those entrusted with power, in the greatest responsibility to their constituents, the best calculated for freemen. A republican, or free government, can only exist where the body of the people are virtuous, and where property is pretty equally divided; in such a government the people are the sovereign and their sense or opinion is the criterion of every public measure; for when this ceases to be the case, the nature of the government is changed, and an aristocracy, monarchy or despotism will rise on its ruin.

From this we may suppose that "Centinel" might have seen into the future some 200 years, and read today's news. Or has he?

Discuss.


Previous posts:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7 
Part 8
Part 9

Mid-week Rumination

In the course of discussions about the Founders' era, which Jenny and I have arbitrarily defined as 1755 - 1826 - I've been asked by a couple of others about the apparent conflict between the obvious references to God/Providence/Creator/Nature's God and the so-called separation of church and state.

Let's start with the painfully obvious. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

It's a prohibition against the Federal .gov establishing a State-sponsored church. It's freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

Then I was asked, aren't all the references to God in the Declaration and the Constitution in conflict with that statement?

Of course not (and I realize that, in many cases, I'm preaching to the choir). The Founders made it very clear that they recognized the hand* of God in the course of establishing the new Republic.

But but but ... what about John Adams' statement:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

That's even easier. Moral people, it says; not "Christians". Please notice that the Constitution forces no religion on any person. There is no clause that says "Believe as I do (or as the .gov does) or we'll kill or punish you."

A gentleman who probably heard about this from the cradle on up, said the following -

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.

From the day of the Declaration ... they (the American people) were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct.

~ John Quincy Adams

Principles and natural laws. A code of conduct. Not some particular religious belief.

They believed that if one conducted his/her affairs in accord with the code of Biblical behavior, that one would have no problem supporting the laws of the United States or its Constitution. (Of course, they also believed that the new federal government would make primarily just and moral laws, but that's another story.)

Not a theocracy, ladies and gentlemen, but a Constitutional Republic with citizens who conduct themselves civilly by means of moral precepts described in the Bible.

It's so simple, only a theologian** could screw it up.


*Or finger, as G. Washington put it. Take your pick.
**Or a historian. Just sayin'.

"Gather Your Armies"

This political commercial has engendered another round of lame-stream media name-calling and bed-wetting. I love it!

What Is a Republic?

Citizens of the United States used to know what a republic is, and they referred to it as one ... until about 90 years ago, when the progressive movement decided that it didn't fit with their agenda. In fact, the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, formed in 1905, had a leader named Harry W. Laidler. According to The 5,000 Year Leap,

"Laidler explained that the ISS was set up to 'throw light on the world-wiude movement of industrial DEMOCRACY known as socialism". (p. 155)

So let's go to the source:

We may define a republic to be ... a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, nor from an inconsiderable proportion or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans and claim for their government the honorable title of republic.

(James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 39, p. 241)

In other words, it is a government which derives its power only from the assent of the governed, with that power flowing from the bottom up. If a "not-inconsiderable proportion" determines that the government is not acting in its (the people's) interest, that government loses its power, and other representatives are selected.

That's the way our Constitution was designed, and it's what the Founders had in their minds when they wrote it. That's the way it's supposed to work.

"Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."

John Locke, 1690

Friday Morning Thoughts

It was clear, 19 degrees & frosty at 5 a.m., a perfectly normal March morning. The gurus & weather wonks at AccuHunch predict we'll have low 40s and rain, this weekend. That's normal, too.

* * * * *

So after the Seattle Times cleans the egg off its collectivist face, and after they admitted no one threw a brick through a Congressperson's 30th floor window*, perhaps it should consider a name change. "Post-Intelligence" comes to mind.

* * * * *

Speaking of collectivists, the Anchorage Birdcage Liner-Glass Polisher reports:

As 48 other states are participating in a national re-writing of their state education standards, Alaska is taking a look at its own and wondering if it should get on board and raise the bar for the state's students. But while some educators say Alaska kids deserve to be held to the same standard as the rest of the country, others are saying we are different and the current, laxer standards are just fine.

Earlier this month, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers released the draft of sweeping new school standards that could lead to students across the country using the same math and English textbooks.

~snip~

Among the things that the national standards would call for: middle-schoolers will be ready to read "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and letters from John Adams; 10th graders will be up to mastering John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath."

The state standards don't mention specific reading material. Instead they say that middle schoolers should be able to identify foreshadowing in literature, and that by the 10th grade a student should be able to do things like identify syntax...

I don't know why not; I had to learn those things, and I seem to be able to string more than two words together without drooling.

After the NEA and various governmental entities (you know who you dare, Dept. of Lowering Our Educational Standards) have been dumbing the kids down for the better part of a century, I think it's high time to actually, you know, teach the kids something.

Besides, this move comes from the States, and that's the way it ought to be. I keep harking back to that silly ol' Constitution ... and it doesn't say anything about the General Gov't. setting standards for education. But maybe I'm just old-fashioned.

* * * * *

There are a lot of things to discuss, stuffed shirts to puncture, and inflated egos to pop ... so many progressives; so little time ... (sighs). But work beckons.

Y'all come back, hear?

*"Threw it through the window" is confusing to many, with so many homonyms. Perhaps, as Lewis Grizzard once suggested, we should switch to southern spelling. "He thowed it thew the window" is more clear, no?

It Can't Contradict Itself

I just swung by the local post office, trying to find a correctly-sized shipping box, and I noticed once again the signs prohibiting firearms and other deadly weapons on USPS property. This, next to a dozen or so good ol' Alaskan boys with an assortment of Leatherman pouches and Buck knives. Yeah, right.

As an intellectual exercise, I wonder:

a) since the General Government* is a creation of the States and the Constitution they adopted, it follows that the G.G. cannot exceed its own Constitutionally-established authority; and
b) said Constitution states that the people have a pre-existent right to keep and bear arms, and prohibits Congress from making any law which infringes upon that right; and
c) any entity created by a contract has only the powers which the signers codified in writing, therein;

therefore the USPS prohibition against firearms is prima facie unconstitutional. The federal judge who likewise ruled, a few months back, that the GG has the right to declare some of its land off-limits to firearms was wrong, too. Or, to put it another way, a federal entity must not restrict a federally-protected right on federal property - it's a contradiction to do so; it's the one place where those rights should be the most zealously guarded.

I do understand the concept of creating a weapons-free zone around a VIP, such as the President; it makes sense to establish a safe perimeter. But that's not tied to the land ... it moves with the person.

That being said, it's the law of the land whether Constitutional or no. I won't violate it, because incurring the wrath of the GG is definitely not a good idea, when it can be avoided.

But it is another aggravation; there seem to be a lot of them these days.



*Thomas Jefferson's preferred title for it; who am I to second-guess him?

Friday in the Fog

We're stuck in the mid teens, temperature-wise, with yet another day of dense freezing fog. The frost on the trees and bushes is at least 1/2" thick now, and it looks like it snowed. Everything is now white or silver. Fortunately the streets aren't particularly slick - the city is spraying brine on the main roads, and the side streets have lower speed limits. I haven't seen too many accidents or rollovers, so it mustn't be too bad.

I've heard from friends in the Lower 48, urging us to keep the Alaskan weather to ourselves. All righty then: send it all back. We'll take it.

* * * * *
A liberal-lefty professor at the University of Alaska has opined in today's paper that our Constitution is thriving, the federal government is behaving itself, the Supreme Court rules justly, and (I quote):

"...the shrill paranoia of the right notwithstanding, American schoolchildren have always left, and no one still today leaves school, without knowing the guiding aspiration that "all men are created equal" and "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." It is on the foundation of that principle that "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" has not just survived but prospered. Hamilton would be surprised but doubtless appreciative." [emphasis added]

Whatever it is he's smoking, I doubt it allows him to see reality from his ivory tower. Even members of Congress have admitted that few of the laws they've created over the last 100 or so years have been constitutional. These days, the most powerful members (Pelosi et al) won't even answer the question.

* * * * *
That's enough for today. For something a little lighter, click here.

What Is The Constitution?

by Orrin Hatch

On this day, 222 years ago, 12 state delegations approved the new Constitution of the United States and 39 of the 42 convention delegates signed it. They sent it to the states for ratification, the act that would make it the supreme law of the land. It is worth focusing on just what the Constitution actually is.

The Constitution opens by saying: “We the people . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution.” Nearly all Americans say the Constitution is very important to them and it requires that virtually all legislative, executive, and judicial officers, both state and federal, “shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution.” But what is this thing called the Constitution that the people established, that Americans say is so important, and that public officials swear to support?

The Constitution is the oldest written charter of government in use in the world today. Anyone who can read knows what the Constitution says. But words alone are just inkblots, and ordaining and establishing the Constitution was much more than simply putting some words on a page. Constitution Day would hardly be worth the name if it celebrated nothing more than a collection of words with no meaning. The Constitution we recognize today is more than an empty shell, it is more than what it says. The Constitution is what it means.

Think about judicial review, perhaps the most powerful thing that federal judges do in our system of self-government. In an appropriate case, judges must determine whether a statute is consistent with the Constitution. If they conflict, the Constitution wins. As Alexander Hamilton put it in The Federalist No.78, it is the duty of judges “to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.” But here we are back to the same question — what is “the Constitution” that judges use to conduct judicial review? What is “the Constitution” to which statutes must yield?

Charles Evans Hughes, who would later become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, famously said about a century ago that the Constitution is “what the judges say it is.” Since judges cannot change the words of the Constitution, Hughes was really saying what today seems to be widely accepted, that the Constitution means whatever judges say it means. But if Hughes was right, then judges in effect become the Constitution and judicial review means that statutes must yield to judges.

But Hughes was wrong. The Constitution does not mean, it cannot mean, whatever judges say it means. If it does, then Hamilton’s reference to its “manifest tenor” makes no sense. A century before Hughes, Chief Justice John Marshall offered the opposite view in Marbury v. Madison, the case often credited with establishing judicial review. Marshall wrote that we have a written Constitution so that the limits on government power “may not be mistaken, or forgotten” and that the Constitution is “a rule for the government of courts, as well as of the legislature.” Judges are part of the government. If the Constitution means whatever government says it means, then government determines the limits on its own power. That would render the Constitution impotent and hardly worth the effort expended at the Constitutional Convention.

Marshall wrote that the Constitution represents “the intention of the people.” Intention is expressed through the meaning, not merely the form, of words. The Constitution cannot be the intention of the people if all the people did was choose some words without meaning. The Constitution could not continue to be the intention of the people if its meaning could be changed by anyone but the people. Quoting George Washington, the Rhode Island Constitution declares that “the constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.” Empty words oblige no one. To be the Constitution, it must not only say what they said but it must mean what they meant.

The Constitution – its words and their meaning – was established by the people, can only be changed by the people, and is sacredly obligatory upon all of government, including judges. This is why the debate over judicial selection is really a debate over judicial power. It is a debate over whether the Constitution controls judges or judges control the Constitution, over what the Constitution really is, with nothing less than liberty itself at stake.

— Sen. Orrin G. Hatch is a former chairman of both the Senate Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on the Constitution.

Who Is Sovereign in the U.S.?

The Tenth Amendment Center has been tracking the states' rights movement, and providing updates as developments occur. The founder's son, an attorney, has written a legal opinion about who is supposed to be in charge, in the U.S.A.

"..the Federal government today does not recognize the Sovereignty in the people of the respective states; it does not recognize the respective States’ jurisdiction over all matters not expressly delegated to the federal government; and it does not seem to acknowledge State Sovereignty under the 10th amendment of the US Constitution. Given their evident intent and purposes to continually grow in power and to continually oppress and suppress the sovereignty of we the people, against our respective states, the question becomes, how will they be made to understand this? It is of course up to the Sovereigns in each state to answer this question. And we see the answers arriving through State laws such as the Firearms Freedom Act.

The time has come in America where to be free necessarily means to resist status quo and federal usurpation and to actively change the course and philosophy being shoved down our throats. There really is no middle ground any more. This is not a matter of politics anymore. This is not a matter of Republican and Democrat. This is a matter of FREEDOM, as much so as were the matters of 1775 and 1776. It is staring you in the face, daring you to make a move. May we never be guilty of causing, whether by our apathy, indifference, laziness or comfort, this nation to lose the freedoms that our founders attempted to secure with infinite pains and labors. We the people must once again reassert our Sovereignty in this country and the States must recognize and act upon their God-ordained role as Freedom protectors and tyranny resisters."

This is a long but very interesting opinion piece. Read it all here.

h/t The Maritime Sentry

Rep. Rohrer: 10th Amendment Defines States' Rights

h/t DR at Maritime Sentry

U.S. Constitution & The End of the Rule of Law

I've been conciously avoiding a lot of the national news stories, precisely because there are so many talented bloggers who cover those stories so well. But this is too much to ignore: by ruling that Chrysler's sale to Fiat can proceed, the Supreme Court has effectively wiped its feet on the Constitution.

You remember the Constitution, don't you? It was a social compact designed to limit the rule of the central (federal) government, and protecting pre-existent rights. It expressly stated that any power or authority not specifically delegated to the central government was reserved to the States, from whence its authority was delegated.

But no more. By rejecting the argument that the federal government has no authority to upend the rule of law, and thereby setting aside centuries of contract law protecting investors, they have declared that the rule of law is over.

We now must face the fact that the country has entered an era wherein the "law" is whatever the government says it is. There are no protections; there are no rights; there is only federal edict.

You say I've gone too far? Ask yourself this: if a business contract (like the one between Chrysler and its investors) can be set aside with the stroke of a pen, or the word of a ruler, and those who were guaranteed a return on their investment are shown the door ... then who will EVER invest in any company, ever again?

This - all by itself - could have the effect of destroying the economy by removing stocks & bonds as investment vehicles. Please think about it. And then do the right thing. Support those who still believe in the Constitution, and in what America stood for, just a few short years ago.

Quotes of the Day

God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.
~~ Daniel Webster

The saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time.
~~ Justice George Sutherland

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.
~~ Patrick Henry